In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve moved! Instead of doing our hop on Wednesdays, we’re posting on Mondays. So if you made it here, welcome, and I hope you’ll remember to come back next Monday as well!
This week we’re talking about reality TV. Love it or hate it, it’s everywhere, in some shape or form.
I’ll admit it, I didn’t understand why MTV stopped playing music and start airing The Real World. Frankly, I didn’t care about a bunch of twenty-somethings and their shenanigans. When I turned to MTV, I wanted music.And if I couldn’t get it there, I’d get it somewhere else.
According to Wikipedia, shows like “The American Sportsman” and “Candid Camera” count as reality TV. And I suppose that by strict definition, they were, but that’s not what most people think of. Geesh, according to that definition, COPS is a reality TV show.
Like most people, we think of shows like “Survivor” and “Big Brother” and even “American Idol” as reality TV. Shows where people are pitted against each other in hopes of winning a big prize. I watched Survivor in its early seasons. I watched American Idol too, although I never voted.
But it didn’t take me long to figure out how we, the audience, were being manipulated, along with the contestants. Who was the good guy and who was the villain could easily be pre-determined by the producers. All they had to do was be selective in what clips they aired. And once I figured that out, I lost interest. Once I knew that, I knew it wasn’t really real..
And if you’ve followed this blog for very long, you know I don’t watch TV anymore. I might stop and listen to a song or two on Idol if my DH is watching, but I can’t name any of the winners for the past few years. And I watch on occasional number on “Dancing with the Stars,” but I’ve never sat through a complete show. So whatever demographics those shows are aimed at, I’m not it. I have better things to do with my time.
What would it take to bring me back and become a fan of reality TV again? I have no idea. If i could come up with a concept that hadn’t already been overdone, I’d get rich selling it to a network.
Let us know your thought on Reality TV in the comments. And to find out what Lela Markham thinks. head on over to her blog.Lela Markham Lela is the author of Life as We Knew It and other books.
Chaos changes everything!
Shane Delaney, a burned-out mercenary with a troubled past, returns home to small-town Kansas to heal his scars and quiet his demons, not planning to stay long enough for the townsfolk to reject who he has become.
He never expected the town to need his deadlier skills.
When a terrorist attack on distant cities abruptly transforms life as they knew it, the people of Emmaus must forge their own disaster plan to survive.
What would you do if the world as you know it ended today?
The people of Emmaus will find out.
Jan. 4 – Jan. 10, 2016 Reality TV – Love it or hate it and why?
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use ?#?OpenBook? when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
NEW: WordPress Short Code:
[inlinkz_linkup id=586352 mode=1]
Code for Hosting:
Code for Link:
Thanks for the encouragement, PJ. And, I feel similarly about reality TV. My husband likes Idol, so I watch it with him. To keep my attention, we have a contest among ourselves to determine who will be the winner. We make our selections before the public starts voting. So far, I've 3 for 3 and he's got one qualified one — he couldn't decide between two a couple of years ago and they turned out to be the final two. We watched the Kilchers on Netflix because my sister-in-law highly recommended the show and they were okay … a mostly Alaskan experience … until they tried to get a barge up and down a river. Being DOT, I know about the environmental regulations on that, so I knew it was faked and that's when the show lost me. I think Brad stuck in to the end of the first season, but I didn't watch it with him.
Hey PJ, I know how you feel although I'm embarrassed to admit that I watch more TV than I've ever watched in my life. Ugh! My one escape that does not heavily hit my budget. But not reality TV! I do enjoy The Voice but as you wrote, after watching multiple seasons, you discover areas for manipulation and influence. Now that's reality.