Use your own definition of “trashy,” but as a general rule I’m talking about voyeuristic “reality” dreck such as Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, Jersey Shore, 19 Kids and Counting etc.
I’m not judging. I’m not jumping to conclusions. I seriously want to know.
Other: because many of my patients watch it, and I can’t get them to turn it off while I’m there.
I’m adding my own subset of “trashy”, though: the Springeresque talk show genre.
From the shows I’ve seen, I’ve taken away the following:
Wear a condom.
No, really, wear a condom.
Don’t stick your dick in the crazy.
He’s just not that into you.
Dr. Phil isn’t really as evil/clueless/annoying as I’d gotten the impression of before actually watching his show. He really does seem focused on helping people move forward and actually change their behavior and relationships, rather than dragging every sordid detail out of them.
Jerry Springer is an ass.
The world might just be a better place if Maury Pauvitch died in a fire. Exploitation doesn’t begin to cover it.
Steve Wilko…not a bad guy, actually. Closer to Dr. Phil than Jerry Springer, and occassionally has some good insights. His guests, however…oy.
I still don’t watch these shows when I have control of the remote, but I will admit to the occasional head shake and muttering at the screen under my breath. Sometimes there’s a skosh of schadenfreude, and sometimes, I’ll admit it, a “thank gods that no matter what my issues, I’m not THAT bad.” So there is a little bit of your last three poll options in my heart.
And really…wear a condom.
To me, watching kooky good-looking and seemingly not-hard-working people walk around and be kooky and unbelievable is not much different than watching a scripted show. I enjoyed the characters on Seinfeld and How I Met Your Mother just as much as I enjoy the characters on the Real Housewives shows.
I honestly don’t understand why people look down on these shows so much as a form of entertainment. As a documentary? Yes. Mostly unbelievable and fake. As a life lesson? Yes. Total trash. As a group of characters finding themselves in situations and reacting to those situations in quirky ways? This is television.
I watch all of the Real Housewives and Jersey Shore shows, FWIW. I will watch others as I catch them, like at a hotel or at my parents’ .
My favorite trashy shows have been Flavor of Love and Basketball wives.
I watched them both because they were funny. Also, I liked to peep moments of genuine heart or soul in the show or characters sometimes. It is easy for folks to be judgmental about those kinds of shows, but if you watch with your judgy-meter low, you will find that even stagey fakey shows have moments of authenticity where true colors show through for some of the characters, and you can learn something from someone you were all prepared to look down on. It is fun to catch those moments. Here comes honey booboo reminded me of that recently when the title character chastised her sister for implying that a pig doesn’t have the right to be gay. “You can’t tell that pig what to do!” Ha. Loved it.
The Kardashians bore me, but I have watched the show before and can not figure out why people judge them so harshly. They seem to be business minded women, and a very loving family. Don’t get the hate.
I’ll confess to TruTV’s “World’s Dumbest X”, Spike’s “World’s Worst Tenants” (and yes, I’m sure it’s scripted and probably pretty much fiction), TLC’s “Hoarding: Buried Alive”, and A&E’s “Hoarders”. The first two I watch basically to make me feel better about my own stupid moves, since I’ve never managed to achieve the level of dumb to qualify for either (World’s Dumbest also has the virtue of being pretty funny). The latter two are preventive maintenance to help keep me motivated to stay on top of cleaning, organizing, weeding out, etc.
Because I often work with people that take these shows (especially the talk shows) seriously and I need to have a reasonable frame of references when dealing with them. And unfortunately, very unfortunately, there are people who look up to reality television stars and consider them inspiring.
My guilty pleasure is Lizard Lick Towing. It’s as scripted as pro wrestling, but it amuses me.
I watch “Billy the Exterminator” because of his amazing fashion sense, and also watching him trap and catch raccoons alive is pretty scarey. I also watch " My Cat From Hell" because I like to compare the cats on the show to my 19 year old crabby tabby. The tv cats are often more violent, but less verbally abusive than my cat.
I watch Real Housewives of Atlanta, New York City, and Beverly Hills. With those shows, I look for moments of honesty and self-awareness, but there’s very little of that. And there must be rules against talking about books, movies, and TV, because they never do. No politics either, except that Caroline on RHONY went to an OWS demonstration, so there’s that.
I like the guys on Duck Dynasty – they’re surprisingly funny, sometimes wry, sometimes slapsticky, usually entertaining. I also like the show about lottery winners, and I’ll watch the two hoarders shows, in bits and pieces.
The main attraction of any reality show is that you can drop in and out and not miss anything. You don’t have to pay attention.
Oh, and I like Repo Games. Makes me feel smart. And sad, to see adults miss questions my 10-year-old granddaughter would know.
I haven’t watched all of them, and I don’t watch them regularly, but, when I do, it’s always just so I can laugh at how ridiculous this whole thing is. I don’t think I really judge them, though. It’s just more of a “so bad it’s good” or “ironic” means of watching.
