Reality TV

[Metalhead]

I have been watching Confessions of Animal Hoarders. It is trashy reality TV.

I am a hypocrite for judging my sister’s taste in trashy reality TV - Married at First Sight.

Who else watches this garbage?

 

[Richelle-H]

I honestly do not understand the attraction. I also think calling it "reality" TV is a bit of a stretch due to the editorial bias enforced by the creators and producers of said series.

It is a distorted reality through editing. Calling these shows unscripted may be technically true, but you cannot convince me that the editing of these shows is not tightly scripted.

So NO, I don't watch these shows, no matter their ilk, and the competitive game shows are another area of "reality" TV that defies logic (I mean "Hamster vs Human", that is one step too far into idiocy for me to contemplate, much less dare to watch! As the saying goes: Stupid human tricks!)

Watch away, if you must. I would never deny anyone that. I will quietly nod, shrug my shoulders, and refrain from shaking my head.

 

[Jumpinbare]

I wouldn't go so far as to call them unscripted.

 

[Judge]

My cousin raves about shows like that. Though I know under certain other circumstances there are any number of persons seeking to get married and very quickly at that. Love not required. Though I do watch each season of "Big Brother". So sue me...lol. But that's about it.

I always think of the king of reality tv Mark Burnett, who always smiles and winks when he refers to it as "unscripted drama". A bit exaggerated if you manage to have a lengthy conversation with an actual contestant/winner of such kind of tv programming. That while such productions may not follow a formal script, they can be heavy-handed in deliberately manipulating various outcomes, apart that contestants can have some elaborate contractual obligations to the network in the process.

So....."Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

 

[Metalhead]

A friend of mine told me that he suspected the reason I was watching the Animal Hoarders show was so I could judge the people on the show harshly, taking their personal inventories while ignoring my own. He does have a point there. Those shows do tend to exploit mental illness.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

I do not trust "reality" TV. While things may not be fully scripted, I am sure that to get eyes on the show producers manipulate some aspects of it to create drama. I don't like such dishonesty.

 

[thejuice]

I expect it's very cheap to produce

 

[Metalhead]

I have started watching TV series where people take biohazard levels of trashy homes and make them sparkly clean by the end of the episode. Those shows are oddly satisfying for me to watch.

 

[Ken]

I wouldn't go so far as to call them unscripted.

I worked for eight years as a broadcast engineer at a local TV station. We had a very large studio where a reality TV show was produced.
You are right, it is indeed scripted, just written and produced in a fashion to look "real" and unscripted.
I grew a major contempt and disdain for all reality TV shows as I knew it is all produced to play on peoples attraction to trash and cheap gossip.
The studio was very large where elaborate sets could be built and also with lots of green screen capability. Could easily fake any outdoor setting.

 

[Jumpinbare]

I worked for eight years as a broadcast engineer at a local TV station. We had a very large studio where a reality TV show was produced.
You are right, it is indeed scripted, just written and produced in a fashion to look "real" and unscripted.
I grew a major contempt and disdain for all reality TV shows as I knew it is all produced to play on peoples attraction to trash and cheap gossip.
The studio was very large where elaborate sets could be built and also with lots of green screen capability. Could easily fake any outdoor setting.

I knew this had to be the case, but you are the first reliable source to confirm it. Besides the corniness for the interactions, and camera angles that just wouldn't happen in any reality setting, there's the legal issue of actual people being filmed in embarrassing circumstances would make such an endeavor prohibitively expensive.

But again, it is good to see confirmation that I had it right.