The Social Value of Reality TV

As well as being a pioneer of heavy metal, Ossy Osborne was one of the early stars of reality TV. The MTV show The Osbornes, running from 2002 to 2005 and featuring Ossy, Sharon and two of their teenage children, was described as a reality sitcom. Previous fly-on-the-wall programmes had been presented as documentaries, albeit with some dramatic elements, but this one was edited for drama.

Reality TV receives a lot of criticism and disparagement. Some people have commented on the relationship between Sir Joseph Bazalgette, the Victorian engineer who build a system of sewers to pump effluent out of Londoners' homes, and Sir Peter Bazalgette, the creative director of Endemol responsible for Big Brother.

The BBC reports some sociologists as arguing that reality TV can have some social value.

Reality TV ... can be a tool for greater social understanding. Danielle Lindemann

It can potentially offer benefits to viewers and society because it can lead to wider conversations about the world we want to live in. Jacob Johanssen

However, Dr Johanssen has previously expressed criticism of the way participants in reality shows are exploited and shamed, both by the programme makers and by the audience (via social media). He frames reality TV as a neoliberal update on Guy Debord's notion of the spectacle.

---

Nathan Briant, The sisters from UK's first fly-on-the-wall series (BBC News, 21 June 2024)

Jacob Johanssen, Immaterial Labour and Reality TV: The Affective Surplus of Excess. (In: Briziarelli, M. and Armano, E. (eds.). The Spectacle 2.0: Reading Debord in the Context of Digital Capitalism. pp. 197–208. London: University of Westminster Press 2017). https://doi.org/10.16997/book11.l 

Alex Taylor, How reality TV changed the way we think - for the better (BBC News, 26 July 2025)

Caitlin Wilson, Ozzy Osbourne: From Prince of Darkness to reality TV's favourite dad (BBC News, 26 July 2025)

Metrication and Demetrication

Yesterday evening I travelled across London for the opening of Ben Grosser's latest exhibition at the Arebyte Gallery, entitled Software for Less. 

Grosser's agenda is to disrupt the surveillance economy - enabling, encouraging and empowering users of social media to disengage from the glue traps laid for them by big data tech. The title of the exhibition is an answer to Mark Zuckerberg's compulsive repetition of the word "more", of which Grosser has compiled a 47 minute montage of video clips ("Order of Magnitude") prominently displayed at the entrance. Meanwhile Rachel O'Dwyer describes the paradox of Facebook: "an economy based on exponential growth ... an economy based on less".

In his book Crossing the Postmodern Divide (1992) Albert Borgmann extends the concept of hyperactivity to society as a whole, and defines it as "a state of mobilization where the richness and variety of social and cultural pursuits, and the natural pace of daily life, have been suspended to serve a higher, urgent cause" (p. 14). Psychiatrist Anna Lembke links this state with an excess of dopamine, and describes the smartphone as "the equivalent of the hypodermic needle for a wired generation".

In my post on YouTube Growth Hacking (November 2018), I mentioned Sophie Bishop's work on the anxiety, panic and self-optimization promoted by social media, and the precarity of those whose identity and self-worth depends on the number of likes and follows from other users, as measured by the platform algorithms.

On display at the Software for Less exhibition are a series of disengagement tools, including a demetrication filter (to hide those anxiety-provoking numbers counting followers and likes) and a random emotion generator (mixing up reactions of anger, sadness and joy to confuse the big tech algorithms). There are also platforms that are designed for constraint rather than overabundance, limiting the total number of posts to force the user to think whether each post is really necessary.

Perhaps for some users, these tools will provide a valuable remedy for addiction, hyperactivity and other mental and social issues. But perhaps for many other users, the point is not to actually use these tools, but simply to become more aware of the design choices that the big platforms have made, and the ability of users to resist.

 

In other news ...

August 2021. The Chinese authorities have just announced a demetrication programme, which they say is necessary to tackle online bullying and protect children. Online lists ranking celebrities by popularity are banned, and cultural products (songs, films, TV shows, etc.) should be primarily ranked by quality rather than the number of likes and comments. I mentioned Stan Culture (fan quan) in my post on A Cybernetics View of Data-Driven (August 2020)

---

Tim Adams, How artist Ben Grosser is cutting Mark Zuckerberg down to size (Guardian/Observer, 15 August 2021)

Helen Davidson, China bans celebrity rankings in bid to rectify chaos in the fan community (The Guardian, 27 August 2021)

Rebecca Edwards, Leave Me Alone (Arebyte Gallery, 2021)

Ben Grosser, Order of Magnitude (2019), Software for Less (28 July 2021)

Anna Lembke, Digital Addictions Are Drowning Us in Dopamine (WSJ, 13 August 2021). See also Jamie Waters, Constant craving: how digital media turned us all into dopamine addicts (Guardian/Observer 22 August 2021)

Vincent Ni, China bans reality talent shows to curb behaviours of idol fandoms (Guardian, 2 September 2021)

Rachel O'Dwyer, More or Less (Arebyte Gallery, 2021)

Related posts: Tablets and Hyperactivity (February 2013), YouTube Growth Hacking (November 2018), A Cybernetics View of Data-Driven (August 2020), The Social Dilemma (December 2020)

The Purpose of Conspiracy Theories

#BGT Prompted by recent allegations suggesting that "Britain's Got Talent" (which she refers to as "Simon Cowell's talentless contest") was fixed, Marina Hyde suggests that we concoct conspiracy theories in order to excuse our twisted fascination with things (Guardian 3 June 2011).

