Are ‘reality shows’ turning us Americans into a nations of haves and have-nots? As in 2% of us will actually HAVE a ‘life’ and the other 98% will have no life other than sitting on their ass watching them?
What’s more fun? Getting together with 5 of your friends to take a road trip or watching the cast of “Road Rules”?.
Would you rather go to the Bahamas to party and meet women/men or watch a bunch of boobs (as in idiots, not breasts, although that would also would apply) run around “Temptation Island”?
The same holds true for all the other shows out there:
“Real World”
“Cops”
“The Worlds Deadliest/Most Shocking/Largest Police Chases/Explosions/Animal Attacks/Avalanches/etc”
“The Mole”
“Making of the Band”
and of course
“Survivor”
So, just to clarify, the question is: Is all this ‘reality’ good or bad for American society? Why or why not?
I’d much prefer the Bahamas, but until I get the cash, vacation time and babysitter for a week or so, and until the weather gets decent enough to fish and golf, I’ll content myself with watching morons try to screw each other out of a million clams in the Outback, falling off of ladders, trying to outrun cops, and getting eaten by sharks. For me, real live human stupidity is much better entertainment than Allie Mcbeal, Sisters, Heaven can Wait, and anything with Diane Sawyer. (Don’t mess with Malcom though… that show is what TV is all about)!
I’m actually looking forward to the Boot Camp one. I’m curious to see how someone can break and give up with a million bucks at stake (or whatever the prize is), when I and a lot of others did it for $500 a month.
Stupid entertainment? Yup! But when I want people to make me think, I come here. When I want to blob out and be brain dead, give me Survivor and the other moron shows any day:)
You’re right, I’d much rather take part in an episode of “Cops” than watch one at home. Ooh, can I be the guy who gets arrested for trying to pick up a hooker?
As for the the question you pose: I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s a big deal either way. Not going to the beach so you can watch “Temptation Island” is not significantly different from not going to the beach so you can watch “Caroline in the City.”
Another question might be: Is all this reality TV indicative of anything other than a succesful marketing strategy?
I seriously doubt there are very many people sitting at home watching Temptation Island who think it’s anything besides what it is: watching TV. Only the truly deluded think it’s a real substitute for going out and doing those things. The rest have reasons for not actually going to the Bahamas: lack of time, money and initiative.
In other words, it’s not “I could go to the Bahamas, but watching Temptation Island is just as good, so I’ll just sit on my ass,” it’s “I can’t go to the Bahamas. Boo hoo. Hey, I think I’ll watch a little TV. Oh, look, Temptation Island is on, and I’m stupid, so I’ll watch it.”
Sorry, I let some value judgement slip in there towards the end.
tv is a bad thing, it distorts your menal map ( how you think the world is versus how it really is ), turn it off for 1 week ( if you can, you addicts ! ) and see.
People don’t watch shows like Temptation Island or Survivor because they can’t go to the Bahama’s themselves. They watch it because they want to see the human drama unfold. Then everyone comes into work the next day and talks about the show.
I just think it’s sad when the most important thing people have to talk about in thier lives is what happended in a show last night.
I like watching TV as much as the next guy (probably more). I just think its become this black hole that sucks our initiative away.
Go out and shoot some hoops? Naw, I’ll just watch SportsCenter 10 times a day.
Drive to the beach for a couple of hours? Can’t, Baywatch is on.
Talk to my roomates? No thanks, I’d rather watch the roomates on The Real World.
It’s not like people actually make this decision in their head. I think most of them just turn on the TV when they get home from work/school and sit slack-jawed in front of it.
quote - lack of time, money and initiative
The average person watches something like 20 hours a week of TV. Imagine how good you would be at something if you practiced it for 20 hours a week for your entire life.
As much as I hate to be a smug non-TV watcher, dude is right. I went off TV for about three years, and it really changes your entire view of things. Plus, you’re amazed at how much more time you have and how much more active you feel, once you get out of the mindset of turning it on when you don’t have anything to do.
It helps if you live somewhere with bad reception, and you don’t have cable.
However, this is pretty much utterly irrelevant to the thread at hand, so I probably shouldn’t even post it… (But I will.)
Look folks, TV was not developed in a vacuum…um… well, ok, it was. But it was developed along with a lot of other technology which came before, during and after tv’s establishement in most homes in first/second world countries.
This technology, which first and foremost includes electricity, has aided humanity in achieving much more leisure time. Task that took hours and days to perform now only take seconds and minutes. With more leisure time, people began to pursue entertainment in it’s varied forms in a way in which they could not before. Before the convenience of electric, mechanical and electronic tools, people would sit by the fire or candle light and exchange the same boring old stories and stare at each other in quiet desperation. They went to bed early because they could not stand looking at one another for another second without risking episodes of violence.
TV has not only lead to a more entertaining way of spending the evening, it also has lead to a more peaceful society. With the current growth of population can you imagine the kinds of violence we would have on our hands if it were not for people being passified in their homes by their TV.
I travel, read, work in my garden and take aerobic and weight lifting classes. In the summer I spend as much time as possible on the boat. I am in a book club. I volunteer for a charity that helps homeless families.
I also love to watch Survivor. (I watch The Real World too, but please don’t tell anyone!) So what? Does this mean I don’t have a life? I like an hour of mindless entertainment in the evenings to unwind.
