Right. So. Now that I have all of you people here...

I have to write this paper for my english class. I was given three topics. Two don't apply to me at all. That being that I don't have the expirence to write them. The third is the only one I could come CLOSE to writting. The down side is that I need to write about Reality TV and why it seems to be so popular with the American public.

Guess what. I friggin' HATE Reality TV. I NEVER watch it, and I consider the people who DO watch it to have problems. So, as you can tell, I don't have a clue why the American Public finds it so durned captivating.

This is where you massassians fit into the picture. I know alot of you hate it just as much as me from previous threads. But in a community this large, I know someone here HAS to enjoy it.

So, I need you people who enjoy Reality TV, to give me a list of reasons why you enjoy it and why you think the public finds it so attractive.

Oh, and if you start talking about specific shows, it'd be helpful if you gave an uber brief rundown of what it's about. I don't watch it, so I don't have a clue.

This isn't supposed to be a debate, I just need some info to write a very stupid essay.

Many thanks to all.

Hahaha trading spouses. Chapelle gone wrong.

Easy. They're all* MORONS. :p

* - Except for, of course, anyone who happens to read this... >_>

Us Americans love suspense, cheap thrills at the expense of less fortunate personages. unfortunately, that's all reality tv is, A 'What happens next?' sort of thing. Personally I think the only good ones are like Extreme Makeover-esque shows, giving people something incredible because something bad happened to those familes

It's got a lot to do with relating to the people on TV. If I see a young amazingly attractive male university student on a remote desert island I think 'wow! That could be me on a remote desert island'. Well, not really, that's just an example, but you know what I mean.

Reality TV is surprisingly unpredictable. We've had the usual Hollywood writer's devices shoved down our throats for the past 70 years, so it's different to see people acting themselves and not repeating the same predictable lame plot twists and dialogue.

Reality TV is also very cheap to produce, so TV producers are very willing to force-feed us copious amounts of it. If it's all that's on TV (and marketed extremely heavily), people are gonna watch it.

People feel they can relate to the people on the shows

The drama on the show (fights, arguments, etc) are real

Many of them have competitive elements to them, and people like the competition element

People like the mind games and back stabbing kind of stuff

What are the other topics, by the way? You could do a little research if you don't know much about them.

Thing is, its not unpredictable. about 90% of it is scripted, its jsut that people don't happen to be reading off cue cards. and the part that isn't scripted is controlled anyway, via interactions between people (the reasont he controversial guy/girl always stay in until almost the last pepisode of survivor even though everyone obviously hates them enough to have voted them off long ago)

The more annoying people are usually the first to go on Australian TV. It's perplexing, but after a few weeks of Big Brother or Australian Idol we are usually left with a house or stage full of bland boring bogans.

the apprentice = the only reality tv show that has any brains to it.

Although I hate reality TV as much as anyone, I heard from somewhere that a few rounds of reality tv shows create money for the studios, which they then use to make good shows (like 24 and John Doe, or basically any good drama that they launch in the fall season).

It works like this b/c reality tv is so cheap to make compared to scripted tv. this saved money piles up, and the stations reinvest it into good programming. they pocket some of the money, but a lot of it goes back into the till to be used later.

Remember, whenever a channel launches a wave of crappy reality tv, they are basically releasing filler until enough money accumulates to produce something good.

Joe Schmo 1 & 2 were entertaining. If you haven't seen the show, there's basically a house full of actors and 1-2 people who aren't. These 2 non-actors don't realize that everyone else is acting. There are some interesting situations that these poor souls are forced into, and they think it's all real. At the end of the show, the actors come forth and admit that they're indeed acting. It's considered by many to be a spoof on reality tv, but it indeed is a reality tv show. It's entertaining, humorous, and at times quite depressing. I think that it would make an excellent classroom tool for psychology teachers.

Mad Mad House is a very strange reality tv show. There's a witch, a vampire, a naturist, a voodoo momma, and some weird guy with **** all over his body (tattoos and peircings). It's basically a show where they bring on these normal folks and make them live and experience life in a house with people of other...lifestyles? It's interesting to see how well these people are able to adapt to the situations they're presented with, and whether or not they're able to put aside their beliefs to experience new things (christians participating in witchcraft, etc). The vampire guy was a bit goofy, but in the end, they were all relatively intelligent and offered the participants a ton of good advice on life.

King of the Jungle is my favorite. This in Animal Planet's version of reality tv. It's basically a game show where people live and learn in the jungle. On each episode they have trials, and the winner becomes the king for a day. This king gets to be the boss, of sorts, but there's a downside; they have to pick the 2 people out of the group that will go head to head in an animal trivia game. The game is well planned, except for the fact that everyone seems to know almost every answer, so in the end it came down to who had the quickest hands. I really enjoy this show, because I enjoy learning about animals, and you're bombarded with animal facts each day. Nothing like an educational reality tv show.

In the end, many reality tv shows are horrible, while many are quite entertaining. I would guess that they all have something to offer, depending on ones taste. I think that people who dismiss these shows without actually watching many of them, are simply being trendy and irritating. We all, even those of us who watch them, understand and acknowledge your anti-voyeurism advocacy, but denying that many of these shows are entertaining, is flat out close-minded and ridiculous. Many of the shows have redeeming value (as I've mentioned above), and although I dislike the majority of reality tv shows that I've seen, some of them are quite good. There's a reality tv show out there for everyone, and if there isn't one you like now, there probably will be. Although many people are anti-reality tv these days, they always seem to fail to realize that this concept has been used on television for ages, in many forms, it's just become it's own genre as of late, and I don't see that as a bad thing. There are far worse things on television. Ever seen anything on MTV (half of those shows border on reality tv, and have for years)? I rest my case.