I couldn’t tell if my girlfriend slipped me a ruphee, if I was extremely tired, or if someone put a stupid spell on me. Then it hit me, in a flash I realized that it was none of this, what was happening is that I was watching a reality show called “Bethany getting married.” If you don’t know it’s a spinoff from another reality show called “The Real Housewives of New York” and if you don’t know what that is, consider yourself fortunate.
“Babe, what is this?”
“Bethany Getting Married.”
“Why are we watching this?”
“Well, she’s the smart one, she managed to make a career.”
The guilty pleasure of reality TV lives on and somehow along the way various individuals have managed to capitalize off of their 15 minutes of fame and stretch it into 15 days. Somehow I have found myself watching a show of someone who possesses absolutely no special qualities what so ever. Television once carried a stigma of accomplishment and vicarious entertainment. Now, it’s more compiled like Youtube than anything else, and I don’t necessarily know if that’s a bad thing. However, the difference is youtube reality clips range from 10 seconds to 5 minutes, and TV ranges from 30 minutes to a hour.
What is so appealing about these reality shows? Help me find out why this is such a guilty pleasure? Do we like to watch trainwrecks? Do we like to see that our lives actually aren’t that bad?
Who are these people and what is their skill? Why should I keep my eyes glued on them? Who knows but when I brought this exact question up to my friend it went down like this…
“Dude. What is the skill of these people?”
“Uh, their skill? Hmmm… Well, that they’re maintaining on TV.”
Dammit, he’s right. That is a skill, and the skill is somehow maintaining a presence on television. But wait, something doesn’t make sense – why am I watching them? It hit me, my friend that once produced hits like Seinfeld, Cheers, Friends, Mash, Cosby, LOST, and Arrested Development has duped me, it’s my TV. My buddy first named Tele, last name Vision has betrayed me. Or is it us?
We’re the culprits. We keep these shows on TV by watching them and feeding into them the way we do, and I am equally at fault for this to a certain degree, the proof is in the simple fact that I’m even writing this.
Whatever the case may be the TV audience is always the one who dictates what’s on TV and reality TV isn’t going anywhere, I’m doing my best to embrace new shows. Maybe one day I’ll find myself watching Jersey Shore meets the Hills called Jersey Hill.