Reality TV

I know I’m in the minority here and that’s fine because I am used to it. After all, great minds always tend to be in the minority although that fact has little to do with me. The subject I want to express my opinion about is the new craze on TV; reality TV. When did TV become so unreal that reality TV was born? It seems like everything these days falls into the classification of reality TV.

Now I am aware that there are a few curmudgeons among us that for all intensive purposes avoid TV. (Jim) This subject may be lost on them. (him) For just about as long as I can remember (no cracks there from the peanut gallery) TV has been, with the exception of sports and news and a few other meaningless shows, unreal. It has been an escape for many. Many of us deal with all too much reality every day. So I ask you what is the draw.

I think I’ve pretty much figured it out. There is a large segment of our society that thrives on the suffering of others. Many of us also receive comfort knowing that there are many people much more screwed up then we are. Why is that? Perhaps it gives people some strange sense of self worth? I avoid most all “reality TV” because I get embarrassed watching these people. I did watch a show called addiction just the other night out of a sense of curiosity. It was a hideous display of human tragedy and I can’t believe people derive any entertainment from it. A part of me wonders how these camera operators could watch someone shoot up with drugs or drink until they are only partially conscious without intervening. It really just makes no sense to me.

I don’t see this changing anytime soon. In fact, we have become so desensitized to violence, horror and personal tragedy that I can see it only getting worse. It’s almost in a way the extension of how we as a society continue to devalue life. I think we should all take a good look at this dribble on TV and start avoiding it more. Perhaps write a letter or two hundred to the sponsors of these shows and espouse our opinions upon them. I’m not trying to sound high and mighty and without my own faults and vices. I am just as flawed as the rest of us. I guess I just long for the simpler times when Gomer processed a citizen’s arrest on Barney and we all just laughed. When a little puppet on Ed Sullivan would crack up his audience by saying…”Eddie, kiss me goodnight”.

Television is headed down the wrong path in my opinion, if you haven’t deciphered that yet. I’m not saying we need to completely wipe it clean. I am saying that this reality TV trend is mostly destructive as it would seem to me it is promoting more dysfunction among us all if not to just make a few bucks displaying it to the masses.

Tell me what you think.