Coping with the Unreality of Reality Television

I've talked about reality shows a lot on this website. I also watch, or watched, a good amount of reality shows. I still check in from time to time on reality shows my wife watches on the weekends. But I have been putting more thought into them lately, probably more than the creators, I kid. But I have been trying to suss things out about some of the shows that I watch and have watched.

As I get older I am getting a bit cynical about these "reality" shows. They don't really live up to the hype anymore. They are retreads. They are rip off shows. And they are horrible for the television industry because they put a ton of people out of work. This has been on my mind a lot lately. I find myself even thinking about these shows when they are not on. I don't know what that says about me, but here we are.

I think my biggest issue as of late is the fact that these shows are not actual, true "reality" shows. There is nothing real about them at all. If they were factual, if they were real, they would be tiring and very boring. Think about your everyday life. How boring is it really? I know that if I were to be filmed for a reality show, and if they stuck to actual reality, it would be a total snooze fest. The cameras would see me go through my routine. I get my kids ready for school in the morning. I run errands or have coffee with my dad and friends. I come home and do chores around the house. I go for a run. And then the night is filled with taking kids to sports, having dinner and going to bed. Pretty tiresome huh? That is how I know these reality shows are actually real. Real life is boring. But if you do a few takes of a conversation, add alcohol and try to start a conflict, that is a recipe for intriguing "reality" shows. I have read that these reality shows have copious amounts of alcohol just laying around. I feel like the producers of the shows think that if there is alcohol around, and most of the people enjoy alcohol, they will loosen up and let it fly a bit. That is why there is rarely ever a person on a reality show that has chosen to not drink. I would never be in a reality show because I choose to not partake in alcohol. I would, as I am prone to say in this piece, be very boring.

Take a show like "Love is Blind". My wife is very much into this show and I will sit down with her and watch or listen in the background while I am doing something around the house. This is the fakest "reality" show on tv. They go so far as to have everyone drink from the exact same style cup. The cups are all the same, even when they go to stores, parties or are at their home or their parents homes. That is for continuity. Which leads me to another point. The fact that the glasses have to be the same, so as not to show drinks being consumed, that means they do multiple takes of supposed "real" conversations. There was a very big blow up the other night and the fact that someone cried, I was completely taken out of it because I noticed the glass. This made me question how many times they asked this girl to cry, or how many times they had this dude call her horrible names. And that happens all the time on these shows. It looks like it is a conversation unfolding in real time until you start to think about tv and the fact that they need the correct lighting and that they have to be able to fully hear everything and that the clothing has to be the same, it is all made up.

You could even put cooking competitions in this conversation. I cannot believe that a "Chopped" contestant can think on the fly as fast as these competitors do on the show. They come up with these crazy dishes in a matter of seconds. I have to believe that they have a little bit, at the very least, of an idea of what is coming in those baskets. And they also have to make multiple dishes in an allotted time. Stuff has to get messed up that we never see in the finished product on our tv's.

I could go on and on with other reality shows, but these two came straight to my mind when I thought of this piece. Reality shows are not based in reality. Sorry if that bursts people's bubbles. But I'm not here to tell you not to watch them. If you like reality shows, watch as much as you want. That may be your steez. They just aren't for me and I am going to continue to see what other things I notice while watching them. I will just keep it to myself when I watch with my wife. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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