The Reality of Trying to Keep Up

Emma Hausbeck ’15

Staff Writer

Imagine a world where no one knew about the Khardashian’s lavish lifestyles or  watched the Bachelorette choose the man she loves to spend the rest of her life with. This is life without reality TV, pretty scary right?

Our generation has come to love and admire TV stars in a way not like any other. This is because we have full access to their personal lives, something unachievable until the late 1990s. It all started with a show called Survivor that put ordinary people to the test to try to survive in the wild. Although, what really allowed the new genre to take off, was the popular television network, MTV. Beginning in the early 90’s with The Real World, recent shows like Teen Mom and the late and great Jersey Shore have taught American society that getting wasted at parties every night and getting pregnant in high school can make you famous and envied. These shows have become an outlet for people to constantly compare themselves to others and mimic their lifestyles attempting to gain the popularity and confidence the characters on their favorite shows seem to have. This leads to our society suffering from depression caused by the low self esteem received after the constant comparisons.  When watching the Real Housewives and Keeping up with the Khardashians, we struggle because we just can’t “keep up”.

Not all TV causes brain damage though, there are some closer to real life like Dr. Phil that, while still somewhat made up, are at least focused on helping solve people’s problems that could not be solved before. Programs like this are few and far between in the reality television world but can be seen as a step up from 16 and Pregnant.

The truth about reality television shows is that they are not reality at all. Yes, they are real to some extent but under the surface they are just as scripted as any other television series. Directors create situations for the show’s subjects and give them lines and suggested reactions to them so they can effectively portray the excitement we see on our television set. By the same token, companies pay gargantuan amounts of money to have their products placed on television in the subject’s life, so the rest of the world will go out and buy it to be just like them. It is an ingenious business and a successful one at that, subsequently set up by money gurus to make the biggest profit possible off of a very lucky few pretending to lead these outrageously exciting lives that make for excellent television. It’s all just “show biz” otherwise it would be tiring and near impossible to over exaggerate your “real” life every day?

Whether you like reality TV or not, one cannot argue against its complete capability to capture and influence an audience. Even though it can be entertaining to watch reality TV shows, we should all try to live in our own reality instead of trying to copy someone else’s.

For more information on some of the points of this article:

http://www.emme-magazine.com/2013/07/13/does-reality-television-cause-depression/

http://jezebel.com/real-housewives-of-nyc-cast-caught-staging-re-filmin-514008947