"Epic" Needs to Die: Confessions of Someone Who Watches Way too Many Overlanding Videos

Let me paint you a picture of authenticity in 2025: A $90,000 Land Cruiser with a custom paint job in some aggressively earthy shade that probably has a name like "Tactical Sage" or "Desert Warfare Tan," seventeen sponsor decals, a YouTube handle plastered across the rear window in letters large enough to be seen from the International Space Station, and enough electronic equipment in the cab to run a small television production company. This magnificent beast is piloted by a guy in a $150 technical shirt who's about to tell you—for the fourteenth time this month—about his "epic trip of a lifetime" where he "disconnected to reconnect."

Spoiler alert: He never disconnected from shit.

I've been watching overlanding videos on YouTube for long enough to recognize the pattern. Golden hour drone shot of a pristine truck on a scenic ridge. Cut to our hero, stubble perfectly maintained at that calculated three-day growth, staring pensefully at a sunset that took forty-seven takes to capture. "You know," he'll say with rehearsed sincerity, "this is what it's all about. Escaping the grind and getting back to what matters."

Cut to: cockpit shot revealing more screens than an F-35 fighter jet.

The irony is so thick you could air down your tires and drive over it.

They drove 40 miles into the wilderness to escape commercialism. Their truck disagrees and is currently sponsored by literally everyone.

The Mobile Advertisement Hustle

Here's what you're actually watching: a rolling trade show booth that occasionally camps. Every surface of these rigs is monetized real estate. The hood? Sponsor decal. The doors? YouTube channel graphics. The roof rack? Strategically placed gear with logos facing the drone camera. These guys aren't overlanders—they're NASCAR vehicles that take the long way home.

And let's talk about the mapping app situation. You cannot watch more than 4.7 minutes of overlanding content without hearing: "This adventure wouldn't be possible without [redacted mapping application]. Use code EPICBRO for 20% off your subscription!"

Listen, I love a good map as much as the next person. But these dudes act like Lewis and Clark would've died in Missouri without a $60 annual subscription to see Forest Service roads that have been marked on paper maps since 1967. Your grandfather did it with a gas station map and balls. But sure, tell me again how this GPS overlay saved your life on a trail rated "easy" on every forum.

The affiliate code drop is always delivered with the casual energy of someone doing you a favor. Translation: "Please click this link so I can make seventeen dollars and justify writing off this entire trip as a business expense."

The Epic Inflation Crisis

We need to talk about the word "epic." It has been so thoroughly devalued that it now means approximately nothing. A mild incline? Epic. A slightly muddy section? Epic. Successfully parking? Believe it or not, also epic.

How many "trips of a lifetime" can one person have per fiscal quarter? I've watched guys call four different weekend trips their "trip of a lifetime" in six weeks. At that rate, their lifetime is either incredibly short or they're experiencing some kind of temporal anomaly.

The terrain descriptions are equally divorced from reality. "Gnarly" has been applied to roads I would take my mother's Subaru down without a second thought. "Technical" apparently now means "there was a rock." Meanwhile, the actual footage—shot from seven different camera angles and color-graded to look like Mars—shows what is unmistakably a dirt road that sees more traffic than some suburban cul-de-sacs.

Three screens to simultaneously monitor: your route, your drone footage, and other influencers doing the exact same thing 50 miles away.

The Disconnect Paradox

The absolute pinnacle of this performance art is the "disconnecting" narrative. Our hero delivers his monologue about escaping the digital world and finding peace in nature.

This monologue is being captured by a three different vehicle-mounted GoPros, a drone hovering thirty feet above, a DSLR on a tripod, a secondary camera for cockpit shots, and probably his phone for Instagram stories.

His "remote" campsite has better internet than most rural America, courtesy of Starlink. He's not off-grid; he's got better connectivity than my condo. This IS his job. He didn't escape the grind—he brought it with him, mounted it to his roof rack and neatly packed into a $300 Pelican box, and called it adventure.

Here's the thing that actually pisses me off: this performance makes overlanding seem impossible for normal people. These guys roll up looking like they're about to invade a small country, and casual viewers internalize that you need a $100K rig and another $20k of the latest gear to drive a few miles on a dirt road.

The truth? Some of the best overlanding I've ever done was in a bone-stock truck with a $40 cooler, cold beer and gas station snacks. But that doesn't look good on camera, doesn't justify sponsor relationships, and definitely doesn't require a thirty-minute video.

Let's stop pretending this is about authenticity or disconnection. It's content creation that happens to take place outdoors. It's a mobile billboard that someone decided to take camping.

The next time you watch one of these videos and feel like your setup is inadequate, remember: that guy calling a forest service road "gnarly" is worried about his lighting, not his line. His trip of a lifetime happens every other weekend. And his "disconnect" has better bandwidth than your house.