You come home from a busy day and want to relax, so what do you do? Do you read a book, play with your animals, or turn on the TV? All of these are a great way to relax, but one seems to be more popular than the others. Watching TV is something that almost everyone does. Since 1927, people have been indulging themselves with television. Recently, one of the more popular TV trends has been reality television. It is on almost every channel and can be found at almost every time of the day. These shows can range from various competitions to basically following people around during their everyday lives. What is it that makes us want to watch these shows? Here is a list of three reality television shows and why they are so popular.
1. "Keeping Up With the Kardashians"
"Keeping Up With the Kardashians" is a reality television program about the Kardashian/Jenner clan. This show first aired in 2007 and is about to start its 12th season. In this show, we follow the family as they go through their every day life. This show seems to be popular due to how "put together" this family appears to be. In each episode their hair, makeup, and wardrobe looks to be pristine. Even their family issues seem to be perfect. One of the recent "issues" was when Bruce Jenner came out that he was transgender and identified as a woman named Caitlyn. The family seemed to be able to completely move pass this in just a few days, yet this is entirely untrue. The struggles the family went through actually lasted several months. Many of the episodes showing the family's struggles where actually filmed over a long period of time. Sometimes the family still has a hard time handling this news.
2. "The Bachelor" or "The Bachelorette"
"The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" are reality show competitions about finding "true love." "The Bachelor" first aired in 2002 and just wrapped up its 19th season. In the two shows, contestants try to win over the heart of the bachelor and bachelorette. Contestants are eliminated through a rose ceremony. The bachelor or bachelorette will pass out roses to all the contestants he/she would like to get to know better and the contestants who do not receive a rose will be sent home. The remaining contestants will go on dates and compete to win over the heart of the Bachelor or Bachelorette. This show gives the appearance that these couples find their true love. In reality, most of these couples break up. This has been such a common trend that, in order to join the competition, the contestants and the bachelor/bachelorette must sign a contract that if they win, they will stay together for two years. If they chose not to, they will be forced to give back the ring.
3. "The Real Housewives"
"The Real Housewives" has many different break-out shows which include, "The Real Housewives of New York," "The Real Housewives of New Jersey," "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," "The real Housewives of Orange County," etc. The first show, "The Real Housewives of Orange County" first aired in 2006 and, today, there are eight other spin offs of the show. In these shows, you follow the lives of housewives and how they interact with each other. Most of the time, this turns into some serious violence. One of the most memorable moments was on "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" when Teresa Giudice flipped a table out of anger at another Housewife. However, most of these scenes are staged. According to Valerie Greenberg, "Reality television is as staged as a Tony-winning Broadway performance…The fact of the matter is people are using reality television as a platform to catapult their careers and to achieve fame." These women's lives are not as crazy as they seem. Many of these "performances" are set up ahead of time for the sake of more ratings.
Reality television has become very popular over the years. This is because these shows can take people out of the hardships of their own reality and plop them into the exciting lives of others. These shows may be scripted to get more ratings or thrown together to make it appear as everything is great, but they still remain realistic enough to keep us coming back for more, season after season. These shows take us away from all of the troubles that may be going on in our own lives. So before you get caught up into the scripted reality, take a second to remember that a lot of it isn't real. It's okay to watch it every once in a while, but these people's lives are not all how they appear to be.
