Blue Ridge

If ya’ll haven’t started the second season of the teen drama Outer Banks, you should. Let me say now that I am going to spoil just a bit in episode 9. Why you ask? Well as much as I love the show for it’s modern day Goonie-esq vibe, I’m not too happy with the show’s producers or the powers at be at the Netflix studios. If you don’t know, the teens run a muck on the island whether they are a Kook or a Pogue (which side of the island you are from/rich or poor). They seem to miss days of school, sneak out of their houses, steal their parent’s cars and wreck them. In episode 9, one of the teen girls is finally escorted home to waiting parents who are DONE. They threaten her with going to Wilderness Therapy. Here’s the thing I am mad about……they use the likeness of Carson’s former program Blue Ridge. AND let me say it was portrayed as a punishment….”If you don’t shape up, you’ll ship out.” My husband and I were appalled and I immediately reached out to Blue Ridge. Danielle, the Exec. Dir. of Blue Ridge had been getting calls, texts, emails of concern all week. (The show had only been airing for a week). She said there was no way they gave anyone associated with NetFlix or the show to use Blue Ridge or it’s likeness. We stay in close contact with Carson’s therapist and the leadership at Blue Ridge and they have a strict policy of turning down publicity offers. There have been many over the years and they routinely turn them down out of interest for the students and their families. As I write this post they have retained legal counsel. Some would say, “what’s the big deal?”. Here’s the big deal….us parents know better to take the show for what it is… another fictionary tale. However, our teens and young adults take every single word they see or read on Netflix, Tik Tok, Snapchat, Reddit, etc. as Gospel. Their brains cannot rationalize whether what they hear or see or read is truthful or not. Look, Wilderness Therapy has gotten a bad wrap over the years and having a silly tv show depict it as a bad thing only causes fear amongst our adolescents when really they need to know that if they could experience the wilderness in a protective environment they would gain so many “skills for living” that would last them a life time. Just ask my son Carson, it saved his life and today he is Field Staff for a program in Utah.