Once upon a time, Survivor took the reality television market by storm. Just a few years later, in 2007, a similar show aired that followed children as they ran a town with little adult interference. Kid Nation was born, stumbling just after its first season due to legal troubles. But why did it fail where others succeeded, and was it even a good show in the first place?
First of all, as much as I don’t want to say it, this show is surprisingly entertaining. It’s interesting to see how the kids form connections with each other over the course of 40 days. In the beginning of the show, the kids are sorted into four groups with their own colour. Each episode has the kids competing between the four groups to determine their ‘class’ for the next few days with upper class at the top, merchants and cooks in the middle, and labourers at the bottom. If all four groups complete the task during the competition, an additional prize is given that would benefit all the kids. Four leaders are elected as the town council to run the groups. They hold the power to decide who wins a $10 000 gold star every few days. This also comes with the privilege of phoning their parents. That’s right, these kids (between the ages of 8 to 15 years) were stuck in the desert with no parental contact for 40 days!
Now, if you type in “Kid Nation” on Google, you might be wondering why “Kid Nation bleach” shows up pretty high on the recommended search list. Many sources (1,2) claim that multiple kids had to be hospitalized for accidentally drinking bleach in an unmarked bottle. Producer Tom Forman admitted that this event did take place, causing outrage among viewers. Also problematic on set were kitchen accidents, including cooking burns. Most of the children did not have the cooking skills needed for feeding a group of 40. Once, they put pasta into water before it boiled and dumped a huge amount of unuseable pasta on the village streets.
Recently, the show has seen a resurgence in popularity, with popular creators Funny or Die making Youtube videos commenting on the show’s early episodes. The kids have some pretty iconic lines that have spawned a niche set of memes slowly circulating the internet. From the pageant queen yelling, “Deal with it!” while handing out potatoes as “breakfast” to fan favourite Jared yelling out, “We sped up the natural cycle of life and death, we gave these two suckers a shortcut!” in reference to chickens — not other kids! My personal favourite moment is when the kids have a party before an event the next day. I learned what Jägerbombs because the kids do them on set — with syrup, not alcohol!
Despite all of the drama going on during the filming of the show, The kids do seem to have moments of fun. According to Reddit user YNWA_USA, who claims to be verified as Michael on the show, describes the conditions on set. In a comment, he said, “The show was a great idea. The production company had a very different idea than what materialized, I think. CBS wanted the execution to be far more Hollywood-ish than the executive producer wanted. He wanted a genuine society experiment.” It was certainly a unique opportunity for the kids. Fortunately, a show like this will probably never be produced, due to the dangers and lawsuits surrounding Kid Nation’s controversial run.
All episodes are on Youtube here.