Socrates declared, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” 3,000 years later, with the remarkable proliferation and success of reality television shows, it seems that the life not lived on television is not worth living. After all, television is a gigantic refractory, a community writ large on an increasingly large screen. Television represents a built-in community, and it is no wonder people want to be a part of it. It is like high school, where everyone talks about the popular kids and wants to be popular, too. On reality television you are the popular kid because everyone is watching you. Even though most of us never liked the popular kids — they were arrogant, imperious, and often cruel — they were still the unchallenged leaders of the rest of us. And similarly to the pedestal on which we place celebrities, (what they wear, who they date, what they have to say about anything is of perennial interest to most of America) the popular kids were regarded with a certain undeserved awe and fascination.
Living a life on television has built-in advantages. In exchange for displaying yourself on national television in humiliating and denigrating situations, you get a writer — yes, the existence of writers on unscripted reality shows should give you an indication of “reality television” as a particular sort of euphemism — director, editor, producer, lighting, make-up, hair, and maybe even a theme song. Who among us have not wished for dulcet tones as we walk through certain moments of our lives?
The predilection of many Americans to be on television may be an urge for acceptance in a monumentally large community. While globalization makes the world feel smaller, mass media makes the individual feel small enough to dance with a thousand others on the head of a pin. More people than ever live in metropolitan and suburban areas. How many of us know our neighbors down the street, or in our apartment building? Does anyone ever “visit” with neighbors anymore on a balmy summer evening? More likely we sit in front of our televisions or feel the glow from our computer screens as we IM or “chat” about our favorite shows. Small Town America may now be a distant echo from our past. As a result, our sense of community is lost. If you’re on television, on the other hand, everybody knows you. If you’re watching shows about other people’s “real” lives, you are a member of the neighborhood. The whole world becomes your town.
In Your Town, you can express every emotion, all in front of a camera that beams a picture out to millions in Your Community. You can “catch” your partner cheating on you, find a “soul mate” or just go out on a date. You can compete with others for money that’s not worth the degradation you endure to win it. At every moment, there is a neighbor there to see you through it.
There is, at this point, very little that isn’t “real” on television in terms of non-professional actors — sure, there are plenty of wannabes, but let’s be serious about their chances of success. Something is always staged, a circumstance is contrived, a story concocted in the writers room manufactured in the editing bay.
Shows like “The Jerry Springer Show” and “Maury” are today’s reality shows’ forbears. Contriving a life for a nationwide audience has become a way for people to seek approbation or support from the only community that matters: recognition. People rail and cry, confess and accuse, and general express only the most extreme end of the emotional spectrum so as to ensure a response from the monumentally large community of viewers.
Where, then, does this leave us as a society of reality show participants and the viewers so keen to be ones? Will people only pay attention to us if we participate in television society? Will it soon be the case that everyone is on television? Perhaps. But if reality television is the future of community, and the whole community is on TV, what will happen when there is no one left to watch?
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