I hate "Reality TV"

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I HATE "reality TV" with a vengeance. Here are the following reasons:

1. It ISN'T REAL. If you're going to watch something that's partially scripted, why not go to the theater and watch something that's fully scripted with some artistic expression behind it?

2. You can't participate in it. If an argument breaks out between people on a reality TV show, you can't become a part of that. Why not watch real confrontations in real life (they're not that hard to find), where, if you should feel so inclined, you can expand and complicate the situation by getting involved yourself?

3. It's an insult to those around you. My roommates in both of the houses I've lived in downtown watch reality TV, and I can't understand why they do. Is it because they need to witness a FORGERY, a counterfeit version of their own lives??? I think I'm an interesting person. I dance around in my room for fun all the time. I hold CrAzY libertarian political views. I have vast eclectic tastes in music and movies that most of my friends haven't heard of. I can act every bit as crazy and stupid as the "reality TV personalities", but somehow people would rather watch bull s**t TV than see the genuine article: REAL PEOPLE DOING REAL THINGS. I don't get it!

It's worth mentioning that I am NOT an attention whore. I LISTEN to what everyone else has to say. I'll gladly let anyone be the center of attention, unless that person happens to be on TV. I hate listening to what someone on TV has to say because you can't challenge that, you can't elaborate on that, you can't do anything with that, because it's a F***ing TV!

Another thing that bugs me is that it glamorizes stupidity, because the viewers have to be able to associate. Are they arguing about scientific integrity or the best solution to an engineering problem: NO. They're living in a house and they argue say "Hmmf! You hurt my feelings. Take it back or you won't be my friend anymore. You gotta' show me respect!", or it's "You keep the door out of my way" BLAW F***ING BLAW!

Take for example, the show "I love New York". All the guys apparently have to go thru some stupid trials to prove that they're worthy of this dame named "New York", but what does she ever do to prove that she's worthy of them. What's more, what has she done to be worthy of an entire show? What's her great contribution to humankind? What enlightening insight does her character bring to the screen? Damned if I know!

Maybe next time my housemates are watching this stuff, I'll sneak into the room with the cable modem and pull out all the cords. If they notice me: all the better. Maybe we'll start a GENUINE household drama, one which isn't screened by a producer and interrupted by commercials.

yeah,, shows like that are stupid. don't understand the appeal. I like shows like LA Ink which is set inside a tatoo shop and you watch people get tatoos and talk about their reasons for getting tattoos. i like it. espcially because it has smart talented women that are focused on their art.
not the stupid women on other shows that get drunk and strip and things like that to get some total moron to be their boyfriend or a cash prize.

Yeah reality TV sucks.

And worse, the networks are saturated with it.

*grins* I did a rant about this on another site a while back - here it is:




I have a theory about what happens to all the creative and inspired television stations.

Stage 1)

When they start developing programs for their station, they're filled with ideas, and develop intelligent, interesting and insightful dramas, comedies and documentaries.

Stage 2)

After test results come back for this first round of shows, they realise they have left out an important demographic - the demographic of uninteresting people. As these people are in the majority, they must be catered for, or the station risks bankruptcy. To this end, they create dumbed down versions of the dramas, comedies and documentaries. To fill the drama quotient, they create formula soapies, police dramas & "slice of life" shows. To fill the comedy niche, they create repetitive sit-coms. Instead of interesting documentaries, they commission talk shows.

Stage 3)

In the next round of tests, they discover that some people are so bland that following a storyline of any sort is beyond their understanding. For these people, they created televised sports.

Stage 4)

Of course, some people are so unimaginative that even the rules of a sports event are beyond them. This is why we have reality TV.




It's always been difficult for me to understand why sports and reality TV have such a following, and, sad to say, this is the only reason I can find - that people are so unimaginative that interesting fiction is beyond their understanding. After all, it's not that hard to create interesting story ideas, and the budget is far less than for a sporting event or a "big prize" reality TV show.

If we take this to the next level, here's the direction I think TV shows will head:

Stage 5 - Social Television)

In this stage, even the usual rules of a reality TV show go out the window, and the entirety of the show focuses on social speeches of ordinary people. For instance, one show could involve taking two random people, putting them in a room together, and broadcasting the resulting conversation. Another show could feature a cameraman picking people off the street, telling them to talk for two minutes, and then having viewers call in and vote on whether or not they like the person being filmed. At the end of the show, the most popular person wins a prize, and the least popular gets slapped.

In summary, bad TV, like most of the worlds problems, can be blamed entirely on boring people.

I consider UNreality TV to be an insult to my intelligence.

