Is there a true-crime doc in YOUR childhood?
the true crime that's worth your time
And no, I don’t mean that you can sue your parents for never coming through with a pony. (You can’t. I checked.) I’m talking about the safety hazards and irresponsible in loco parentis-ing of your yesteryears, as inspired by this Boston Globe piece from Thursday, “The ‘Fyre Fest’ of overnight camps closed after 6 days.”
One Quinebarge dad quoted in the Globe piece felt like there “may be a disconnect between what a rustic overnight camp is actually like and what parents in this highly connected era expect it to be,” and I’m not saying counselors should be stoned constantly or that camp food is enjoyable, but…they are, it isn’t, and I kind of feel like the “Kamp Krusty” aspects of the summer-camp experience are neither a secret nor a scandal.
Then again, my camp years were before helmets and cell phones, and “Quinebargegate” DOES have all the elements of a Fyre Fest doc, namely 1) inept planning that 2) screws over people we don’t particularly mind seeing made uncomfortable, i.e., high-strung parents. Do you have a Fyre Fest/Quinebarge in your childhood? Rickety amusement parks, sketchy homeroom teachers who smelled like Popov and just stopped showing up one day, a summer camp that suggested “Hello Muddah” was a murder ballad, a babysitter who robbed a bank? More scandalous than scurrilous, but still good for three episodes on Hulu? — SDB