Kelefa Sanneh’s “The Reality Principle” discusses the rise and evolution of the reality television genre. He draws from a few major publications that have attempted to dissect reality TV and make us “take it more seriously.” These statements, and his excerpts from Jennifer Pozner’s “Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty Pleasure TV,” made me think about how we consider reality TV’s place in society, and what it means to us.
Reality TV advertising and product placement accounts for over 58% of all product placement on TV, even though its viewership lags far behind more popular dramas. It’s easy to film, low cost, and easy to advertise, which makes the genre lucrative for networks that are looking for a quick buck. Its prominence on TV has obviously skyrocketed, as Sanneh notes, but for me, its growing presence does not necessarily warrant a more “serious” analysis of what I think is the most basic definition of trash television.
Granted, the social stereotypes and situations that we observe in reality TV can be, at times, indicative of our culture. But I think that discussing why everyone on “The Real World” is an awful person is a futile endeavor. Cast selections are purposeful, and even if you put eight nice people in a house together for four months they’d probably end up losing their minds.
Overanalyzing the day-to-day interactions of the women on “The Bachelor” or the characterization of competitors on “Survivor” distracts from real, underlying societal issues that aren’t going to be solved through discussion of why The Bachelor chose That One Pretty Girl over the other one. We watch reality TV it’s not reality - it’s an escape from it. Trying to derive social meaning from eight wasted 25-year-olds is pointless.
Response to reading
Daily Create Video
Daily Create Broken object
Daily Create Boring drawing interesting surface
So far I like the video segment, but I am having some technical difficulties. I don’t have a tripod so making my stop motion is throwing me off. I think I’ll need to either employ the help of another person or find something similar to a tripod to help keep my pictures consistent. Still need to find some inspiration for my other videos. I still have time! For now….
Some Things I like
I thought the shift in how “geeky” fans are treated is interesting. The article The Syncher, Not the Song pointed this out. The difference between how the light saber kid and the Numa Numa kid were thought of were very different. People made fun of the kid practicing with the light saber, but “people wanted to be the Numa Numa guy.”
This shift has reminded me of how I’ve noticed that recently our culture has embraced things that used to be considered very nerdy or embarrassing to like. Comic book plots and characters for instance have become common knowledge with the recently release block buster movies of Marvel’s iconic heros. Looking through the list of top grossing movies of all time a lot of them have a very strong nerdy or geeky origin. Star Wars, The Avengers, Harry Potter, and The Lord of The Rings are all present on this list.
Portions of Geek culture and interests have obviously come to be a part of normal culture.This difference certainly makes it easier fro people to love the things they love, but I do think there is a limit before someone is started to be considered “weird.”
In general I think people like being excited about things but are often to afraid to show it because of ridicule. Writer and Vloger John Green has an excellent quote about nerd culture.
“…because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff… Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is ‘you like stuff.’ Which is just not a good insult at all. Like, ‘you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness’.” John Green
