A few weeks ago our class, “Social Media: Technology and Culture”, we watched the documentary “We Live in Public”. The documentary highlighted a technological experimenter Josh Harris. He was an extremely odd man who liked to dress up on clowns as well as take on extreme social projects. Two of which were internet based reality TV shows, before reality TV shows. His projects were in the 90’s, before Paris Hilton created the fame of the Kardashians and before MTV made it’s arguably last success in The Jersey Shore. In his first major experiment he convinced men and women to come live in the shelter of his creation where they would be filmed constantly. They partied, shot guns, went someone crazy and lived in complete public. The second was him and his live in girlfriend who decided to put their entire lives out there for anyone to watch. After watching this documentary I went home with it hot on my mind considering all the things that were just simply wrong with the level of openness that Harris had created. When I got home, my roommates were watching The Jersey Shore. We had recently invested in a Roku and now had access to watch out favorite middle school documentaries from the beginning. First of all, highly recommend doing that it is so much more funny now that we have grown out of thinking Snookie was cool. Second of all, the thought came up in my mind about how much the show was scripted, or pushed to be a certain type of entertaining. I started thinking that the difference between Harris’ shows where people may have acted different due to knowing the camera was there, but having no push to say or do anything specific, his second show where internet viewers may have written in on the chat and instigated things asked questions, and the Jersey Shore which obviously has some hidden writers behind it. I googled my question and found the article, “'Bachelor' creator claims '70 to 80 percent' of reality TV is fake” on Today.com. The cation says it all. A creator of a major reality TV show with 8 million viewers came out and admitted that the shows are majority scripted. In the article, Mike Flies, Bachelor creator, claims that his prior work with the show “House Hunters” he learned that much of the action on the popular series is setup and reenacted for effect. He then explains that although reality tv shows today do have orchestrated moments created by writers and producers, fans also play a large role, similar to Harris and his girlfriend being influenced to act different based on fans writing into their chats. Viewers are in fact on Twitter, SnapChat and Facebook, reacting to what they see on their favorite reality TV shows. Often, this gives the shows ideas of what the viewers want to see and would be most surprised to see.
Relating back to my original question, is reality TV Reality? Was it ever reality even back when Harris started out the idea with simple experiments. I would argue that everyone is influenced by the people around them and their input, no matter what medium the influence is being voiced through.
I have to say, I know very little about the Kardashians, so when you said that Paris Hilton had a hand in helping them rise to fame, I was surprised – maybe it’s common knowledge though, maybe I’ve been hiding under a rock. I also never watched Jersey Shore, but it’s interesting that Snookie was considered the cool one by younger audiences. The scripting of reality shows is a topic that is discussed almost every time a new reality show is introduced – people will say “oh, they did this this for publicity” or “they’re only dating to get attention,” etc. I think it’s so weird how we treat these people like celebrities, especially since they are supposedly “normal people” on a show that shows their everyday lives. It must be surreal on their end, too; imagine being the star of your own show based on your own life and having no one know you one day and then suddenly EVERYONE know you the next day. You have a good point in distinguishing the extent to which outside influences played a role in Harris’ projects (the first one was based on surveillance alone, the second was based on both surveillance and other people’s input), and how you carried this idea over to apply it to reality TV (the staging of most moments on “The Bachelor” and “House Hunters,” etc.). I have to agree with your argument that the name “reality” doesn’t really describe reality TV, because people’s actions change with surveillance and are subjects that can be exploited for drama and profit.
ReplyDeleteI think that everything on television (or online, like in Josh Harris' case in the late 90s) is scripted, and therefore not entirely real. People who work on producing television shows need to make the money that they are spending on creating the show back somehow. If these shows like Jersey Shore were actually unscripted and a true reality show, the show probably wouldn't have been as successful as it was. There wouldn't have been as much drama as there (appeared) to be on the show, which in turn would have most likely made it boring and no one would want to watch it.
ReplyDeleteWe watch television as entertainment, to ignore our real-world issues for a little while. Imagine if there was an unscripted reality show that was really just following people through their daily lives while they're living in a house with a bunch of strangers? Most likely, nothing would happen and not be entertaining, so it wouldn't be an "escape from reality" for the viewers, it would just be like watching their own lives playing out.
But this does make me think about Josh Harris' experiment in "We Live in Public" and if that was truly reality. If you think about it, most of the people taking part in that experiment was under the influence of drugs or other substances, so they were most likely not acting like how they typically would when they're sober. So, to me, this would not make it reality, because people who live in reality and are watching these things for entertainment are typically not under the influence of drugs like those in "We Live in Public" were.
I agree with you that people are influenced by the people around them no matter what. If I was on TV, I'd be acting different depending on who I was on TV with. If I was on a reality dating show, and I didn't have any friends on that island or wherever, I'd be very quiet and keep to myself. If me and my single friends went on the show together, however, I'd be dancing on tables, the whole 9 yards. I think that's the "reality" part. If I partied with random people on reality TV, I'd be doing it because someone asked me to for the show and not because I'd be doing it anyway.
ReplyDeleteReality TV makes me think of Youtubers. I love content creators like Colleen Ballinger and Jenna Marbles. Colleen was just in a Broadway musical, and she does live shows, etc. She very much just films what she does every day and uploads several videos a week on her main channel and her character Miranda Sings' channel. Jenna, however, comes up with video ideas every week. In a way, one could argue that Colleen shows more of her "real" life because she just turns the camera on and talks to us. Jenna usually makes something with her dogs, makeup, food, art, or something with her boyfriend. I do wonder what Jenna does every day. She uploads weekly on Wednesdays/Thursdays, and her audience doesn't hear from her very much beyond that. I know Colleen's life much more than I do Jenna's; I adore them both, but just something to think about.
I agree with you how reality TV is fake and how shows like Jersey Shore or Keeping Up with the Kardashians aren’t actually real and is scripted. I think that reality TV shows are entertaining to an extent but sometimes it’s annoying seeing how dumb people really are for fame. MTV shows like Are You The One or Ex on the Beach make me cringe because it’s all fake love just like The Bachelor. I’m so shocked with what you said about how the creator of The Bachelor came out saying that almost 80% of reality shows are not real. None of the relationships actually work out from any dating reality show. It truly is all fake. I mean I figured that was the case but I didn’t think it would be that high of a percentage. It blows my mind that these people make stupid crazy amounts of money for acting stupid on television. People really do act different when there is a camera in front of their face and will do anything for attention. What makes me think about reality MTV shows is, is it really worth it to embarrass yourself on television? Is it even worth the money? Because once something is out there on TV or the Internet it’s literally there forever and you can’t undo the actions you’ve done on TV.
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