I Have Awful Taste in Television

Reality television: opponents have called it such things as morally corrupt, unethical and void of even a fundamental code of decency. Viewers have been accused of being voyeurs and aggressive by nature. Come on, as the Joker would say: "Why so serious?". It certainly isn't Stephen Spielberg caliber work, or even Ron Jeremy caliber- it's just cheap entertainment.

Individuals "cast" on these shows are certainly entertaining to watch, and the producers do a great job of selecting them. They do some pretty silly and crazy stuff and repeatedly embarrass themselves... so why do so many people show up on dating shows to compete for the attention of undesirable celebrities such as Flavor Flav and Brett Michaels? Well, a cast member (not the star of the show) makes an average of $3000/day for allowing their antics to be filmed 24/7. It should also be no surprise that many a "Reality TV Star" is in fact an aspiring actor, model or musician. I guess they aren't so much competing for love as for another day's pay and exposure.

I do a lot of reading- I like books about science and theory; I'm interested in news and current events; I like to listen to different music and go to concerts. I've never liked soap operas and rarely enjoy TV dramas... so I'm not sure what the initial attraction to trashy reality shows was for me. My intellectual decline began when I became caught up in Flavor of Love a couple years ago. Since then I have continued to watch the stream of series created to leave viewers in a state of shock and amusement. I think the difference between reality TV and most sitcoms and other serial shows is that these reality shows are actually funny!

Sometimes when I come home from work or hard exercise, I just want to relax for a little bit. Instead of doing something that would require effort I would rather watch people that tried to date Flavor Flav compete in challenges for $250,000 (I Love Money: Season 2, Sundays at 11:30am, re-airing many times during the week).

Of course, not all reality shows are that trashy. I've watched many seasons of The Biggest Loser. I'll admit, I start to care about these people. It makes me really happy to see them lose weight and start to feel better about themselves. A show was also made to help contestants from the infamous VH1 shows improve their poor behavior (I don't think it worked too well though).

So in closing: yes, these shows are mostly stupid; yes, I will continue to watch them; yes, you can continue to make fun of me for it.