Television Review: Why I Watch Reality-TV

I have a long relationship with reality TV. And I want to share it… because… it’s fun and it’s taken up a huge portion of my life. So if I don’t write about it, it’ll be a waste.

It has been a constant in my life for as long as I can remember. The X-Factor was ‘family time’ when I was younger, as was I’m a Celebrity and Dancing on Ice. Every whatever-day we’d all gather around the tv and watch humans do stuff for their five minutes. I watched it religiously on Sunday mornings; Shipwrecked on Channel 4 followed by World’s Strongest Man on Channel 5.

Then something strange happened. The internet. I got my first internet when I was a teenager and found my way to YouTube. This I watched more than the TV. I realised that I could pick and choose what people to watch. YouTube was my personal reality TV.

And then, I left home. With my laptop, to a place where there was no TV at all. ]

Enter Netflix. Netflix was like the holy grail in my tiny film student mind. The mecca of entertainment. My one true religious scripture. And I watched everything and it wasn’t only for Sundays. I drained it dry of TV shows and movies. Except I had still not touched the ‘documentary’ section.

I knew nothing.

Until I saw this:

And then things changed.

Or… because I’ve been reading Mythos by Stephen Fry…Pandora’s Box (although it wasn’t actually a box) was opened.

Thanks for reading!