Over the years, Alaskan Bush People has come to garner a large fanbase. However, at the same time, with fans, they have also come to gather many haters.
Even their fanbase has a lot of skeptics who enjoy it purely for the entertainment value. We are loyal fans, and even we can’t help but question the authenticity of many things we see and hear in the show.
Here are all the things that make Alaskan Bush People seem fake or at least question their authenticity. Here are all the proofs that we have so far about the affected portions in Alaskan Bush People.
Table of Contents
Tax Fraud & Deceitful Title.
Among the show’s haters that we were talking about, a sizeable chunk is probably the real bush people and other permanent residents of the state. They particularly don’t like the show’s misleading name, suggesting that the family are indigenous people of Alaska, and visibly they’re not.
Billy and Ami Brown only came to live in Alaska in the 80s, and since their show took off, the Brown family is rumored to not even live in Alaska 24/7 and 365 days of the year.
Representation of minorities like the indigenous groups is already a boiling socio-political rumor in the country. Furthermore, the locals probably don’t like that the Brown Family represents Alaskan people when they identify only loosely as Alaskans.
If that was not deceitful enough, Billy Brown and Joshua ‘Bam Bam’ Brown almost went to prison in 2015 for Tax Fraud. Despite not living in Alaska year-round, the family collected the Fund Dividend accessible to only permanent residents.
Fortunately, the family could pay their fines and bail and avoid any jail time. Now that they have moved to the forests of Washington, maybe they can rebrand themselves without angering anyone this time.
Neither Off-Grid Nor Far from Civilization.
After 12 seasons, we would be naïve fools to think that the Brown family lives completely off-grid. We are also fans of the Nat Geo rival series, ‘Life Below Zero,’ which paints a more accurate and believable picture of the true Alaskan off-grid lifestyle. However, we have heard some genuinely disappointing things about ‘Alaskan Bush People.’
The pinnacle of it stands the ugly truth that in season 1, the Brown family lived only around half a mile away from their favorite pizza joint, ‘Grizzly Pizza.’
In 2014, another report suggested that the Browns ran away after hearing gunshots in the middle of the night. Later, an investigation found out that a neighbor was lighting fireworks responsible for all the noise.
It was one of the first cases that made the fans question the show’s authenticity. How did the Browns hear the fireworks if they lived so off-grid?
Over the years, the Browns don’t seem to hide their lifestyle anymore. They seem to be more and more dependent on new machinery and technology to build their homestead. Moreover, we rarely saw them visit the lower 48 in its initial seasons. But now we get to see them do it more and more.
Internet and Technology Access.
Another shady thing that the Browns don’t hide is technology access. At this point, almost all the Brown children except Snowbird Brown have an Instagram account.
The youngest, Rain Brown, is even a social butterfly, with nothing short of a social media personality.
Today, we find it acceptable that the Brown family is trying to reach out to his fans and get with the times, but their relationship with the internet goes way back.
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However, they already had their website with a similar title, ‘Alaskan Wilderness Family,’ for selling their father’s 2007 book.
Furthermore, extensive researchers have also found that many Brown children had their own since long-deleted YouTube Channels.
In those channels, they also put out many videos displaying their lifestyle is not what the family has been portraying in their long-running reality series, from using computers to indulging in video game arcades.
Hiring actors?
With 5 of all Brown brothers in some relationship or the other right now, it is hard to imagine a time when romance was seriously lacking in Browntown.
Perhaps the first time we got to see some romance was with Noah Brown. He is currently married to Rhain Brown and father to their son, Elijah, born in 2018.
However, between seasons 4 and 5, the whole family went to California (once again proving they were not permanent residents).
There, Noah Brown met a woman named Karryna L. Kauffman, with whom he hit it off. Thus, In season 5, we saw him invite her out on a date to the family homestead.
After showing his weird lifestyle to his ate, Noah somehow upped the antique by singing his date, a heartbreak song from his previous relationship.
The night was the end of that for Noah Brown but not many fans. People eventually could track down Karryna Kauffman on social media, and what surprise they got when they found her IMDb page. Yes, Karryna Kauffman is an actor, and many fans even suspect that the show for the random date hired her.
However, while she has used her appearance in the series to credit her portfolio, one can argue that the show’s producers will not be dumb enough to hire an actor with her real name.
Luxurious Lifestyle.
If you are an Alaskan Bush People fan, then we do not have to tell you about the net worth of the Brown family. It is a total of over $60 million, so, despite their way of life, they will still divulge in a bit of a lavish lifestyle.
It may not seem like that but let us not forget that their current home in Washington is around $2.7 million, which sits on 436 acres of an estate worth $1.6 million.
With money like that, we must ask, are the Browns at least even worried about their poor and off-the-land lifestyle?
Once again, it’s not just the present times as well. The Browns have gone more and more luxurious over the years, but there were similar conditions even in their first few seasons.
Reports have confirmed that the members of the Brown family were a familiar face in the luxurious resort, Icy Strait Lodge.
Conclusion.
We’re not saying that Alaskan Bush People is entirely fake. We get to see genuine and severe parts of their life, too, from Matt Brown‘s drug addiction to Ami Brown’s cancer.
Even if it is just during shooting, then the Brown family spends most of their time living away from the rest of the civilization, no matter how far from it.
Therefore, a few things make us question the show’s authenticity, but it is still equally entertaining.