Do You Get Sucked In?

Cruising through the summer TV lineup leaves you with not many choices, although it is not as bad as when I was growing up, as re-runs were the only option.

Some of my favorite series these days are run during summer. I love the all of the action and great writing of Burn Notice. I love cheering on Brenda as her smarts and directness carries her team through each homicide in The Closer. But, one of the things you see more and more these days are reality TV shows.

I am not one to normally line up for shows like Dancing with the Stars, Survivor and Jersey Shore. I just can't stand the awful way in which these people air themselves in public and leave themselves open to such public humiliation.  I hate the cut throat attitudes people have to win, and don't like regularly seeing the worst of human nature flaunted for all on air.

I do admit, we have been watching Chopped lately. If you are not familiar with the show, it showcases three real chefs that are given three courses to cook and are given a basket full of mystery ingredients and a short amount of time to come up with a creative presentation and deliciously prepared course of the unusual foods they are presented with. They are often very exotic, or just plain weird things, and sometimes the chefs don't even know what they are. One person is "chopped" after each course. It makes for some pretty entertaining watching, as because of the time limitations and unfamiliarity of the items to cook with, the chefs often don't cook them properly, can't come up with a creative use for it, or worse yet, omit one of the critical things that need to be cooked.

One of the things that is so mind boggling to me, is the egos that some of these people have that are competing. Some of them are so confident that they are better than anyone, they are blown away that they would be cut out of the competition because someone judged their skills as inferior. I am practically standing in my seat cheering that they were cut because they seem to have a personality that needs a little reeling in. Being an avid cook myself, I find myself critiquing the contestants and trying to figure out who is going to get the boot. I just can't stop watching.

We have also been flipping the channels or have a station just be on from a previous show when one of the reality shows just happens to come on. Even though I don't particularly care for them, and wouldn't purposefully sit down to watch one, if it happens to come on, you sometimes just can't help but be sucked in. I remember the Biggest Loser coming on one time, and my husband and I just couldn't stop watching it. We were absolutely amazed at how far some of these people had come. At the same time, the humiliation that they had to endure during the whole process was just incredible. I gave all of them an incredible amount of credit for going as far as they did in the process. I would love to see long term if the experience actually caused a change in them for the rest of their lives and if they maintained the weight loss once the rigidity and guidance of the training team was no longer behind them.

Some of the more voyeuristic shows are more of a turn off for me. I have never watched Jersey Shore, for example, and I have no real interest in watching Snookie get drunk and pick up some loser that she lands while she's hanging out in the bars. Obviously because of the ratings, a lot of people must enjoy it though. Many people say real life is stranger than fiction, and they are probably right. We just don't often see it showcased so blatantly for the whole country to see, at least until the past few years. I've got to imagine you just can't even believe that people would act in such degrading and humiliating ways, and you are so blown away that it's like driving by an accident, you can't stop looking at it.

So I guess in closing, you are one that really loves watching the lowest of low in human nature, or you just can't stand it. Or maybe, I guess like myself you are something in between. Who can't help get hooked in to see the Extreme Couponing lady as she has wall-to-wall stashes of toilet paper in every nook and cranny in her home? What kind of viewer would you consider yourself?  I'd sure be interested to hear why you get drawn in...

Barb Welsh has lived in Herndon for about 12 years and has two sons aged 9 and 11. She is a member of the Herndon Patch Mom's Council and regularly blogs at www.obsessmuch.com.