h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As much as I personally despise so-called reality TV programs, I have to admit that they are a brilliant stroke of genius from the television programmers. With 20-20 hindsight, it's only amazing that this hasn't caught on much sooner (in the USA, anyway). I look at reality TV as a natural extension of game shows (the previous revelation of TV programming) - the psychology involved is about people getting their 15 minutes indeed, but more specific to the common TV-watching public is that it provides an actual, attainable mechanism for achieving that fame (or so they think, or so it is hoped they will think - but I'm getting ahead of myself).

I think that the reason so many reality shows exist and are wildly popular are the very same reasons why game shows and talk shows were so popular (indeed, some still are). After all, they aren't very different from each other. The major difference between your average game show and your average reality TV show is what the "challenge" is testing - knowledge or some other quick-thinking skill, or any of a myriad of other "skills," usually involving either humiliation or some other sort of grading of one's attributes and abilities. The main reason why talk shows were so popular (and still are) is that they allow people to compare their own subjective code of ethics to
those of other people, and thus set themselves above them as a moral superior. IMHO, this is, of course.

Intellilgence is rarely a criteria on reality TV shows, and in fact is more frequently a liability (viz some of the quickly-eliminated people on such shows as the Survivor series). This lowered the bar of what is "attainable" for the average 15-min fame seeker that lives vicariously through those he/she sees on TV.

But wait! There is something even more to be had here - the satisfaction of watching celebrities brought down to our level (or lower) ... wow, talk about revenge being a dish best served cold! Those poor bastards are so desperate for more fame lookit what they'll do! At least, that's the silent rallying cry of all those who flock to such shows.

It's my pessimistic opinion that these dark days of crap reality TV shows are really there simply because we, as a race, have some pretty big character flaws: (1) we like to see those of low financial station succeed suddenly due to some skill that we think we imagine we could have (especially trivial knowledge), (2) we love to see people with average skills attempt something extraordinary, or at least what we're made to think is extraordinary (either through creative writing/filming or disgusting/revolting but low-skill actions) in order to achieve fame, and (3) we love to see others more fortunate than us (better looking, richer, fitter, more popular) brought down to our level, as if it were revenge.

Out of all those millions of viewers willing to waste their lives away on such drivel while also watching cumulative YEARS of commercials for Pete's sake, not all are drooling morons on the bottom of the social scale - no, there are plenty of us out there watching these shows as some sort of guilty pleasure, and that to me says it a lot of bad things about the dark side of human nature. TV is just making us watch commercials by exploiting that nature and pandering to these dark desires so many have.

This isn't to glorify those that don't watch these reality shows - a group in which I'm sure every h2g2 person reading this is a card-carrying member - I'm confident we all have other, perhaps worse, character flaws. Personally, I have to admit that way back I watched MTV's The Real World a couple times to see what most everyone I knew was so obsessed about, and I've watched some (but not all) of a couple Survivor episodes - but I could never watch entire episodes of any of them without getting utterly disgusted and turning the TV off in protest of it killing more brain cells than the ale I'd had. I couldn't even get the fascination of disgust some people get at roadside accidents, which happens to be something I've never experienced either, for that matter. Maybe they're related.

Anyway, convinced that I was free of these particular character flaws, I went back to my time-honored tradition of thumbing my nose at the intellect-bereft masses and concentrated on my collection of Simpson's episodes (I've been told I sound something like the Comic Book Store Guy and Professor Frink, which scares me) and in writing down trivial corrections to questions on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" and, sometimes, "Jeopardy!" Character flaws galore, yes, but at least I've never seen a single freakin' minute of "American Idol" outside of the ubiquitous commercials.

- JD

Speaking of flaws, I didn't proof very well and here I am replying to myself in correction.

I said: "1) we like to see those of low financial station succeed suddenly due to some skill that we think we imagine we could have (especially trivial knowledge)...". That surely can't be considered a character flaw written like that. What I meant was that we like to see people of arguably useless skills (outside of gameshows) be rewarded. This is because many of us see it as a means to escape our own, perceived social station simply by getting money for competing in some game of dubious skills.

Whoa, gotta run, Wheel of Fortune coming on.

- JD

You also seem to have forgotten that the singular of criteria is criterion!