It’s no secret that, since the pandemic, we’ve experienced more loneliness firsthand. And that we are increasingly desperate to connect with others. It is also no secret that social networks have created a largely insatiable appetite for details into other people’s lives. Its the perfect storm for the entertainment genre that gives us an inside look into the lives of others from a distance: reality TV.
Donald Trump would not have made it to the White House without having first built his persona on the show “The Apprentice.” Kim Kardashian wouldn’t have secured her $1.8 billion fortune without previously spilling the tea on her family life on “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” And no one would know who Andrew Tate is (though we wouldn’t have missed much), if he hadn’t participated in the British edition of “Big Brother.” Unless you live under a rock, it’s impossible to deny the influence that reality television has on our society. The question is: Why are these shows so popular?
You’d think that only someone with nothing else to do, someone who’s bored of their own life, would sit down on a Thursday night, popcorn and blanket in hand, to watch an edited take of Cristiano Ronaldo’s wife’s daily life, or a group of young people “test” their relationships on “Temptation Island.” Or not. Approximately four in ten people watch reality shows to some extent. Maybe it’s that 40% of the population lives empty lives. Could be. Or maybe it’s not boredom but a desire rooted in knowing how others live their lives to answer the age-old question of how we should live our’s.
The art of observing other people’s lives
This is what literary critic Phyllis Rose believes. In her book “Parallel Lives: 5 Victorian Marriages,” she writes that “we all desperately want information about how others live their lives, because we want to know how to live ours. However, we have been taught that this desire is nothing more than unjustified curiosity.”
Gossip may be the beginning of moral inquiry, the low end of the platonic ladder which leads to self-understanding
And there are numbers to back this. According to a recent study carried out by consulting firm Gitnux, 56% of people who watch TV believe reality TV negatively influences society.
However, according to Rose, “gossip may be the beginning of moral inquiry, the low end of the platonic ladder which leads to self-understanding.” That’s why she argues that a discussion about the health of a marriage should be taken as seriously as one about presidential elections. The first is considered vile gossip, but both point to essential aspects of society and the human experience.
The idea that movies and literature can cause cathartic effects (pushing us to explore our emotions and showing us a path towards virtue through different characters) is not new. It dates back to Aristotle, who pointed out the ability of Greek tragedies to emotionally cleanse an audience as they identified with its characters.
Psychologist María Cartagena of the Serendipia Psicología clinic, told Aceprensa that this is the clearest reason why people enjoy reality TV so much: “The main reason we watch reality TV could very well be rooted in how strongly we identify with, are interested in, or empathize one participant or another.” When reality shows expose someone’s daily life, viewers can put themselves in the situations they see on TV and evaluate what they would do, what they believe would be the best way to act in that scenario, the psychologist pointed out.
Viewers who enjoy watching Kourtney and Kim Kardashian fight it out may have sisters themselves. So, seeing two people in the same family dynamic as them, or at least a similar one, can make them feel understood, or even help them navigate their own relationships, having benefitted from being a mere spectator. And, although you may not have anything in common with Georgina Rodríguez, protagonist of “I am Georgina,” it is likely watching her daily life will teach viewers something about the human experience, put them in the shoes of another person and invite them to connect with them.
This is, mutatis mutandis, the same thing that happens to us when reading a good book. However, the comparison between realty TV (or the Greek tragedies cited above) and great literature only goes so far. On the one hand, the psychological complexity of the characters characteristic of almost every great novella (and which mirror those of real-world people) does not usually come across in reality TV, which limits its offering to serving as a social snapshot. What’s more, the cathartic function of the tragedies to which Aristotle refers is explained because the plots would emphasize the morality of the acts represented, so that the spectator necessarily feels called to personally reflect. This impetus isn’t common in reality shows either, where the predominant tone is rather frivolous.
Using others for entertainment
There is another obvious difference between reading a Jane Austen novel and watching “The Bachelor.” And what may that be? It’s the fact that the casts of today’s reality shows are real people filmed and watched during their lifetimes. This creates a closer connection between viewers and cast, but at the same time, it poses a danger: their real lives are subsequently edited to create a narrative whose main purpose is to rake in as much money as possible, often by distorting and objectifying a person. María Cartagena says that, since the video we see is decisive to getting hooked on a program (and for it to be renewed for another season), “the original behavior and reactions” that cast members display is often doctored.
Reality show can cause the viewer to objectify the cast, turning them into objects for consumption
On the other hand, these shows often put their casts in extreme, emotionally devastating situations, to achieve that perfect plot twist, the best possible cliffhanger or the most realistic, authentic breakdown.
In fact, many shows, such as “Love is Blind” or “The Bachelor,” have been sued by their previous stars due to the unfair working conditions in which they were filmed, or even for alleged cases of racism or sexual abuse. Nick Thompson, who participated in the second season of “Love is Blind” (a “social experiment” in which several singles meet through a wall and get engaged before seeing each other), reported having been a victim of “psychological torture and manipulation.” by the producers of the show.
Furthermore, he says, his professional life was ruined: after appearing on the program he was fired from the software company where he worked, and now cant land a job because companies don’t take him seriously. His life was placed on a silver platter for everyone to analyze or outdo, and, as a result, he was marked with a scarlet letter. Of course, he knew perfectly well what he was signing up for, unlike the protagonist of the dystopia “The Truman Show.” But similarly, his emotions and personal experiences were turned into a commodity to be consumer by viewers.
Donald Trump’s experience, however, was radically different. The former American president made a name in America’s households through the reality show “The Apprentice” (2004-2011), where several people competed for a full-time position as an employee of the American mogul. The supervising editor of the first six seasons explained in an interview that the main objective was “to make Trump look good: for him to be perceived as someone wealthy, with legitimacy.” The truth is that the traits that characterized him in the show – his tendency to humiliate others, to generate chaos and conflict, and also his “candor” – were what led many Americans to vote for him in the 2016 elections, and marked his stay in the White House.
Reality TV reflects society… and shapes it
Reality TV functions, in part, as a mirror of society, but also as a mold. We’ll never know if the success of “The Apprentice” was due to the fact that American society already valued those personality traits that they later saw reflected in Trump, or if it was rather the program that made society take a liking to them. What we do know is that the protagonists of these shows often become archetypes of how human beings are supposed to live in the 21st century, and end up redefining, for an entire generation, concepts such as love, family or the ambition.
Other times the influence affects more “day-to-day” issues. For example, when Kim Kardashian started losing weight a year and a half ago, alarm bells went off that society would once again glorify extreme thinness. And, as already covered by Aceprensa, it wasnt an exaggeration: shortly thereafter people began talking about Ozempic.
As previously noted, its’s no secret that the pandemic increased the brushes we had with loneliness. Nor is it a secret that social networks have created an appetite for the details of other people’s lives. And, although cases like those of the Kardashians, Trump or Nick Thompson prove that putting other people’s lives on display during prime time has its usefulness (they teach us what we value as a society, and can even guide us on the path to self-knowledge), we can’t lose sight of the fact that those we’re watching are real, feeling individuals, no matter how big a desire we may have to “connect” with others.
Translated from Spanish by Lucia K. Maher