One of the few moral values taught in my childhood, was to filter what I viewed on television. The rationale seemed unreasonable, but I am now grateful for the discernment. Since, have been a couple years in my adult life in which I consumed free cable in my home. I could never imagine paying a company to rob my time and mind or distort my perspective. This time, I got sucked into a madness called reality television.
Many of the reality shows I experienced, specifically on VH1 and MTV, were too excruciating to watch, yet I couldn’t seem to help myself in amazement. I could describe the contestants as Jerry Springer guests with Botox and breast augmentation, the clowns of America’s ludicrous. The network rakes in money without having to pay any actors, writers nor directors, all the while destroying the viewing eyes with ignorance.
There was an infestation of them on my television; Rock of Love, I Love New York, For the Love of Ray J, Shot at Love, Daisy of Love, Real Chance of Love, Flavor of Love (see a theme?) and many more disturbances. I was perplexed that a majority of these upsetting shows were spin offs of a prior one, many of the same people kept reappearing on another reality show with the same theme. Nonetheless, they must have some popularity if they continue to make replicas.
Pulling the audience in like an accident or freak show, one can’t help but watch in bewilderment. Their shows would generally parade obnoxious, foul, and ill-natured women whom are sexually driven to draw in coveted viewers. The pathetic display of ignorance is centered on drama created between contestants, in which each is literally fighting for the love of some washed-up-untalented celebrity just as barbarous. By no means is genuine love ever established, instead it appears as an excuse to become publicly dissipated and humiliated. These “reality shows” left me feeling psychologically disturbed.
Although I do not believe these particular shows to be anybody’s reality, it is portrayed as such and to give this idea to the impressionable seems all too immoral. We are impacting our youth with distorted means of courting as well as the easily influenced that may perceive this as a reality for a search of love. Even if the viewer knows that what they are watching is fictitious, they are still influence by it. Do these shows justify ignorance and apathy in the average viewer by watching someone idiotic? Is the satisfaction in such a program to numb the mind or is this truly reality? We have come back to animal behavior without mindfulness. This representation of today’s culture is terrifying.
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar. ~Edward R. Murrow
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