TLC: The Pregnancy & Other Assorted Fat People Channel The History Channel: Conspiracies That We Just Made Up National Geographic: 1,001 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Get Arrested Overseas Animal Planet: We Actually Consider Abused Animals To Be Entertainment A&E: The K-Mart of The 'Reality' Genre The Discovery Channel would fall into the same tier as the rest of them, if it weren't for some Alaskan fishermen and a week in August devoted to the coolest animal ever invented: Spoiler
Didn't reality TV start out as game shows, like Survivor and what not? I don't mind small amounts of reality TV, I'll watch Hell's Kitchen or Pawn Stars once in a while if I want to just chill before I go to bed. Some of it can be fairly decent if it's done right... But shit like Honey Boo Boo, or all shows about fisherman and loggers; you can get in your car and actually go see people cut down tree's, fishing, and white trash making asses of themselves in public. Sure it might be cheaper to produce, but what happened to quality? Stuff like MASH, Married with Children, old Simpsons episodes; you know... Good TV.
Absolutely, thats how we get the majority of our ratings data. Alot of Nielsen ratings are still manual. You used to keep a journal of what you watched, now its updating to mobile phone apps and the like. Set-top box data like you just mentioned is the most accurate cause it takes out the human entry component, but its more costly and not as prevalent. Its all just cross sections which are extrapolated out, but they've gotten pretty damn good at it.
Holy shit kill me now. Just scoop out my brain with a spoon and feed it to the kiddies. This show is everything that's wrong with this country, and even the fact that it's broadcast in the same medium as The Wire makes me want to take a crowbar to my TV. Just kidding. This is neither a symbol of our declining morality nor anything particularly new, and it certainly doesn't make me angry or anything.
So you watch television shows, just not THIS specific television show. Just saying, it doesn't matter if you own a television or not, you can get access to this show regardless. Now if you said you didn't watch television shows or any form of video entertainment that wasn't a documentary, then you could ride high on a horse. Sorry, pet peeve, had to address it. Any statement like "I don't own a TV." No matter how phrased or context is a smug comment that needs to be upbraided unless it is followed with "because it was stolen" or "because I can't afford it." You watch television, you have access to this show and can decide not to watch it. I own a television, a big one, attached to a DVR, I choose not to ever turn on 80% of the channels. Owning a television has no correlation to the stupidity of media you consume. /End rant. This show is crap. People watch bad TV. Is it making us dumber? No. Have you seen Japanese game shows? They're absolutely ridiculous. If we're getting dumber it is because people aren't enforcing education and open minds at home. Then going to blame the teachers on giving bad grades instead of pushing on the kids to earn better grades. Rob4Broncos...DON'T YOU DARE START TALKING ABOUT MY GODDAMN SHARK WEEK! YOU SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH!
This show wasn't made because the overall intelligence of this country is declining, the world is ending, etc. It was made just to make a buck. Do you know how astonishingly easy it is to make a profit with a reality show like this? The amount of money it takes to shoot is chump change (typically about 4-5 people on the entire crew that are probably working for shit rates), the people being shot are making next to nothing for it, and networks are basically "sure, whatever" nowadays because they have to fill so much screen time. If even a miniscule number of people watch it, it'll turn a profit. That's all. Everyone can unclench, the end is not nigh.
Fixy. ...because this is something that we will not recover from. TV will without doubt get worse, and worse, and WORSE, and it will never get smarter again. We will eventually end up like that uber-shitty movie Idiocracy because we now live in an aquarium where the sharks with the sharpest teeth are reality TV and opinion news. If it wasn't for HBO shows, sports and movies I probably wouldn't need a TV.
Not to veer too far off topic, but my buddy and I were selected for Nielsen about six years ago when we were roommates. We had a set-top box, and there was definitely a human entry component to it. You have a remote control that signals to a set-top box that's right in your field of view. Periodically the box will start blinking, and you have to press a button or two on the remote (signifying which person is watching TV) in order to to make the box stop blinking. It doesn't sound that intrusive but after a while it becomes a pain in the ass considering how little you get compensated. Eventually after a year or so we told Nielsen we didn't want to partake any more, and the rep came a few days later and grabbed all of their shit. He was actually pretty salty for some reason. Back OT, I couldn't even finish watching the trailer. I despise about 99% of shit that's on TV. If it wasn't for sports, I would have ditched cable years ago. Everything else that I watch I can find online pretty easily. The fact that people voluntarily watch reality TV is depressing.
