Causes of Reality TV Popularity

There are several reasons that human beings video has begin popular today. The three that I will focus on are the archetypes of money, instant fame, and the guilty pleasure phenomenon. The first catalyst for reality television creation popular today is money. Todays shows offer huge sums of money to people who do not necessarily possess the career skills that would make them a productive enough member of society to amass such wealth through honest work. Simplified, dumb people get lots of cash. Now, some shows do in fact obtain, at least at first, a pseudo-intellectual premise.Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, for example, offered up to a million dollars to people answering a order of questions. The questions, however, differed from related shows in that they were usu all in ally trivia oriented. Also, the audience was involved, as well as calling a friend and so on, which added to the drama aspect. The lighting, music, and editing all were contrived to produce the maximum possib le suspense surrounding rather innocuous pop culture subjects one might find in some(prenominal) game of Trivial Pursuit for Children.The promise of money and the vicarious joy at someone winning lots of money, or more commonly spectacularly losing said money, is what draws millions of viewers. The second reason I believe reality television has become popular today is that of instant fame. Reality television takes ordinary people, sets them up in extraordinary situations on a world stage with other similarly commonplace individuals, and makes them the focus of a nations attention on, for example, an minute of arc every Tuesday.Obviously the majority of the population has no chance of ever being picked as a participant for the show itself, but again the concept of vicarious living kicks in and the audience is hooked. The members of the show are satisfactorily every-day individuals for fans to willfully suspend their disbelief. Thats what keeps 35,000 twenty year olds auditioning ev ery year for a chance to participate in MTVs The Real World, which offers no monetary reward save the endorsements from being an instant celebrity.The third reason that reality television is popular today is what I like to call guilty pleasure syndrome. Sociology professor Mark Fishman of Brooklyn College, The City University of New York, has made a study of reality TV. The Germans have a word for it, the appeal of some of these shows, he says. Its called schadenfreude. It means taking delight in the misfortunes of others. Its a guilty pleasure. You feel you shouldnt be watching.Its perpetually been in good taste not to look at these things. Its a moral envelope thats being pushed. We seem to be in a impertinent age of making public what we used to think shouldnt be seen. In todays society, with the massive technological revolution of home computing and the internet, and with the renewed stakes in free speech and the protection of the arts, more and more people are finding prem ises entertaining that 30 years ago would have been considered obscene.