“7 vs. Wild”-Joris about the YouTube hit series: “Let me look a bit amateurish”

The seventh participant from “7 vs. Wild: Panama” is called Joris. He won the so-called “wild card” and is the least known of the group of participants.

While the sixth episode has been on YouTube since Wednesday and the broadcast is still relatively early, the amateur biologist and economics student has now returned to civilization.

He spoke to Watson about his experience on the YouTube show – sharing how he felt alone on the island and what he was most afraid of, among other things.

The interview

watson: Your time on the island is over. The viewers could get a small insight into the survival life of the candidates in Panama. What is it like for you as a candidate now to see how the others have fared?
Joris: It’s really cool to see what the other participants were doing at the same time as me, what their thoughts were, what their approach was and what their priorities were. What excites me most is that from the perspective of the viewer, each place had its own characteristics.

What is your impression of the spots from the outside?
For example, a Sascha spot and a Fritz spot were spots where you just didn’t feel comfortable. Objectively, they were probably just worse and riskier than other places.

And your?
My place had no palm trees, but was very green. There were big branches, big trees. At first glance, it certainly had an atmosphere, which can mean a lot in a survival situation.

However, the situation on the island alone is of course difficult. What were you most afraid of?
At the beginning of «7 vs. Wild» I was almost not afraid of wild animals or poisonous plants. But what I was extremely afraid of was dehydration.

Why?
Even though you’re in the tropics, where it should rain a lot – and we were there during the rainy season – that’s nothing at all. On such an island the weather is unpredictable and it can happen that it doesn’t rain for days. Anyone who has ever been to the tropics can certainly confirm this. My second biggest concern was actually stomach problems and diarrhea.

Which is not so unlikely in Panama…
Precisely. In the tropics it often happens that you are confronted with germs that your body is not used to. Then you get stomach problems very quickly. These then easily lead to dehydration or nutrient deficiencies. It’s an absolutely huge problem. This can even lead to you being removed from the show in a very short time. It is enough if you drink or eat something wrong. For example from still water or unfiltered from running water.

That’s why you spent several episodes of the show trying to make fire to boil water.
Yes. I think anyone who has ever started reading a survival book knows: one of the absolute basics is to make water drinkable and enjoyable by boiling or filtering it. Even if my water is clear, I cannot rule out the possibility that there are some microorganisms floating in the water that could potentially endanger me. That’s why I put the absolute focus on the fire in the series.

You seem to have had problems with the fire.
Actually, I explained in detail what fire is all about, what techniques I already tried that didn’t work. The scenes that ended up in the series give me a bit of an amateurish feeling. Seems like I didn’t really try and gave up quickly.

So are you dissatisfied with how you come across on the show?
All in all, I am currently very satisfied with the performance. I like the length of the episodes and everything else comes across great. It is absolutely clear that not everything will make it to the series. The one hour of a whole day that is shown doesn’t do justice to what we ended up doing. You always have to remind yourself of that. But that’s precisely why I love that the individual contestants upload reactions to the individual episodes and then summarize the thoughts we had.

It is the first time that you participate in a format like this. Were you previously worried about how you would come across?
From the beginning, I didn’t think much about my rendition because I knew that “7 vs. Wild” wasn’t about portraying someone in a certain way. But to show the situation as it really was. And since I wasn’t pretending, but was the person I really am and tried to capture my emotions as best I could, I am 100 percent. I don’t matter As far as filming is concerned, I have of course prepared myself well.

As?
It’s hard for someone who is thrown into the situation out of the blue. But I did my best. I practiced – made videos in advance. Just to get into routine. It was important to me to deliver a reasonably good and meaningful image for the camera. In the end you see in the series whether it worked and everyone has to judge that for themselves.

In any case, online there is a lot of fuss about the format and also about you. Did you realize what your participation would entail?
Of course, given the views of the first season, I knew that maybe the second season would garner the same attention. But even if it had received much less attention, I would have been in front of a huge audience. The fact that “7 vs. Wild” is currently reaching this number of views is, of course, beyond right and wrong and no one expected that. This is all new territory for me now. I’m trying to handle the situation the best I can, but I’m not a pro at it.

Are you recognized on the street now?
So far I have not been approached on the street. But maybe that’s also because I was traveling with Fritz right after “7 vs. Wild” and spent the last few weeks dealing exclusively with expeditions and expedition planning.

The fifth episode had been viewed almost six million times in two days. Why do you think the format is through the roof?
I believe the success of 7 vs. Wild stems from the fact that it’s one of the few, if not the only, true survival show. There are no cameramen, there is no script to stick to. There’s just you and nature and one to seven objects accompanying you to hopefully get through each day. Other survival series just aren’t that real.

What distinguishes «7 vs. Wild” exactly from other formats of this kind?
The audience sees the successes and failures of the candidates and it is precisely the failures that show what true survival means. That’s what makes the series incredibly awesome. And we don’t just have professionals at work.

All of the current season’s candidates have different levels of experience and are extremely different.
Yes. We have women, men, me for example as an economics student, a fitness YouTuber, an entertainer, but we also have absolute survival professionals with Fritz and Otto at the start. We have a little bit of everything. This gives the audience multiple perspectives of what Survival is all about. And you can’t pretend in these seven days. That simply doesn’t work. This is exactly where «7 vs. Wild” revolves around. It’s authentic, real and yes, hard to survive.