Joel West, Comic

A few nights ago I had a free evening. I turned on the TV and was bombarded with over 200 channels all screaming at me to buy something. I needed whiter whites! I needed whiter teeth! I was too hairy in some places and my hair was the wrong color in others! Someone thought that I needed Cialis while someone else thought Viagra! I decided to let them fight it out.

I continued flipping through the channels. All that was on were game shows. On one show, called The Bachelor the prize was another person. On another show, Intervention,  a group teamed up and if they won, the person they were confronting would go away for 28 days to rehab. On yet another, Real Housewives, they got people to humiliate themselves and others in public (there didn’t seem to be a prize). On Dr. Phil, people aired their person problems in public and in the last 20 minutes they got solved by a nice man with a drawl who offered some platitudes.In one more if one of the people won the show they got a job as a chef.

And nobody looked ashamed.

And now because it’s cheap programming Global TV in Canada has launched a 24 hour reality TV network. I thought we had one. It’s called MTV. Do we really really need a second ALL reality TV station?

All of these so called reality shows are staged and choreographed. People are chosen for their look and and for their malleability. Situations are set up. Retakes are done. These guys make pro wrestling look real! Juxtapose this with the world of ‘Infotainment’ where real ‘News’ is dressed up to look like entertainment. Who knows what reality is?

If you can’t differentiate between reality and fantasy then you are delusional. What the media is doing is turning us into a delusional culture. We don’t know what reality of fantasy is. It’s all spin. And the only true reality show is the 24 hour weather network.