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posts about #realityprinciple more → 
In Defense Of Reality TV
New York, 10:31 PM
Mon Dec 21
55 posts in the last 24 hours
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In Defense Of Reality TV |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
03/23/09
THANK YOU. I am so fucking sick of mentioning one of these shows to guys I date and having to sit through their smug trite reactions. Dude, if you don't like it that's fine, but it doesn't make you more intelligent than me. Sorry.
03/23/09
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03/23/09
Second, for Top Chef, how many famous chefs can you name (esp one that doesn't have a regular show on Food Network)?
Third, Project Runway - Christian Siriano's line sold out in its first day on bluefly.com.
All 3 shows have come with controversy, gossip, or tabloid fodder, but in reality, esp with the latter 2, you need to have talent to make it. It doesn't rely solely on the frivolous to pass (cough ANTM cough). And even if the average soccer mom can't name the winner of Top Chef season 5, it doesn't make them any less successful. More fame does not necessarily equal better quality or more integrity.
03/24/09
03/23/09
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03/23/09
Is it morally superior to admit I don't want our society to be dumbed down? I only want the best for the advancement of our intelligence.
WWTAT: What would the aliens think? (if they saw us today)
03/23/09
03/23/09
"...the healthiest, most cathartic way to deal with our pleasure principle. It provides a forum in which we can laugh at others' misfortune and embarrassment." Are you kidding me or just baiting us for pageviews? Healthy? Justify your choices however you want-- entertainment based on shame and ridicule has always been around, it's a way for humans to feel better about their own sorry existence-- but holding it up as the healthiest outlet for the pleasure principle is disingenuous.
03/23/09
But most of the rest of it? The entire VH-1 stable? I can't get into it. Can't even get into Project Runway or Top Chef anymore (but to be fair to Top Chef - these are all young chefs. What TC allows them to have is a stepping stone to develop a career that might lead to being a top chef. They're not automatically catapulted there, and I don't think they've ever intimated that the contestants would be)
03/23/09
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03/23/09
It's so wonderful and refreshing after months of watching shows in which people are chosen based on how much of a bitch they proclaim to be in casting.
03/23/09
03/23/09
It's the drain on people's enthusiasm and pockets that I can't fathom. It's a tool to monopolise on the short attention spans of those who become obsessed... you invest in someone's journey, therefore you fund their career as though they were a friend.
It worked with Sheena Easton.
03/23/09
03/23/09
03/23/09
The humiliation-as-entertainment piece of it is beyond me, and not only do I not enjoy it, it makes me sad. We're going to start letting our 4th grade son watch American Idol, so that he knows what everyone's talking about, but my husband and I agreed instantly that we would wait until it was actually a competition between people with talent (aka: this week). The first few weeks are just too horrifying for both of us....
/shuffling off to corner of crankiness/
03/23/09
03/23/09
I'm angry, too, at people who try to pretend they are doing anything less than judging others when they watch these shows. Tracie has admitted that openly, but I know many people who profess such innocence and sweetness, and it's just plain bullshit. If you're being a snob, at least be an honest one.
03/23/09
Having said that, at this point, I'm pretty sure that the fine ladies and gents who enjoy "reality TV" use the word "reality" in this context much like fans of "professional wrestling" use the term "wrestling." Nobody suffers any illusions anymore.
03/23/09
I don't like watching people make asses of themselves. I understand that some people find it entertaining and enjoy just turning their brain off when watching TV but actively watching it to me is like, you're endorsing this behaviour and really, I can't do that.
But then, all I watch is educational programming and science fiction so. I mean, I'm not exactly the norm for TV goers.
03/23/09
I'd also like to say that, after an attempt and a relapse last season, I'm officially done with American Idol. I can't tell you how freeing it is to not even know any contestants' names this year. That was my major reality addiction, and it began to feel like a full time job.