July 17, 2003

Real Reality

What is up with all this reality-TV? How barren must your own life be to motivate you to watch someone else doing whatever it is that they do in order to achieve some vicarious sense of being alive? Or can it be that the only way some of us can validate our own existence is by eavesdropping on others in order to see them do the same dumb things that we do?

And why is it impossible to turn on TV during the daytime without being bombarded by soaps, inane sitcoms, and hosted mayhem shows with themes like "Women who sleep with their brothers instead of their husbands?" Is the studio audience of these programs made up of folks who take pleasure in the misfortune and misdeeds of others? Are these the same people who hold up the supermarket check-out to read a few more paragraphs of gossip from the tabloids that line the aisles? Perhaps they are recruited from the hosts of drivers who slow down to get a better look at the carnage on the freeway.

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