I used to watch Jerry Springer and Maury a lot in my early teens. Also Ricki Lake, Real World, and Road Rules. Mostly because I thought it was all real, and those people were just fascinating to me. I was a pretty sheltered kid in a fairly homogeneous town. I never knew anyone in real life who acted THAT trashy or dramatic. Nobody I knew acted like those people on tv, so it was interesting. I lost interest once I got enough life experience to realize that most reality tv is scripted or manufactured, and most of the people on talk shows are exaggerating, if not outright lying, just to get their 15 minutes. Or the ones who DID really have a problem (like the teenage girl who slept with a hundred guys trying to get pregnant, etc) had mental disorders that required real counseling, and I couldn’t in all conscience justify watching the trainwreck without feeling guilty anymore.
Hope this doesn’t count as a threadshit. I did watch this stuff, I just haven’t for years.
I came in here thinking trashy tv meant shit like Gossip Girl or Pretty Little Liars or the like. I don’t watch that Kardashian Jersey Boo Boo stuff (other than the clips that wind up on the Soup).
Do you mean Hoarders? I do occasionally watch that when there’s nothing else on. The one time I watched the Kardashions as a real show (I thought) was the episode where Kim was whining “But I don’t know if I want to pose for Playboy.” And her mother (for God’s sake) said, “Oh you should! Do it! It pays a lot of money.” I couldn’t change the channel fast enough.
I watched the Loggers for a while, until it turned into a soap opera. And Ice Road Truckers till the guy got arrested for beating up his wife.
But my secret pleasure (and we don’t get it anymore) is Kendra. Love that girl, love her husband and love their baby. I wouldn’t be surprised to run into her at a debutante ball or the local laudromat. She is who she is and I like that.
I’ve watched Pawn Stars a few times, which I think counts. Honestly, I couldn’t care less about the bidding or really any single person on the show. I just like seeing cool historical artifacts pop up and get 5-minute mini history lessons on random objects from their experts. I instantly start tuning the show out when the bidding starts.
Whenever I catch a glimpse of one of these shows, all I can think is: 1) they are scripted and edited to a fare-thee-well. NO ONE’S life is like that, 24/7. No one. Surely the Kardashians have down time where they sit around bored, in ratty pajamas, no makeup, eating donuts and watching the Weather Channel for a few minutes in the morning…2) the makers of this bilge turn it out by the truckload because it’s so cheap to make. And there is a vast reservoir of ‘reality’ lives to make these shows till the end of time.
I watch something on occasion, at someone’s house, and I’m trapped. I have no interest in 99% of it. Like watching golf or football, I simply can’t relate. I still check out Jerry Springer to see if he ever has any other shows besides who’s-my-baby-daddy. Still waiting! And I kind of like the bridezilla shows, as I didn’t have a proper wedding. I’m always searching for my dream bridal gown, years after the fact.
I love watching Million Dollar Listings-Beverly Hills? The three leads are Josh Altman, Josh Flagg and Madison? I love real estate porn, watching these three brokers turn over gorgeous houses that I’ll never have any real chance of owning. I love watching their squabbles and first world problems, etc.
That’d be Maury, with the baby-daddys. Springer’s theme is infidelity and unrequited love, sisters sleeping with each other’s boyfriends, women with crushes on guys who just used them for sex, etc. This line must be a requirement, because everyone says it when confronting the man/woman/relative who did them wrong: “I was there for you! How could you do this to me?”
It’s like the natural light/granite countertops/stainless appliances comments on House Hunters. They have to say it.
I don’t think it’s scripted, but I’m sure it’s all editing. I’m sure there’s no small number of people that are really catty people, but I’m almost certain half or more of the antagonistic people in reality shows are perfectly nice people that are the victims of editors only bothering to show footage of when they’re miffed or talking about their pet subject.
And besides, there’s other ways to get your unwitting stars to do what you want without having to pay writers. Like outright lying to them that <family member> called them a bitch. Or suggesting that she may thought they were being a bitch. Or any number of other tiny little suggestions and bits of manipulative psychology.
I thought we were talking about crap. THIS is real TV, "importing"TV. (“Important” but with a “g” added to make this hillbilly feel upper-class.) I love Saturdays; I watch Fixthishouse, Flipthishouse and Fuckthishouse all day long. I may be washing clothes or on the 'puter, but my ears are attuned to Exactly How Much of This is Needed to Do That…
Love the bubbalah (did I spell it right?) And I want to know what millionaires consider necessary.
There’s a “show us your house” on Spanish TV which I like watching; most of them are people trying to sell something quite unsellable, but there have been some cool ones, for example a couple of architects who had built their house - having it on TV was a way to promote their services, “see, we can do some amazing stuff with the tiniest bit of land”. And the unsellable ones have some serious “what the bloody hell were they thinking?” moments, the kind that make a pet turtle look smart and quick.
The only people who talk about “the LIGHT!!!” are the foreigners, most of whom seem to think that you can’t talk about the light, you have to gush about it as gushily as possible; if you don’t gush correctly, the sunlight will punish you by moving to the Netherlands. If a Spaniard mentions it, it’s along the lines of “and there’s these retractable canopies to keep the light out without obscuring the view”.