‘Trash TV’ gets trashier

I’ve been a long time reality television watcher. Starting with “Dance Moms”in 2014, I quickly hit a lot of other shows. Between “Dr. Phil”, “Big Brother”, “Love Island”, “Sister Wives”, “The Voice”, I’ve seen nearly every genre of reality television there is.

I should give credit to my parents, for without them I never would have developed such a fascination with watching how differently people lived their lives. I mean, growing up I wasn’t allowed to watch “SpongeBob SquarePants” or Disney Channel. But I was able to watch the insanity that went down on “Dr. Phil” alongside my mom.

As I’ve continued to grow older, my love for such “trash television” hasn’t changed. I still love all forms of reality television. However in the past few years, I believe there’s been a shift in the behavior on reality television.

What networks found was that these kinds of shows were relatively cheap to produce and viewers loved them.

What I believe made the early days of reality television so appealing was the fact that people saw bits and pieces of lives that fascinated them. Just like with me and watching the dancers on Dance Moms, they saw a way of life that looked like it came with freedom.

The “characters” you saw on reality television weren’t carefully scripted to make you root for them or hate them. They were just human beings, no matter how insane they acted. At the end of the day, you were watching them live their everyday lives.

The shift, I believe, has come in more recent years. In the age of social media, everyone is concerned with their image or their brand. They look at the reality television stars of the past like the Kardashian/Jenner family, or the “Dance Moms” girls and they want that same level of fame and attention.

Take the example of “Dance Moms: A New Era”. All those moms and kids watched seven seasons of the original “Dance Moms”. They saw a group of seven girls and five moms who became known as America’s Sweethearts. Now they have the equation for what success could be.

But those moms and dancers aren’t the original cast of “Dance Moms”. What they have in their show isn’t the same level of authenticity that the original had. You had seven little girls who loved to dance, and loved to dance with their friends.

The new “Dance Moms” … I don’t believe any of them. And that’s where the producers have failed. This new group isn’t a group. They’re girls and moms who want the fame and success that came from the show before them.

I think all reality television is that way now. It’s no longer the equation of “real people who just so happen to be characters” it’s “characters who just so happen to be real people”.

For me, that’s where the failure is. The reason reality television has been so successful is because people got to see authenticity. Even with the Kardashians, people saw vulnerability and how they lived their day to day lives, no matter how extremely lavish.

I think the days of the original kind of reality television are over. With the way everything is so calculated in today’s world, there just isn’t a way for it to revert back to the authenticity people want to see, which I honestly believe is a shame.

Jolie Shultz is a Hutchinson sophomore studying journalism. She is the Collegian’s Editor In Chief.

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