A reporter asked me a while ago why I thought survival TV shows have attracted such big audiences. I answered that if you filmed some gorillas in the wild, then showed that video to gorillas in a cage at the zoo, they’d be fascinated to see members of their species in their natural environment. If you could get gorillas to watch the video, that is. The quotation didn’t make the article, but I liked it so I’m sharing it here.

While television, the internet, etc., allow people to learn about aspects of the outdoors, the reality is that like the gorillas at the zoo, they’re still in the cage. The only way out of the cage is to get out of the cage, not to watch the video while looking through the bars.