Reality Shows are the Mind Candy I Crave
Observations on the not-quite showbiz lives of the beautiful and well-dressed
It’s embarrassing to admit, but I know I’m not alone. I like my mind candy and its called reality television. Specifically, my favorites are Southern Charm and The Real Housewives of New York City both on the Bravo channel. These shows bring in anywhere from 1.2 Million to over 2 Million viewers each week within the coveted 18–49-year old viewing demographic.
Southern Charm is set in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina. The show follows the lives of the young, the beautiful, and the ostensibly well-heeled cast of mostly 30-somethings. The group attends polo matches, lunches at trendy brewpubs, enjoys some weekend traveling, and has even dated among themselves. My other go-to show, The Real Housewives of New York City, has a simliar format only the show follows the lives of a more middle-aged crowd, who are also beautiful, well dressed, and are indeed well-heeled. They, too, have lovely lunches, travel domestically and globally, and attend various parties complete with champagne, all while putting competitive personalities on display, avoiding drunk punches, and providing damage control from loose lips who let a secret slip.
It’s not just Bravo cornering the market on unscripted dramas. Whether it be The Bachelor, Survivor, or Keeping Up with The Kardashians, our culture is hooked on many different reality series. Nor is reality TV is new, although it clearly found a growing market in the early 1990s. It dates back to shows in the 1960s and 1970s such as The Dating Game, Candid Camera, and The Gong Show, and even to 1950 with “This is Your Life.”
While most of our former reality TV centered around game shows, MTV’s The Real World took the genre to a new level by following the lives of young adults in New York City. The show premiered in 1992 and was a huge success (so much so that soon the “M” in MTV became a misnomer because Music Television didn’t show music videos anymore.) I watched that first season and fell in love with certain individual members, cheering for their career successes, love lives, and cast mate friendships. I can still name the entire cast. I was 20 years old myself.
We know that these “reality” shows are not 100% real, but they aren’t fully scripted either. While the characters are put into director-created situations, their personal histories and families are authentic as are their reactions to the series of unscripted circumstances. And thus, we love pulling for these people. And hating them. And sometimes loving them one season and then hating them the next.
Why are we interested in such voyeuristic behavior? Experts say we feel connected to these characters as we become less connected in our real lives. We may have 1,000 Facebook “friends,” yet, most are truly not really friends at all. We are searching for connections with other humans. Dr. Jana Scrivani, a licensed clinical psychologist, says “over time, we come to see the folks portrayed on the screen as friends. We identify with their struggles and triumphs.”
In 2016, two scientists, Michal Hershman Shitrit and Jonathan Cohen from The University of Haifa in Israel tested their theories that viewers were either watching for empathy or humiliation. They concluded in the Journal of Media Psychology that empathy motivated our viewing more.
I think the humiliation point is more a misunderstanding of how watching reality TV makes us feel better about ourselves. How often do fans catch ourselves thinking “I would never do or say that!” While that sounds like a arrogant reason for viewers to be watching, I truly believe the vast majority of viewers are watching out of affinity and cheering on their favorite cast mates from the comfort of their own sofa. They aren’t actually feeding off of humiliation. For instance, this season on Southern Charm, the bad girl in past seasons, Kathryn Dennis, has seemingly turned her life around. While I used to have little respect for her, I now have hope and am pulling for her success.
Because regardless of what initially drew our attention, human trials, tribulations, and personal growth sometimes make the best-told narratives. It is as if my mind is gorging on candy.
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