We are insincere. We are untruthful. We are fanciful.
Which is why we invented television. Television is the summation of who we are as people. Our morals, obligations and perceptions. Which is why I hate reality tv so much. It depicts everyone who watches as glorying in the pain and humiliation of others. We are voyuers getting our thrills on demand no different from the perverts who do this for sexual gratification. Peeping toms who it has been decided have the license, nay permission to watch other people live their lives and take pleasure from it. Why we have even invented competitions around the same concept!
This is what wikipedia says about reality tv:
The genre covers a wide range of television programming formats, from game show or quiz shows which resemble the frantic, often demeaning Japanese variety show shows produced in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s (such as Gaki no tsukai), to surveillance- or voyeurism-focused productions such as Big Brother.
Reality television frequently portrays a modified and highly influenced form of reality, at times utilizing sensationalism to attract audience viewers and increase advertising revenue profits. Participants are often placed in exotic locations or abnormal situations, and are often persuaded to act in specific scripted ways by off-screen "story editors" or "segment television producers", with the portrayal of events and speech manipulated and contrived to create an illusion of reality through direction and post-production editing techniques.
Life is never tidy. It is very dirty, messy even and cannot be compartmentalised. It is rather difficult to confine all impressions into spaces infinitely smaller than the life itself. No event is too small, fleeting or insignificant that it should be missed. We do not need scripted reality. E. M. Forster wrote, "Inside a cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend," and "When real things are so wonderful, what is the use of pretending?"
And there is a lot of pretending. Scripts and editing. There is no reality. There are rehearsals off camera and no surprises. Lies.
There are endless hours spend doing nothing in a particularly thrilling day. When nothing happens. Nothing. Something that reality shows fail to acknowledge! So if we are going to pretend let us do so properly with enough pomp to ensure everyone is aware that this is not real.
peace,
fadz
Which is why we invented television. Television is the summation of who we are as people. Our morals, obligations and perceptions. Which is why I hate reality tv so much. It depicts everyone who watches as glorying in the pain and humiliation of others. We are voyuers getting our thrills on demand no different from the perverts who do this for sexual gratification. Peeping toms who it has been decided have the license, nay permission to watch other people live their lives and take pleasure from it. Why we have even invented competitions around the same concept!
This is what wikipedia says about reality tv:
The genre covers a wide range of television programming formats, from game show or quiz shows which resemble the frantic, often demeaning Japanese variety show shows produced in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s (such as Gaki no tsukai), to surveillance- or voyeurism-focused productions such as Big Brother.
Reality television frequently portrays a modified and highly influenced form of reality, at times utilizing sensationalism to attract audience viewers and increase advertising revenue profits. Participants are often placed in exotic locations or abnormal situations, and are often persuaded to act in specific scripted ways by off-screen "story editors" or "segment television producers", with the portrayal of events and speech manipulated and contrived to create an illusion of reality through direction and post-production editing techniques.
Life is never tidy. It is very dirty, messy even and cannot be compartmentalised. It is rather difficult to confine all impressions into spaces infinitely smaller than the life itself. No event is too small, fleeting or insignificant that it should be missed. We do not need scripted reality. E. M. Forster wrote, "Inside a cocoon of work or social obligation, the human spirit slumbers for the most part, registering the distinction between pleasure and pain, but not nearly as alert as we pretend," and "When real things are so wonderful, what is the use of pretending?"
And there is a lot of pretending. Scripts and editing. There is no reality. There are rehearsals off camera and no surprises. Lies.
There are endless hours spend doing nothing in a particularly thrilling day. When nothing happens. Nothing. Something that reality shows fail to acknowledge! So if we are going to pretend let us do so properly with enough pomp to ensure everyone is aware that this is not real.
peace,
fadz
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