Is reality TV making us terrible people?
It’s all fun and games until someone dies… Literally. Forty reality TV show stars dead later; we still have not learned our lesson.
In the modern world, sensory overload is increasingly becoming common. Many of us routinely feel trapped in the endless cycle of bad news after bad news — countries are losing their freedom, Economies are on the verge of collapse, and unemployment is the highest it has ever been. When reality isn’t so great anymore, where do we go? For a lot of people, another version of it.
What is Reality TV?
Reality TV is a type of entertainment that puts ordinary people in situations created by the producers intended to show how they would behave. Supposedly, the production is unscripted and starring relatively ordinary people instead of professional actors.
In the early 2000s, we saw the rise of reality TV as we know it. Often within the bounds of occasionally intersecting seven core categories — documentary, competitions, makeover/renovation, hidden camera, supernatural, and travel.
Despite being branded as “reality”, reality shows still carry some degree of planning and typecasting. Like any good story, every show must have compelling characters that create tension. Show creators try their best to cast the kind of people that make good drama.
