HELP! Someone explain the appeal of Reality TV to me?

Yep. Cool place to fish and if the fishing sucks...snorkel.

 

Snorkeling/SCUBA is my Phobia. I nearly drowned twice as a kid, so I think that might have to do with it.

(Not big deals. first was accidentally driving a Big Wheel around a pool unsupervised. Thankfully she heard me yelling. I still recall trying to climb the water like a ladder. 2nd time I was 5 and I told a kid I could swim so he pushed my head underwater and I panicked. Luckily my mom caught that lil ****.)

 

Seriously? Wow! What a trip. Bet that shocked everyone. My experience is that most vets that were in combat don't talk about it, except on rare occasions (if that). I didn't know my father was in combat until a couple of years before he died. Then there were people like my uncle. He served on a submarine tender in the Pacific, but nothing much ever happened to him except for one thing.

The story he liked to tell that he would uncork if he thought anyone at Thanksgiving dinner in our place in Houston hadn't heard it (so we heard it half a dozen times) was about patrolling a river in Japan not long after it was occupied. They were in a small motor patrol boat at night, paranoid about "J**s" taking a shot at them.

One night, they heard some crashing around on the riverbank, aimed a spotlight at it, and a sailor yelled, "I saw a (non-PC term) with a rifle!" Half a dozen of them had Thompson submachine guns and they unloaded on it. Smoke clears and there's nothing moving. So they putter over to see what they could see. Turned out to be a four footed side of beef with horns that was shot full of holes. My uncle said they almost died laughing. Some Japanese farmer probably didn't laugh, though.

I never said what they intended to do. It certainly didn't involved anything that bulky!
;-)

 

Oh I love it...chilling and looking at sealife.

My thing is heights, I get vertigo like no other. Takes me a bit to get up the gumption to jump off a cliff into a lake.

 

Not to be a oneupper or anything, but Cousin Ronnie has great stories about his swiftboat days, in the Mekong Delta in '69 or so....one day they're out in deep water, crystal clear water, and they see this tiger shark swimming around under the boat. "Huh?" say the guys... so geniuses that they are they rig up a chain of grenades, figuring that will probably kill a 15ft shark and they can trade it for beer with the locals.

So they had this chain of grenades hooked up.... drop and pull the chain, right?... and failed to realize that they would not sink all that fast....

He said they blew the stern of the boat about 15 feet in the air, and then it slammed down and flooded the engine room, and they called 'mayday' and got a tow back to base and were all put on kp for a week.

The shark was still swimming around when their tow showed up.

 

The Girls Next Door was a solid watch

 

I'm sure this has been brought up before, but I would really, really, really like a dislike button on this site.

 

Its actually pretty simple different people have different taste.

When The Walking Dead was at its peak I knew plenty of people that did not understand why someone would watch it. I've been a wrestling fan since 83/84. There are people that say how can you watch that you know its fake. My answer I enjoy it. I'm Pretty sure you can list your favorite shows and there will be plenty of people that don't understand why you like them..

 

The Real Husbands Of Hollywood is where it's at!

 

As others have noted they are low cost to produce versus scripted dramas. My understanding is that while these shows are not scripted in the sense that dialogue is written in advance but that they have a general direction to them that the director will encourage. They then put the cast into unusual or stressful situations. Since these shows are ultimately personality driven when they are casting them they are looking for particular types of people so this isn't truly just getting people off of the street but the producers already have decided what type of characters they want to create drama.

In these sense they really aren't reality and are far more like pro-wrestling or improv where you have character types, put them into a situation and then let them fill in the details.

Further the situations we see on the finished show are heavily edited for maximum entertainment value. For example I listened to an interview with one of the winners of "Hells Kitchen". He said that what we saw on screen of Gordon Ramsey was a small part of his interactions with him and Ramsey was far less hostile and more of a mentor to the chefs. Rather than insulting them all the time he spent time teaching and encouraging them.

The popularity of them is the voyeuristic and gossipy aspect of human society. Calling them "reality" gives the conceit that these are actual people and not actors so it's the idea that while most people are boring anyone could act outrageously or scandalously feeding more gossip. For example "Wow, did you see what so an so did last night? They seemed so nice and calm."

I'm going to apologize for making this D&D territory but I feel that "reality TV" has corroded our culture and has a lot to do with the ongoing popularity and deep support that Trump has. There have been a lot of reports that Trump looks to his presidency as a show and that he wanted his Presidency to have daily drama where he vanquishes his enemies. This is why he dominates the news cycle so and even why he continues to go with characters like Rudy Giuliani. Think of them as reality TV characters and much of what Trump does makes sense.

 

Boobs

 

OK...full disclosure.

The only 1 hour episode of reality TV I've ever watched was Undercover Boss when they were undercover at Twin Peaks in Texas.

I fell in love. With boobs.

 

I’m happy you finally discovered them

 

Only the best breast milk will do.

 

Oh no, it was a certain set of blonde boobs.

 

I think for most, the point is to laugh att people who look like they don't have together as well as you. It's comfort food to improve your self-esteem in many cases. That's the appeal of charscters like Honey Boo-Boo.

 

Yeah, it sucks. I have a couple friends who are constantly wanting me to go. Even offered to let me use their gear and squat in a pool to get used to trusting it.

 

I love snorkeling. I can't handle scuba gear any longer, but snorkeling is like being weightless. Jumping off a cliff? We used to do that at the entrance of one of the coves at Paleface Park. We always checked out where we would land ahead of time with a mask and fins to make sure it was safe. Something everyone should always do.

One time during the late '70's, a girl and I were sailing on someone's Sunfish along the cliffs there, the wind being decent for once. My dog spotted us and started running along the top of the cliffs until he approached the next cove. So he goes up to the edge whining, barks a couple of times. Looks at us, looks down at the water 20 feet below. I'm saying, "God, I hope he doesn't jump!" Right after I said it, he went sailing, figuratively speaking, off the cliff, hits the water with a big splash, and started swimming towards the boat. I turned into the wind, we helped him aboard and he shook about a gallon of water all over us. He was a great dog.

 

What a perfect 70s story,Mr Bond.

 

He was a 50lb Labradoodle I got at the Pound for $10, years before an Australian dog breeder came up with the name. Best dog I ever had, and I have a nice one today. He was incredibly dexterous and could do several different tricks. Loved to perform at parties. I could tell several stories about him, but will spare everyone. Bond would have been proud to own him. ;-)

He would have been great on a Reality TV show!