TheRuleofThirds
2 cents? Sorry, my thoughts are a buck a piece.
Posts: 190
Yeah, it did all go okay. It was really tiring, though. I only took like two breaks the whole ten hours. Those breaks prolly added up to about 20 mins total. Plus I was like stuck in a small cubicle, with the tripod pinning me against the wall. After a while, my back stayed too straight and I needed to like bend it, but I couldn't really take a break and stop. But now it's like 9 hrs later and aside from needing sleep, everything's back to normal.
Yeah, there were some characters. The surprising part was just how many people were just downright BORING. They'd just get up in front of the camera and say, "I think you should pick me, cuz I'm real energetic, I wanna shake Howie's hand cuz I just love him, and I think I'd give ya a show you wouldn't forget." Of course, their idea of "energetic" was to just speak in a slack-jawed, monotone country drawl. (This was in KY.)
We heard a TON of the same thing a lot, too. Here's a laundry list:
--Cancer; either the actual interviewees had it or had family members who did
--Pay off student loans
--Put kids through school
--Help elderly parents out
--Take a vacation
--Quit work
--Buy a new vehicle
Probably heard each of those no less than twenty times. In total, we probably had like 400 people get interviewed in our cubicle from 8:30 AM to 3:30 PM. About 2,000 came to the whole thing.
The most memorable people were:
--A redneck woman who like closed one nostril and hummed "My Old Kentucky Home" and said that's why she should get on
--A legitimate bikini model/possible stripper (she was wearing a tubetop...I was gettin so nervous that she was gonna pull it down)
--A retired news anchors from competing TV stations in town
--The 65 year-old stout grandma who could still play volleyball and keep up with everybody (and no, she didn't look like a PE teacher)
--A man who wanted to quit his 7 day/week, travel-worldwide, constantly-gone job as a nuclear analyst so he could spend time with his daughter (this dude was so sincere it killed me)
--The stereotypical redneck males: the beards, the camou, the boots
--The stereotypical redneck females: mullets, Harley-Davidson tank tops, mustache
--A 22 year-old mother who said all she wanted to do was buy a toilet and a bathtub and give the rest away
It was also interesting to take a look at the philosophical side of today's events. Really, it felt like playing God; destining people for Heaven or Hell. It's really fascinating because with questions like, "What makes you unique?" and "Why would you want to be on DOND?" or "What would you do with the money?", people tend to reveal a lot about themselves. When you experience that on such a grand level, you start making certain observations and inferences about human nature, since it's a fairly random sampling. Basically, purpose is the dividing line. The people that impressed me the most were ones with a purpose behind them being there. If I could tell they were making something up or just saying the usual "I wanna new car and house", I just wanted to cut them off and tell them thank you and good day. It sucks that in a world full of opportunity for good, so many people just don't care. They're so selfish and wasteful of their lives and the energy their bodies receive. They're like zombies. I just can't imagine living a life where you make no impact on the world whatsoever.
All in all, it was a good one-time experience, but it'll be a long time before I do it again.
DISCLAIMER: This is just armchair observation, not the result of many hours of deliberate study of the subject. I'm by no means an expert, but just an ignorant hick who's putting his two cents in. For that and a nickel, you can have a cup of coffee.