Reality shows have no bearing on society at all. They are just the current trend in TV programing. In five years no one will even remember them.
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Well, I’d rather talk about what happened on Survivor than talk to someone about every morsel of food they’re not allowed to eat on the Atkins Diet or hear about their aerobics class the night before and how their sneakers kind of hurt. Discussions at the office are usually very superficial and they’re often about something really boring. I find a good session of dishing on reality shows is a lot more fun that discussing what someone had for dinner.
TV gives people a common starting point from which lots of other interesting conversations can stem.
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When I had roommates, we sat around and watched it togher and laughed our heads off and discussed it afterwards. It was a great source of entertainment that we could all enjoy together.
I love getting together with friends to watch Survivor. Some people are into sports, others are into pop culture and people-watching. Reality shows are perfect for folks who enjoy the latter.
I agree I should probably get out more, but there’s a certain holier-than-thou attitude that a lot of people have about not watching TV. I think it’s great if someone would rather jog or play piano than watch TV, but it doesn’t make that person better than me because I enjoy relaxing in front of the tube. It can even be -gasp!- educational. Honestly, I never really understood exactly what “Get a life” means. Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m pretty sure I have a life, and it includes plenty of entertaining evenings in front of the Magnavox, as well as adventures outside of it’s warm glow.
just now, before I hit submit, I had a hilarious conversation with a co-worker about just what kind of bugs the next set of Survivors would have to eat. He ran out of my office with a wild case of the heebie-jeebies.
This is so condescending, I find it offensive (and, for the record, I don’t watch TV at all…don’t even own one). Someone talking to their buddies at work about what happened on TV last night is not talking about it because “it’s the most important thing they have to talk about in their lives,” they’re talking about it because they’re having a casual conversation about whatever casual topics come up. Today I told my girlfriend about the fact that they were out of razors at the supermarket, which annoyed me. Are you going to jump all over me for having such a pathetic life that this would be a topic of conversation? Give me a break.
dude - I’ll admit I’m a TV addict. I have a couple months off before my new job starts so I have plenty of time to watch TV. I decided the other day to not watch ANY TV for the entire day. I lasted until about 9:30pm, when I get home from class.
DeskMonkey - I’m curious. Why do you find the dining habits of your real life coworkers boring, yet its ever so exciting to talk about what the Survivor cast will eat next. Granted, most people don’t normally eat bugs in real life.
I think when people say ‘get a life’ they mean going out and actually doing stuff. Whatever that stuff is (skiing, rollarblading, jogging, bug collecting, barhopping, pole vaulting, and so on).
galt - You need to relax. All I’m saying it’s a little sad that the most interesting thing most of us have to talk about is something that happened on TV to people we don’t even know. If that offends you, well, sorry. I suggest you check out some of the other threads. I’m sure you can find some topics that are REALLY offensive to your beliefs.
And I’m saying that it’s sad that you would resort to such a bogus, insulting argument. Just because someone talks about something does not mean that it’s the most interesting thing they can find to talk about. Or is this the most interesting thing you can find to talk about right now?
Whatever. I’m not going to get into a flame-war with you because you don’t agree with my statement. If you find my statement offensive, well I’m sorry (as in “tough shit”, not as in “I appologize”). Personally, I would rather hear about your girlfriend’s razor story than about people on Survivor. At least that’s about real people.
TV is not bad in moderation of course. But there are better things to watch than reality shows. They are so dull, and you don’t really lean anything.
I think if you watch tv to have something interesting to talk about at work the next day, that is very sad. Especially such empty tv like Survivor. It’s more fake than fictional shows if you think about it.
It makes me think of Stephen King’s book, the Running Man, about a dystopic society in which crappy game shows that demean (or kill) other people are #1 in the country.
It also makes me think of 1984 in which the Ministry of Truth is responsible for all books, movies, and entertainment for the masses, intentionally BAD books to keep the masses dumb and stupid by appealing to the lowest common denominator (oh look! This show has people eating RATS!!! oh look! Somebody’s gonna get a MILLION DOLLARS!!).
Even the news is selected by how entertaining it is, not how much it will affect us.
I don’t think any of needed to hear about it every time OJ coughed sneezed or farted. But it’s appealing enough so stupid people will be entertained by the drama and people with the potential to be intelligent are kept stupid.
I’m meandering, and getting away from the Reality TV thing-
really, Temptation Island offended me more than any other tv how ever. Couldn’t millions of people have found something better to do with that hour of their life? Like maybe doing the dishes? Or staring at the wall?
If you need to be a blob for awhile, a nature show is a nice way to do it. Or cartoons. Or (gasp) maybe a BOOK!
As for having something to talk about at work, you don’t necessarily have to talk about what you did the day before or last night. Think of something imaginative.
The reality shows seem perverted to me, in the sense that they have people clambering over obstacles and setting up rituals. I see no reason other than for children when it comes to character development to set up obstacles, and I think rituals are a great mistake. They enable people to be even more irrational than they already are, and then claim that it is ritual, which is needed by the human race, which isn’t true. But other than arguing about it, I say that I just really hate rituals for some unknown reason of temperament or something in my genes or societal background.
Other than that, does anybody remember the Loud Family? That was reality television, especially Lance Loud. What a program, and it disappeared and so will current reality programs, because people get tired of everything.
