Blame the Real World
Remember MTV’s The Real World? I’m dating myself, but I remember watching The Real World religiously. I loved that show, then Road Rules. Honestly, I didn’t really watch Road Rules, but I did watch Real World/Road Rules Challenge. I blame MTV for ruining TV as we knew it. In two ways specifically. One, The Real World, in my opinion, was the advent of reality tv and The Real World/Road Rules Challenge was the advent of reality competition shows. These two shows created the monster of reality tv and started the breakdown of society’s moral fabric. I know you’re thinking, “Traci, isn’t that a bit melodramatic?” Okay, yes it is a bit melodramatic but think about it.
When The Real World first aired, the narration was something about seven strangers picked to live in a house and have it filmed. When they stop being polite and start getting real. Then you got some arguing, then more arguing and hook ups with each season getting worse. Fast forward to 2017 and just about anything goes. So now we have a whole generation that grew up and are growing up watching “reality shows” that highlights the worst in human behavior. The fights have gotten more violent,and the hook ups really don’t leave much to the imagination especially on cable tv. These shows also perpetuate the myth that women cannot get along. This is a myth, and for young girls these days, we need to emphasize that female friendships are the best. Nurturing and cultivating female friendships can be the greatest. The relationships that you have with your girlfriends can be the thing that gets you through the hard times. The feeling you have when you can rely on your friends for middle of the night phone calls gives peace of mind. You don’t have to go through the worst of times all alone. This is something you don’t find on reality tv and the same goes for men. I’m a woman though, so can only give you my female point of view. Being mean spirited, fighting and back stabbing is the staple for some reality shows (You know which ones they are). That’s not the only problem with reality tv, the reality competition shows (not all) defeat the purpose of being on a team.
The reason I never could really watch Road Rules was because of one very good reason. Kicking the teammate off the island off the team. This completely undermines being a team. It always killed me to watch a team work together to win a competion then minutes later be in a meeting voting who to kick off the team. This goes against what it means to be on a team, which is why parents sign up their kids for team sports. To learn how to work together as a team to achieve their goal. I will never understand that mindset and now it is so prevalent, kids these days think it’s normal to be a team player then stab one of your teammates in the back because there can only be one winner. What kind of lesson is that to teach? I mean competitions like that only show one thing. You can’t trust anyone, even if you’re on the same team. That seems sad to me. In this day and age, that parents are working 10–12 hours a day and the kids are left to stay at home and watch tv, what are they learning? I think it’s teaching them that you can only get ahead and win if you are manipulative, form fake alliances, lie and step all over people. People who by the way are supposed to be on your “team”.
I don’t think this is going to change anytime soon. I think being a “team player” or working as a team at work as well as play is now just a foreign concept. I think that’s just sad.
None of these shows are going away anytime soon, as a matter of fact, more really bad reality shows are coming. So I’m going to hope that even though we are still being infested by horrible reality tv shows, we also start getting more creative and interesting “scripted” shows. In the meantime, I am very happy that I love to read because it looks like I’m going to be reading a lot.
