Is Reality TV Superimposing Our Real Lives?

America loves watching real people living their lives on the boob tube. And why not? It's great for production companies; cheap labor, loose scripts, and minimal rehearsal add up to a great deal. And it's compelling television to look into windows of people's lives. Real life drama, and it could be your or me. Except it isn't our lives.

The idea of a televised talent competition isn't a new idea; Star Search was around decades ago. I don't consider there to be reality TV. In many ways these are variations of game shows, with participants competing for a prize. The opportunity to watch or participate in choosing singers, dancers, and models give us an affinity to them. We like relating to our stars, and having the chance to say "I remember when so-and-so was a competitor on X program, and now she's a star!" And we love to watch people compete, whether it's a race across the globe or to see if they are smarter than a grade schooler.

I'm talking about reality TV, where we watch celebrities live their personal lives, or we watch regular people thrust into an artificial setting, or planning and participating in some major life event. Reality TV has become a major part of television programming, but what is the effect on the viewers? With standard TV shows, we know that it's all imaginary, and while we find shows we love to follow, such as Lost, it's not a part of our lives any more than a book we read.

With reality TV, the rules are changed. Entertainment Tonight, People Magazine, E! TV, TMZ, and others have made an entire business out of minding other peoples business. And with reality TV, other people's business becomes our consumable fare far beyond what the celebrity news could ever provide. We watch the programs, follow the participants lives, get information on what they are up to, and soon we know as much about them as some of our closest friends. We watch out-takes, see live 24 hour cams, and soon enough, these people become old friends to us. Friends who do not share themselves with us, rather they share at us.

All this seems harmless, except they're not our friends; they are characters on TV who happen to be playing themselves. When we begin to pay as much attention to the lives of people we have never met as we do to our own friends and relatives, we run the risk of losing our connection to the immediate world around us. We can get lost in the fantasy world of an average person living in their Real World.

Maybe some of it is about the catharsis. Being able to see other we feel are less fortunate than us, or to be able to find solace in our own human condition through watching others' anguish. Or it could be that we use it as an opportunity to learn life lessons from others. To me, it seems like an opportunity to stop paying attention to our lives, by losing ourselves in someone else's. The nature of entertainment is to provide an escape from real life. But when we escape into someone else's real life, do we begin to lose the sense of unreality?

Perhaps years from now these programs will become a source of studying human interaction. Maybe this is an opportunity for us to glimpse the nature of human interaction, and group dynamics. But mostly, it's just something to watch. An opportunity to put our own lives on pause while we vicariously live someone else's. While this is no different than regular programming, it seems to me that people would benefit from talking about the people they interact with more than from talking about the people they watch. I had a conversation with my dad a few weeks ago about some celebrity in the news, and I asked him "wouldn't we be better served talking about our family?"

Don't get me wrong, I think reality TV is a brilliant idea, and it has changed the way both creators and watchers relate to television. All I'm saying is that I'd rather interact with the people in my life and their adventures than watch a stranger on TV interview for a job. But then again, it's far easier to be an observer than an active participant. Maybe someday we'll all be broadcasting our lives online, and there will be a ratings war to see who's life is more interesting. Or we could all be watching ourselves watching other people.