Students are ultimate doomsday preppers - Study

The Apocalypse no longer means the definite end of days, after a study has found that the majority of university students would “easily survive any massive, society-altering catastrophe” simply because their living conditions are similar to, if not worse than, those that any Act of God could wreak on Earth.

"When we think of any global catastrophe – a giant meteor strike, for example, or a widespread meltdown of the current unsustainable system of Free-market capitalism – and how it would result in huge cuts to electricity, quantity and quality of water supply, cramped and post-apocalyptic living conditions, and a severely reduced food supply, we can immediately see how many thousands of students would be able to survive or even totally not notice such an event, only because these kinds of conditions are prevalent in this demographic,” said chair of the study’s research organisation, Cathy Strophie. “Hell, some of them might even find it to be a period of hedonistic excess.”

Citing months-long diets of PnP No Name two-minute noodles or Residence Dining Hall food, the intermittent and shoddy Municipal water supply, extensive power cuts and load-shedding, and the usual living conditions in student digs, many students have wholeheartedly welcomed the study’s findings.

“Many people live in fear that the sun could blow up, or that a massive dormant supervolcano could erupt at any moment and end our way of life as we know it,” said one student at Rhodes University, “but honestly, I wreak that kind of havoc on my own life at least once a month with the dangerous combination of my bank’s half-month fees and charges and my overzealous attitude towards to the money I get on the first of the month. Seriously, I watched Viggo Mortensen in The Road and I was like, ‘damn, this guy has it good. Look at all that tinned food!’”

Pictured (left to right): Thabo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma, Bheki Cele and Angie Motshekga

Many other students have agreed.

“If you’re looking for the world’s best Doomsday Preppers, you don’t have to turn to those crappy programs on Discovery Channel,” said another. “Just last night I made a delicious and nutritious soup out of just dust, an old t shirt and some old leaves I found outside on the lawn. The End of the World and the End of the Month are actually synonymous terms.”

Even the resulting global shortage of alcohol – an immediate red flag – wouldn’t be a tragedy.

“Have you ever been to UCT?” said one civil engineer in an anorak on upper campus. “Half of us brew our own beer. Come on, Apocalypse. You can do better than that.”

The research team has since found that the only people more prepared that students for the apocalypse are “most Zimbabweans” – and they agree.

“We survived Meteorite Mugabe and Megastorm Zanu. Frankly, I hear South African xenophobes call us ‘cockroaches’ and I’m flattered because it’s proof we’ll outlive all those bigoted arseholes,” said Harare resident Tendai Mutenga. “When the Four Horsemen arrive and destroy civil society as we know it, Zim probably welcome the massive upgrades with a national celebration and public holiday.”

Members of the Zanu-PF government have, however, said that Zimbabwe will not enter the Apocalypse any time soon.

"People mustn't think the Apocalypse is coming," said PR manager for the political party. "We simply aren't in a position to enact those kinds of upgrades to law, infrastructure and general society right now - we'd have to wait until 'elections' at the very least."

Pics: Creative Commons

Survivor South Africa to be set in South Africa

Fans of survival drama and underused hashtags jumped with joy today, after producers at DSTV and MNet announced their executive decision to set the next overhyped and underwatched season of Survivor South Africa “actually in South Africa.”

“We’ve been thinking about South Africa and the direction the show has been taking in the past few years, and we wanted to make Survivor into the most harsh, difficult and drama-filled show around,” said MNet CEO Ree Peatz. “At first we thought to maybe follow Bear Grylls and set the show somewhere bleak and depressing and very difficult to survive: like the endless desertscape of the Sahara, or the bleak and frozen ardour of the Artic Tundra, or even the Rhodes University Accounting 3 lecture venue – very few survive that place. But then we realised that actually we don't have to go halfway across the world to find such a depressing and difficult environment to put our contenders.”

It soon became clear to them that the best place to set a show that depicts surviving against all odds was actually South Africa.

“For many, many years now South Africa has slowly declined into a perfect environment to shoot a harsh and unforgiving reality show based on surviving against all odds,” said Peatz. “This will make the show more locally relevant, more bold and representative, and also save us a fortune on travel expenses and filming costs.”

The much-anticipated upcoming season, says Peatz, will be set in one of South Africa’s townships.

“In the past, our contenders basically took the equivalent of a three-week all-expenses paid vacation to a lovely tropical beach paradise in the Indian Isles. There, they were guaranteed at least two meals a day, a crude shelter that kept out most of the rain and bugs, clean drinking water, and free, world-class on-site medical attention if anything went wrong,” said Peatz, outlining the show’s shortcomings. “But here, closer to home, thousands of normal South Africans have none of those wonderful relaxations and privileges.”

The show will now have a set of more contemporary challenges and aims.

“They will have to contend with things like low pay, criminal working conditions, awful socioeconomic disparity, increasingly more frequent rising costs of living, widespread crime, an inefficient and overtaxed police service, no healthcare, endless strikes, terrible basic and secondary education, disease, malnutrition, unemployment,” said show organiser Ian Munity. “And in this new show, they won’t be set weekly challenges. We’ll just declare whoever is left alive by the end of the season as the winner. The symbolic act of snuffing out their torch will be replaced by the even more symbolic act of Digging A Hole And Lowering A Box Holding Their Lifeless Corpse Into It Before Burying It and Saying Some Prayers.”

Many South Africans have, however, voiced their displeasure at the decision saying they used to love the escapism and sense of wonderful relaxation the show brought.

“I used to escape my problems by watching a bunch of unknown ‘celebrities’ and douchebags argue on a beach over who said what to who while actually eating a proper meal and not facing the daily dreariness of everyday life in SA,” said one of the seven people who watch the show. “It was nice to be able to get away from it all, you know? To lose yourself in a world of clean water and only slightly shoddy houses, with so little tension between the various colour groups with actual meat to go on your rice. Now i'm going to have to watch real people dealing with real problems - what kind of a reality TV show is that?”

Media analysts now confirm that this is the biggest change of scenery for a reality television show, ever since MNet made the decision to cancel Judge Judy and other similar court dramas and put cameras in front of Oscar Pistorius.