By Austin Zinnel
Anxiety,
depression, getting turned down by that cute girl in your geometry class,
everyone has moments in their lives where they want to escape from
reality. For a couple of popular people
that is their everyday life. Either by
living their everyday life or by sharing it on a talent show, these people have
lost all privacy in an attempt to become recognized by many. Why is it that these people who were nothing
are now being seen as national idols?
Well, it all started with a normal family. According to Tim Gray, a writer at
Variety.com, reality television has been around since 1971 with documentary An
American Family. The American Family was
a documentary about the Loud family, a middle-class family growing up together. But, instead of recording and posting the
good times the family went through the show focused on the drama of the family
and thus reality television was born.
When asked what the first thing they thought of
was when the words “reality television” were spoke freshman student Isaac
Masters confidently replied, “Following around famous people doing not so
famous things. I think it’s just the
people behind the camera forcing the people to do certain things but what the
heck do I know.” Another University of
Northern Iowa student Collin Sedlaceak said, “I think it’s just following
around anybody in daily life. Keeping up
with Kardashians is just following them around.
I think they are just off there rockers.” When Collin was asked if he thought it was all
real he replied, “I’m not a hundred percent sure but a lot of it probably is
real. I mean I can’t imagine these
people making a fool of themselves on purpose.”
Even People agrees writing an article saying that it is all fake. That brings me to very pertinent thought
though. What does it mean to be
fake? These people, whether they be
actors or just other people are still living their lives. Now these people’s lives are recorded and
constantly monitored but still this is there life. Is everything dictated for them? Whether or not it is still a real life that
they are living.
According to some proof laid out by Christian
Guiltenane, writer at Digital Spy, it might be fake. In their article they wrote called, about
shocking moments that happened on reality television that was a little too
coincidental to be real. Three of the five agreed with Christian but two of the student believe it is all
editing. “I am a digital media major and
I can say that this is mostly editing.
The Kardashians and the people on the real world probably are just
living their normal lives. When
something happens or they get into a fight an editor puts a bunch of clips
together to make it seem like there is always drama. It is done with trailers all the time. Don’t believe what you see on television?”
stated junior Jack Kraft. If we can’t
believe what we see on television who can we believe? At least we can still watch American Idol and
America’s Got Talent without any tampering or so you would believe.
According to award winning entertainment
journalist Diane Anderson-Minshall there have been a lot of people come out
and say that even the competition shows are rigged. Who’s to say that this isn’t just a contestant
being mad that they didn’t win. If you
have watched any of the competition-based shows like The Voice, America’s Got
Talent, or American Idol you find that most contestants have a sappy backstory
to go along with it. “Why is it that
people who have blatant talent don’t get chosen while these average singers get
all the fame because of a tragedy that happened in their life. I think they should pick these winners off
the talent alone” stated Domeyer passionately.
Samantha Syonesa chipped into this discussion by saying, “not only do
they pick based on backstory, but the judges have to much say in the
voting. It is almost like they are
swaying you to one direction.” On
America’s Got Talent voting works like this, judges pick and choose the best
acts for the first 2 rounds. Next the
voting goes to the audience and the viewing audience chooses who stays and
who goes. The judges while this is all
happening get to buzz people out and chip in their own advice on who they think
should stay and who they think should go.
This is not to say the audience isn’t a big part of the show. The audience can affect the show more than
you can even imagine.
“I don’t really like how these competition
types of shows are run but I can’t help falling in love with some of them. The Bachelor is my favorite show. I really like how much the audience can
interact with the show. For example,
there was this guy named Grocery Store Joe who was voted off on day one. But the audience brought him back” said Syonesa. She then went on to explain that she could
see some of these shows being set up or fake but couldn’t see a show like The Bachelor being set up like that.
What does all this mean? Are all reality shows fake? That is all up to you and your reality. Reality television is an American pastime
that we shall have over the ages.
Whether you believe it is fake is up to you. These shows are meant to entertain and engage
audience interaction. So sit back and
relax, watch some Keeping up with Kardashians and live your own reality.
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