I don’t watch America’s Next Top Model (or Canada’s, Britain’s, Australia’s) because I’m interested in the modelling world.  I watch it because these are people I would never normally be around in real life.  None of my friends are models and I’m not sure I’d really want any of them to be, but I’m still interested in the way they work.  It is somewhat satisfying to have evidence that many models are just brainless twits with great bodies.

Celebrities Are Wacky

This is along the same lines of strange personalities, but with celebrities it is magnified tenfold into a bizarre truly twisted view of “reality.”  Who among us isn’t curious what might happen if you put Ron Jeremy and Tammy Faye in a house together?  Who doesn’t want to see what hijinks ensue when the Two Coreys are reunited? 

Famous people can use the vehicle of the reality show to effectively brand themselves as “the ditzy blonde,” “the mumbling, brain-addled rock star” or “the cruel, potty-mouthed chef.”  Some of these celebrities get a career boost by appearing in the reality TV world, while others just sink back into obscurity after the show wraps (I’m looking at you Vanilla Ice).

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defining reality

It seems as though every time we turn on the television these days there is another washed up celebrity inviting us into his home 24 hours a day or another group of “normal” people holed up together in weird and unnatural circumstances pitted against one another for a monetary prize.  The list is so long at this point a person is hard pressed to name all of them.  It is clear that reality television is going nowhere anytime soon so we might as well learn to indulge our cravings for The Amazing Race.