The fascination of reality TV

Sometimes it feels that whenever I turn on the TV, there is always a reality show running, on one channel at least. It has become increasingly difficult to avoid watching these kinds of programs nowadays. I myself watch reality shows somewhat regularly, so their growing popularity is not a problem for me; quite the contrary in fact. And I think the same thing could be said not just about me but my mom, too.

        I have heard an expert say that the fascination with reality TV could be genetic. Scientists have also noticed a possible link between voyerism and the modern boom of reality TV shows. For example, there has been speculation that being nosey would have increased the odds of survival for primitive man tens of thousands of years ago.

        In my opinion, there are some really bad reality shows but there are some quite good ones as well. Then there are the ones you start following, but after a few weeks or months the show gets so boring or repetitious you just have to stop watching it. This kind of saturation has happened, at least to me, with the competition-based shows like Survivor or Amazing Race. Contestants rivaling with one another for a cash prize and engaged in building alliances and betraying allies just tends to bore me more and more these days. There are exceptions of course, for example Gordon Ramsay's famous Hell's Kitchen, which I somehow still find interesting enough to watch quite frequently, in spite of it being a competition-based show like the two mentioned above. I also like to watch Deadliest Catch, which is shown on Discovery Channel regularly.

        One show I used to watch a few years ago was The Osbournes. Ozzy Osbourne is a famous old-school rock star, whose family life people were interested to follow. Also the events happening on the show were pretty random, and that was probably the reason the series stayed interesting and popular for such a long time.

        The current reality TV boom shows no signs of fading. I'm actually pretty sure that if TV programs are still made in the year 2050, reality TV will still be popular. It could be even more popular than what it is nowadays, who knows.