The Real Future of Reality TV

Supposedly Ford Motor Company is about to throw its hat into the reality TV ring with a show in which contestants design a new Ford concept car. And with this move, reality TV will have finally jumped the proverbial shark into pure advertorial.

Of course this is where reality television has been headed all along. The Apprentice is one big cross-promotional machine, and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is often just an hour-long infomercial for various lifestyle products. Even Bravo's newest offering, Top Chef -- a show I have to admit I've become somewhat addicted to -- features all sorts of awkward sponsor fellatio, like the chefs constantly mentioning the need to get their food into the "Kenmore ovens" or randomly holding up bottles of KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce.

None of this should be surprising. It's not as if there was some Golden Age of ad-free TV that we can now weep for. Television, since its inception, has existed solely to sell advertising space. If it's sometimes managed to be entertaining or moving or educational, that's all well and good but only secondary to its real purpose, which is to make you want to buy shit.

And what makes people want to buy shit? Feeling like losers, for one thing. You watch Friends, or Desperate Housewives, or pretty much any other show on TV, and you come away thinking that you're not particularly attractive, or wealthy, and your apartment or house is kind of small and run-down, and where's that smell coming from? But then, just as you've hit rock bottom, it's time for some commercial messages, and -- of course! -- you just need to buy some new furniture at Pier One and take some diet pills and douse yourself in Axe Body Spray!

It's a genius strategy. All reality TV did was make the equation more obvious. Are you nervous about asking your girlfriend to marry you because you have questionable fashion sense and bad hair? The Queer Eye dudes will rush right over and fix your life with product!

The deeper problem with reality TV is that it's started to turn us all into products. Take The Real World, a show that used to be about strangers living together. At some point early on in that show's development, the producers started working to put each member of the cast into a recognizable pigeonhole -- the angry black guy, the crazy drunken mischief maker, etc. etc. Eventually, the people applying for the show put themselves into those categories. If you've ever watched The Real World casting specials (admit it!) you know what I'm talking about. "Hi, I'm Kevin, and as you can see from my waxed chest and backwards trucker hat, I'm totally in a frat. I like to par-tay, and if people don't like that, they can just step off! I guess you could say I'm the 'crazy one,' I mean I say what I'm thinking, and some people just can't handle that shit."

So now you have people going on The Real World completely aware of the fact that they're types. And not just aware of it, but celebrating it! And what's the end-game for Real World cast members? You go on tour to speak at various college campuses, and you go on Real World/Road Rules Challenge in perpetuity, all the while both playing and promoting that same character you created years ago with your Real World audition tape.

When reality TV first started to get big, it was easy enough to assume people were going on the shows because they wanted to be real actors, and getting on TV at least gave them some exposure. But now we've come to realize that's not really true, at least not for the bulk of these people. What most of them want to be is exactly what they already are, but with a viewership. They want to be "famous" -- not famous in the sense that they've done something admirable, but in the sense that people know who they are.

So it doesn't matter, really, who Trishelle is, or what Trishelle has done with her life. It doesn't even matter whether Trishelle has a last name. What matters is that when someone says "Trishelle," you think "slutty girl, Real World Vegas." Just like when someone says "Paris Hilton," you think "slutty girl, Heiress," and when someone says "Eggo," you think "waffle."

This is what happens when capitalism runs amuck, I suppose. Or maybe I've just taken too much Sudafed today to combat my head cold and I'm going nuts.