It's not real.
It encourages the worst traits in people.
It rewards the worst traits in people.
The people on the shows are the most crude wretches possible.

Humanity at It's very worst.

It's godawful but I've been saying that for years on end. It's beyond me why people like it so much.

The reason there's so much of it is it's cheap to make. Scripted dramas with paid actors costs a lot more and it's also local content for countries that have quotas on local content. Sport is also cheaper than scripted acted drama, so that's why you get so much sport too.

CHEAP!

Reality shows are scripted too

yeah, the hosted bits, but it's fairly standard, not unlike the "but more of that later" statements you get in news bulletins. A trained monkey could write it.

Nitpicking aside. It's still cheaper than drama. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about that bit.

Reality shows glorify everything I hate about humanity: the lies, backstabbing, non-genuine alliances and friendships, over-the-top drama, and pathological narcissism. I usually want to escape that nonsense at the end of the day.

I like documentry-style reality TV like Intervention, The First 48 and Cold Case Files. I admit I also like watching Project Runway, because I like seeing what the desingers create and how the judges react to them. I occasionally watch America's Next Top Model (mainly because of Heather this season - I didn't watch it before then), but I usually ff over the girl drama to the photo shoot and judging the girls' best photos, because that's the most interesting part of the show for me. I also watched The Next Iron Chef, because I love cooking (and was happy my fav won - that never happens!). I used to watch that Orange County bike shop show, because it was interesting watching the whole bike building process, but it became too focused on the people and I lost interest. Occasionally Gene Simmon's Family Jewels is funny and interesting, but I just don't wish to know Gene Simmons and his family that intimidately, so I hardly watch it.

But a lot of reality TV is pretty trashy and fake. Too much of it has no reason for existing except to satisfy people's voyueristic itches, and that's rather repulsive to me. I ldo ike laughing at those shows when they show stupid clips out of context on The Soup or Best Week Ever.

I actually enjoyed the first Survivor, more because the concept fascinated me than anything else.

If only I had known the horror that lay in store for TV...

In my opinion, reality television just reinforces that false idea that our lives are boring in comparison to what they show you. Anyone in their right mind would know that reality shows are, for the most part, scripted and they show you only the excitement and drama that takes place.

Would you prefer to watch Lumina T.V.? For a good half hour I could make everyone’s lives seem more exciting and interesting by just letting a camera crew film me sitting at the computer, eating, doing household chores and running errands on any given day. The most exciting thing you’ll see is me having a tizzy over who ate the last Pop Tart.

While a lot of reality tv is the lamest thing on television, some of it is interesting. Competition shows on Bravo like Project Runway and Top Chef are done artisticly and smart. I like those ones the best. I can honestly say that a lot of things on tv arent done well anymore (sans Law and Order), and Bravo seems to churn out some pretty interesting shows (sans Real Housewives of the OC

SOme people like to watch reality tv, not because they are mindless, but because it makes them think. The reason why I love books, film, tv dramas, and some reality tv is because they leave you with something to think about, and sometimes the mind is the best place to spend your time. No matter if it's reality or not, it's all a story of some sort.

The way I see it, anything can hold a truth about life. Even from I love New York, one can think about the loyalty to family versus loyalty to a mate issue. Or Survior, some people like to leave the show thinking "What would I do if I were in that situation?"

Even if they are scripted or are fake, then that just makes them another scripted tv show like the rest, which really makes no difference. And just like a page turning novel or a gripping tv series, some reality shows leave people sitting up in their beds at night,, resolving conflict they saw on tv, running through ideas of what they would do if they were in the situation, or even witnessing aspects of human behavior. I know plenty of people who like to think some shows are just excerpts of a sociological experiment of how people deal with or resolve conflict.

Take Big Brother. I dont know what people call the houseguests in other countries, but many people here refer to them as the "hamsters", as they are in a makeshift cage and we are somewhat studying them and their actions. Lot s of people will gather on forums and discuss with intelligence the moves the houseguests make in regard to the game, how they portray themselves, and so on. Last summer there was this guy who called himself Evel Dick. This guy was really verbally abusive towards the other houseguests...and it was insane how many people actually liked him or agreed with him. I know many people felt disgust for him, but many people liked him. And it was strange. But I find it all interesting especially how these people's minds were working, and I thought a lot about what makes them think this way, why'd they support this guy, or even why someone wouldn't support this guy.

Yes, some people watch it mindlessy. But you can say so for any genre on tv. There's no doubt there are people who watch Grey's Anatomy or Doctor Who just for the attractive cast or relationships.

You can get anything from everything if you look hard enough.