By Shawn Deena
When The Real World launched in 1992 it was a refreshing new take on television entertainment. Follow around people all thrown together in a “real” house and basically watch their lives unfold for a set amount of time; it was something new and unlike anything that was on TV before. Some even give it credit for launching the genre which is now so over-saturated it’s hard to find a cable channel without a reality show. Things were different then, though. Initially the interactions of these kids crammed together in this construct of “real life” — minus the bills, job and actual real life situations — was a fascinating social experiment. As the show evolved though it became increasingly apparent that there was a particular element viewers seemed to enjoy more than others. They looked forward to the yelling matches, the secret sex and the tirades of the the “crazy” roommate. You know the one who says objectionable stuff, is overtly racist or just so naive or stupid that it’s hard to imagine how they would actually get along in the real world.
The episodes that garnered the biggest viewers and the ones that got the most attention after the fact were the ones that had these moments. That’s what made them so “entertaining” and hard to turn away from for many of the show’s fans. Very much like rubbernecking or seeing a couple have a full-blown all out yelling match in a restaurant, people seemed to enjoy watching this on TV. Slowly but surely as the reality TV genre began to grow, this formula of public dysfunction and discomfort became more and more popular. Hard to imagine that the one thing people enjoyed more than anything else on a reality show was the yelling matches but fact of the matter is, just plain on reality TV wasn’t all that exciting. Flash forward a decade and that same channel, MTV is one of the leaders in Toxic TV with shows like Jersey Shore, Teen Moms and that show about overindulgent 16 -year old girl parties. For some time they even had a show that had unruly partners sitting with parents with the significant other went on dates with other suitors. The toxic part was the exchanges between the aforementioned other and the parents — who always had great animosity toward each other.
It’s like a parade of narcissism, racism and bad behavior with people who are allegedly young adults. Young adults or not, these people look and act like idiots and ironically are given all the trappings of fame and celebrity — for acting the way most people in normal non-televised society would find abhorrent. Sadly though this formula has now expanded to other networks/channels that have offered up their own brand of toxic TV featuring dysfunction, yelling, drinks being thrown on people, bleeped out swearing matches and just general discord. This ladies and gentlemen is what seems to appeal to viewers. The stuff that now gets talked about on Twitter, Facebook, entertainment shows, late night talk shows and such is the stuff showing the uglier side of reality. The stuff that makes people squirm in their seats or that makes going to Thanksgiving dinner such an unpleasant task for some folks is what is making a lot of money and instant celebrities out of otherwise non-talented individuals.
That’s not to say that all reality shows are like this, but admittedly the ones that get the best ratings on a weekly basis are the ones that are the most toxic. They also make good trailer fodder when the channels are promoting them. It’s basically a sad commentary our current culture that a good portion of the American public seems to enjoy these shows so much, that producers keep making more of them. It has gotten to the point where your typical weekly show lineup has at least 25-50% of the programming centered around reality TV
The viewing public has somehow turned into voyeurs of dysfunction. At least in the days of gladiators, the people fighting each other had some modicum of skill as barbaric as it was. This notion of watching real people being terrible to each other, it doesn’t make sense that this would be entertainment but there it is. Is there a cure for Toxic TV? At this point no. Apparently the more vile and revolting the better. All you have to do is look at the journey one recent celebrity has taken down the rabbit hole of madness to see this proven. Not only is he getting more attention than he had before, but he’s turned his dysfunction into some sort of twisted entertainment.
There is one other cure … stop watching.
Shawn Deena is a writer, musician, gamer and all around comic book and sci-fi nerd. As lover of films and television he has entirely useless library of knowledge that has now been increased thanks to the large volume of movies and TV shows Netflix offers on their instant play. As someone who likes to share his opinion, having a forum where he can rant incessantly about things in entertainment that bother him, make him laugh or make him want to hit himself in the face with a DVD box is a good thing. Having written about everything from Office Depot chairs to the page turning excitement of CPA guidebooks nothing pleases him more than writing about the stuff he loves and knows.
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Shawn Deena is a writer, musician, gamer and all around comic book and sci-fi nerd. As lover of films and television he has entirely useless library of knowledge that has now been increased thanks to the large volume of movies and TV shows Netflix offers on their instant play. As someone who likes to share his opinion, having a forum where he can rant incessantly about things in entertainment that bother him, make him laugh or make him want to hit himself in the face with a DVD box is a good thing. Having written about everything from Office Depot chairs to the page turning excitement of CPA guidebooks nothing pleases him more than writing about the stuff he loves and knows. 
