By Ashley Wood/south news editor
Reality shows are on nearly every television network, and none of them seem original anymore.
Reality television has been around since the 1940s when Candid Camera started, but the last 10 years has made liking the shows difficult.
When Survivor, Big Brother and American Idol were in their infancies, I watched them religiously because they were unique. Now, these shows have been worn out and repeated.
These new shows are utterly disgusting to watch. Not only is the Honey Boo Boo child disrespectful to watch, but her show promotes younger children to have horrible eating and drinking habits.
A new show called Married at First Sight launched recently as an experiment by relationship experts to match the perfect pair, marry them for a month and then have them decide if they want to stay married or get divorced. How can you learn everything you need to know about someone after only a month of dating or marriage?
Dating reality series are getting repetitive as well. I mean, c’mon, you can only watch so many seasons of The Bachelor. Now they have Dating Naked on VH1, but with its self-explanatory title how does that actually benefit television viewing.
According to The Today Show website, 82 percent of viewers believe the shows are “totally made up or mostly distorted.”
If a viewer knows it is totally false, why continue to watch it? Easy, the drama is enticing.
Many people, myself included, hated The Jersey Shore but continued to tune in because we wanted to see that fight or break-up. The networks continue to put shows like that on TV by keeping with the demand of dramatic relationships.
Not every reality show is a disgrace. Shows like The Biggest Loser, Amazing Race and even Dancing with the Stars showcase normal people and a few celebrities either overcoming physical, mental or emotional barriers or just dancing to some awesome beats.
A survey from the Girl Scouts Research Institute showed girls who regularly tuned into reality shows suffer from bullying and aggression. The reality shows only further these symptoms. It outwardly solicits screaming as acceptable and appropriate behavior during an argument.
Reality needs to get back to its roots of being real and having real situations with honest emotions. Networks need to take notice of the trend away from reality television and worry about the actual scripted series that flop.
