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< | Title [Work in Progress] | >
> | _April i_s the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
-T.S. Elliot | | | | |
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< | "For the actual 'real world', see Reality." - Wikipedia's entry on The Real World reality program. | >
> | Title | | | | |
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< | Introduction
In his classic novel 1984, George Orwell imagines a future where the state surveils its citizens through ubiquitous two-way television screens. Orwell famously warns: Big Brother is watching you. In the year 2000, amid the ever-increasing reality of state surveillance, the CBS television network debuted a program which heralded a strange inversion of Orwell's vision; suddenly, everyone was watching Big Brother. | >
> | Intro | | | | |
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> | Creeds | | | | |
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< | What is reality tv?
The term Reality TV describes a genre of television programs that are diverse in content and format. From dating games and talent competitions, to hidden camera shows and simple documentaries, the spectrum of Reality Television is quite broad. Generally speaking, however, these programs share two major characteristics: (1) they are (ostensibly) unscripted and (2) they feature regular people, as opposed to actors. | >
> | Nationalism | | | | |
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< | Why does it matter?
I'm not sure yet. | | | | |
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< | The Meaning of Entertainment
Exposé
Escapism
Voyeurism | >
> | Pride | | | | |
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< | The Human Narrative
Anagnorisis/Peripeteia
News as Entertainment
Guilty Pleasures | >
> | Character | | | | |
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< | (D)evolution of Entertainment
Comedy and Tragedy
Celebrity Culture
Though not strictly speaking reality television, the culture – or perhaps more fittingly, cult – of celebrity obsession shares many of the same themes. Journalists stalk celebrities day and night, hoping to splash the tabloid pages with an unflattering photo or an embarrassing anecdote. It seems as though there is nothing we won’t consume – photos of actors doing mundane things, pictures of celebrity babies, mug shots. The tabloids themselves recognize and mock the absurdity of their own project – “Celebrities are just like us!” – yet somehow it endures. | >
> | Utility | | | | |
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< | Celebrity as a Causa Sui
A curious sub-set of the celebrity culture are seemingly _ celebrities. | >
> | Blame | | | | |
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< | The Truman Show and First Person Media
Pornography
Self-exposure for Profit | >
> | Faith | | | | |
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< | Commodifying the Human Experience
The Cultural Fire Sale
In 2006 Time Magazine named You it's "Person of the Year," declaring that we are all part of "a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube? and the online metropolis MySpace? ." The recognition of you, the average man, as the "Person of the Year" was, of course, an affirmation of the digital revolution; the advent of a new brand of culture, democratized by personal media. The new technologies that foster and facilitate our so-called digital revolution have done more than just expand the ways we communicate; they've discovered new, almost limitless possibilities for what and how we consume.
Value-Added Living
Reality as a Product
In the classical economic model, wealth was generated almost exclusively by the production and sale of goods (explained very well by puppets here). Human activity was not widely consumed as entertainment, because there were very few ways to transmit performances. Performance-entertainment was generally limited only to live performances of music, theater or sporting events. The boundaries between consumption and production were clearly defined.
As our technological capabilities expanded, enabling us record and transmit our activities with ease, the classical model of production and wealth-generation gives way to a new model - a model of nearly limitless consumption, where all things have economic value. Suddenly, the mundane activities of daily life become a value-generating, consumable product, by virtue of the simple fact that they are watchable; reality itself becomes an economic good.
-MTV's "True Life"; Web Cam shows
Division Between Labor and Leisure
On MTV's My Super Sweet 16 viewers are invited to watch wealthy teen girls as they plan extravagant parties. The girls don't hesitate to admit that they need to out-do their friends and impress their guests, the more ostentatious the better. It is tempting deem this behavior as conspicuous and unproductive consumption - and generally it would be - but in the new, post-industrial media economy, it becomes something different. These young girls aren't simply buying expensive goods, they are being filmed buying expensive goods, and by doing so, they are actually, in a way, producing. Activity that was once purely consumptive is here transformed into a product, to be sold to advertisers and consumed by the MTV audience.
The Promise of Democracy
What's it mean?
The reality tv phenomenon is a token of a broad, fundamental shift in the structure of our economy. Imagine the possibilities of a society in which all forms of human behavior are commodities.
The Synthetic A Priori: A New Understanding of Consumption
Shantih, shantih, shantih
-- JuliaS - 29 Mar 2008
Julia - Interestingly, I understood the proliferation of pornography under the same themes - expose, escapism, and voyeurism. Plus, pornography is reality to boot, if, by reality, I mean a non-fictional and non-imitative simulation of 'real world' events. On this basis, it is closer to Good Morning America than No Country for Old Men.
You should check out this You Tube video which is tangentially related in intellectual mood rather than actual substance of reality tv, but it may inspire some ideas for you on a possible purpose of reality tv.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQEBDoi5MyE
-- JesseCreed - 29 Mar 2008
Great video. I hadn't considered how pornography might fit in, but the more I do, the more supremely relevant it seems. Thanks a lot, Jesse!
-- JuliaS - 30 Mar 2008
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> | Shantih, shantih, shantih. |
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