Reality Bites

Is anyone else sick of reality televison?

I'll admit, at first I was totally on the band wagon. I loved Survivor, I just found the whole concept of abandoning people who weren't wilderness experts or even people who particularly liked being outdoors in a strange, wild country and let them have at it to win money. Then they started making reality competitions, and I was still okay with it. I loveloveloved Project Runway, watching all those creative people sewing clothes and following their dreams. I even liked the Bachelor for a little while although much to my chagrin, the token black girl was always cut the first round. But now, there's nothing less real than reality TV. The people who cast reality shows aren't looking for nice ordinary people that the viewers can relate to anymore; they want these outrageous personalities purely for entertainment's sake. I swear they script and edit these shows just as much as they would a regular sitcom or dramedy. And I hate the stupid competitons that started spawning and the gross stuff people will do just to win a little money. I think I generally dislike things that become too popular.

Nevertheless, I can't stop watching. And if I were the type of person who could end up on a reality show (but I'm not because the black girl is always a head rolling, hip shaking psycho,) these are the shows I would dominate.

• The Bachelorette

Has anybody else ever watched Blind Date? If you haven't, it was a show too. They'd randomly hook up these two people, and then follow their date and comment on it with little speech and thought bubbles. It was hilarious. Most of the time, they didn't even bother to match up people correctly (which is by interests and physical attraction.) If you were lucky, the date went really bad and both people went home alone, and if you weren't lucky, you had to watch strangers suck face in a hot tub, but because of the aforementioned mismatching, it usually ended badly.

The Bachelor/Bachelorette reminds me of a really long episode of Blind Date. Well the first couple episodes, it's more like bad speed dating, but it's basically the same. Who seriously signs up to be a reality show where a man dates/makes out with more than one girl and eliminates people? It sounds really pathetic on paper, but I guess it's not really worse than actual dating. Oh wait, it is because it's on public television!

However, I would still be on this show. Especially considering that 99% of the couples don't get married anyway. Do you want real entertainment, America? Put bossy prudish me on a dating show and watch me eliminate guys. I would kick guys out for stupid reasons (flirting with me, for one) and I'd refuse to kiss any of them. It'd be great.

• Say Yes to the Dress

This isn't really a reality show, but I want to be on it. Not that I'm thinking of marriage either, I just want to try on wedding dresses ala Monica, Rachel, and Phoebe from Friends.

• The Real World

At first, this was an excellent show. They took nice, normal people and put them in a house together. It was all about learning about different walks of life and respecting people who were different from you and growing up.

Now, we watch random 20 somethings party all night, sleep all day, and hook up with each other in between. I could even deal with that if the casting people cast real people instead of the same fame whores and douche bags who just fight and party all the damn time (And with such a limited vocabulary. I swear everything starts and ends with "bitch" or "whore." You're 22, learn how to use your words or get a dictionary.)

Sidenote: One of my friends said he wanted to be on the Real World. I was like, "Why?!?" because of all the annoying children he'd have to live with, and he said, "To launch my music career." I seriously cannot think of a worse way to launch any kind of career than being on a reality show. If I were an employer of any kind, and I heard of you being on a reality show, I would first watch it, and then not hire you because I can't think of one person on any reality show that I consider responsible and trustworthy.

But I'd still be on it. Actually, no I wouldn't. I hate people. But it'd be entertaining to watch people with personalities that clash with the partiers, ie: responsible, prudish 20 somethings (if there is such a thing) who have jobs and safe lives, deal with them.

• Work of Art

This is Bravo's new Project Runway-esque show. It drags down centuries of art history and theory to a mass marketed competition to find the next great artist (which is impossible and less probable since it's a damn reality show.)

I don't think of myself as an artist, but I would totally own this show. It's seriously like being in one of my art classes now, except the contestants live together and therefore hate each other. But otherwise, it's the same. There are the people who actual went to art school and honed their talent, and the people who kinda taught themselves and have to hash it out because they don't know about the elements and principles of art. Then they're all given a challenge to make something they don't care about, they create art, and then they have a gigantic critique and elimination (In fact, several of the contestants now remind me of specific nasty hipsters from my design class when I was a freshman and had never taken an art class before and all of them looked down on me. Jerks.)

But I'd win because I think outside the art freak box. In this episode, they were told to create a "shocking" work of art, and all of them but a few were about sex. And not even weird things about sex, mostly just penises. Apparently, all the art kids missed the day in art appreciation where the professor went over Greek and Roman art. Penises are not shocking. I would have won because I would have done something with a vagina. Vaginas are shocking. You're cringing right now, aren't you?

Own.