Dude, it's a a thread full of people going histrionic over the mere existence of a silly tv show. If I'm on a high horse, I have plenty of company. Holy shit I would totally watch a show where people had to trade in their cars for comically tall horses. Also, if we're really going deli-sliced, Idiocracy is a mildly fun thought exercise mainly aimed at people who think they're smarter than they actually are. It doesn't hold up to any sort of real scrutiny past, "boy I wish everybody was as awesome as me." Come at me mang.
Part of my beef is that it isn't simply "silly." These are programs on ostensibly educational networks that are selling out compelling programming for the celebration of people that should be ground up and turned into paste. National Geographic is going that way too. It's devastating to me that a network that had a wonderful interplay between entertainment and educational value is putting up American Pikey. Japense TV is silly, tongue in cheek, irreverent, and over the top. What it doesn't do is inundate people with trailer trash that can't speak properly and resort to Jerry Springer arguments and fist fights (well, generally speaking). I don't give a damn what E! wants to throw up because everyone knows E! is trashy, nor does it pretend otherwise. But when TLC, History, Nat Geo, and Discovery primetimes begin to be indistinguishable from E! or TruTV's tractor demolition derby tow service fist fight, that bugs me. People want to turn off after work, let them. Get high as a kite, watch the Kardashians. Don't drag the whole audience down too. Funny how these people that claim to just want brainless entertainment watched these thoughtful programs just a few months ago. Can we at least all agree that the Man Vs Food guy is a bigger douche than that fat creamsicle Guy Fieri? I fucking hate those buffoons, but Fieri doesn't rub it in your face so badly. That show was the beginning of the end for Travel Channel. Stuff your already meaty breast with enough food for 5 people in a country where kids still go to bed starving. Fuck and You. I hope you get diabetes and they have to saw your foot off.
I think the issue here like I mentioned to Black Jesus before that Americans should be mad at this because you now live in a world where stupidity is rewarded, whether that stupidity is rich or poor. Why do I know the first names of the Kardashian Cum Dumpsters? Why is there a show about douchebags that think throwing a single fist over and over again qualifies as dancing and can't tie their own shoes without drooling on their hands? Why do people line up hours ahead to buy tickets for LMFAO concerts? Why do people think Atlas Shrugged is a great novel? I mean, worshipping white trash has even invaded your artwork. Take the painting by John McNaughton called One Nation Under God, which depicts that the Constitution was actually bestowed upon America by our one true Lord and Saviour...Bo Bice: ..how does that not insult literally EVERYBODY?
John McNaughton is one step below Black Velvet Mr T paintings you get at the gas station on Sunday. Music the kiddies listen to has always sucked. This too shall pass like New Kids On The Block, Limp Bizket, and Disco. Talent competitions have been around in some permutation or another since TV began. Some of those people are truly talented and, fancy that, interesting to watch. The Trashers have no business on TV. Period. Twenty years ago this wouldn't have happened. They would have been ridiculed back to their shanty lives where books are scoffed at as bourgeois and sleeveless comedians tell them all they need to know about politics, love, and the outside world. So why has the voyeur mentality exploded in their favor? I'm not as bitter that stupidity is rewarded as angry they're eating up the few stations I like to reward it. That's infuriating. It's completely unnecessary programming. Also, arguing taste this afternoon makes me feel like Hannibal Lecter. And I will make the case for Hoarders all day. THAT is the perfect psychology show melding human melodrama. And dirty diapers. Lots of diapers.
You're projecting the smug. At least onto me, probably others. The only time I utter the phrase is when the person I'm talking to is telling me I need to watch some show, or asking me if I"ve seen something on TV, etc. For the purpose of this thread, I mentioned it because it's pretty neat that I had no idea about Honey Hoo Hoo until now. Streaming internet TV is "pull" entertainment, versus "push", if you will. So there is a correlation, in terms of the stupidity I"m passively or accidentally subjecting myself to.
But that's just it. That's exactly what people are doing when they watch these shows. They aren't hoping they succeed, they're hoping they fail so that they can feel better about their own lives. "Well, at least my life isn't as bad as reality show star X, right?"
Do you hear yourself talking? I just saw the latest episode of "True Blood" at a friend's house today, and left thinking "What the fuck?" That show has jumped the shark a long time ago, if what my friends say is to be believed. (I've only seen a few episodes)
Not to mention Adam Richman is one of the nicest, genuine guys in the industry. Ive never heard anything but great things about him. He also quit Man vs Food in its original form cause it was terrible for his health and thus took a risk with new shows.