Jungletown on VICE

Here is the VICE take on reality TV.

Guy wants to build a utopian town in the Jungles of Panama. He can't get the funding as a developer so he decides to open a 'School' to teach you everything from basic survival, sustainability, how to build a sustainable society. (I saw it as more how to neo-colonize Panama.. maybe more on that later)

The catch is, tuition will cost you $5000 for six weeks of attendance, and you have to work on a commune to make the community function together as a whole. Essentially building this place from the ground up with your new found skills. He starts with 40 'teachers' and 'experts' mostly grad students to build a non functional 'village' in the jungle, which will later have an influx of another 80 or so great looking 'students'. The village is nowhere near prepared with the lack of reliable running water or fuctional latrines, yet he happily takes the money of all these good looking white, educated idealists and lures them to his jungle commune.

This is where the concept gets a bit weird. Fast forward 25 minutes into the first episode and I can see just how clueless these kids really are. I was yelling at the screen in no time, so it must make for good TV!


A whole lot of LOL. The minute I saw the kids with their abundance of gear, the token digeridoo guy sporting IVY league swag, talking about the love and vibe, just made me cringe. The sad thing is, it reminds me of a lot of people that I know. Its a lot more expensive to be a vagrant hippy these days, you need a masters to live on the fringe of society..

Oh, and don't drink the Kool-Aid!