"So what are we to make of people's need to believe in conspiracy theories such as the one floated above? In his famous essay on conspiracy theories in America, the historian Richard Hofstadter noted that a significant part of these tales is psychological projection – people ascribe their own worst traits to the imagined enemy, thus relieving themselves of various kinds of responsibility. And so with an increasingly savvy reality TV audience, who understand that Cowell always wins, yet watch in ever greater numbers and have to find a way of elevating their involvement into something more than a mug's game. Both fans and haters need to develop outlandish conspiracy theories because they can't actually believe millions upon millions are genuinely in thrall to this stuff."

Richard Hofstadter "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" (1964)

Hofstadter's essay and other materials about conspiracy theories can be found on the website of Dr. Kenneth A. Rahn, Sr.  See especially The Academic JFK Assassination Site and Nonconspiracists United.

Bigot Brother

The producers of Celebrity Big Brother (Channel Four and Endemol) must be secretly delighted with the latest scandal, in which Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty is apparently being bullied by three white working class females. [BBC News, Shetty Profile] 

 "Is this racism or class warfare? You decide. Viewers can phone a premium rate number to express their preference for multiracial tolerance."  

As if. As if "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" would want to put more money into Endemol's coffers. David Cameron has advised right-minded people to switch off instead [BBC News]. (In the past such advice from a Conservative Party leader would have doubled viewing figures, but those days are long gone.)  

Update: Apparently the phone-in profits have been given to charity. So that's all right then. 

The rest of the media are enjoying the scandal as well, discussing the offensive behaviour at great length. In yesterday's Times, columnist Carol Midgley wrote some sensible things ("Far from 'not tolerating' bullying, the brains at Endemol have deliberately caused it. And it is not just Shetty who is the victim.") but then spoiled her article by using an offensive racial term to describe one of the contestants. (I am shocked, shocked that the Times subeditors permitted this term.)

Carol Midgley Pedigree v pit bull: Big Brother's cynical face (Times, January 17th, 2007)

Today's Times reminds us that "what we see on Big Brother is only one of many possible stories" - in other words, so-called "reality" is selective and ultimately subjective. According to Burhan Wazir, the scenes selected for broadcast by Endemol will have done no harm to Shetty's career, but have probably destroyed the careers of the three Z-list celebrities portrayed as having bullied Shetty.

Burhan Wazir, They're in big bother (Times, January 18th, 2007)

Above all one Jade Goody, a previous winner of Big Brother. Endemol executives must be thinking of the immortal lines of Eminem: "We created a monster, now everyone wants ter see Jade Goody evicted ..." 

One of Shetty's first starring roles was in a film called Main Khiladi Tu Anhari (1994) [Review by Philip Lutgendorf]. I understand this is the Hindi for something like "I'm good-looking and successful, and you are an ignorant slob." Quite so.  

Wikipedia: Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells

Big Brother

History repeats: tragedy to farce. The tragedy of the totalitarian police state (as satirized by George Orwell) is echoed in the farce of reality television (as invented by John de Mol and exploited by his company Endemol).

Big Brother is watching you. But who exactly is Big Brother? Perhaps the whole TV audience becomes the oppressor.

Is it not decadent (if not positively offensive) to turn one of the most important political issues of the 20th century into one of the most popular entertainments of the 21st century? I imagine that some people who have experienced the terrors of the police state may find it hard to enjoy a trivialized parody of it.

At one level, the purpose of reality TV is merely to entertain the audience and make money for the TV companies and advertisers. But what is the social and political effect? Do viewers learn something useful about group relations? Do viewers learn something useful about authority, and the range of possible responses to authority?

And what about the relationship between the tragedy and the farce? Even though the farce doesn't openly educate people about the tragedy, it might somehow make a future return of the tragedy less likely. One has to be pretty optimistic to believe this - but I can be optimistic sometimes.

del.icio.us tags: POSIWID
Technorati tags: big brother POSIWID

Achilles Heel

Perfection is for the gods. Heroes are supplied with a fatal flaw, which ultimately destroys them. The gods (or scheming humans) may coax them into situations where they will be most vulnerable, but it is often their own arrogance that does them in.

George Galloway championed many causes, opposed the war in Iraq, stood up for Moslem rights, dared to challenge Tony Blair and George Bush. His vanity led him to join some humiliating TV spectacle, with perhaps lasting damage to his credibility as a politician.

Mark Oaten was a steadfast Liberal, opposing the Labour Party on Identity Cards and Anti-Terror Legislation. An embarrassing scandal has caused him to resign his position as party spokesman.

Did they destroy themselves, or were they set up? What is the POSIWID of such self-destructive behaviour?

 

Update: perhaps not lasting damage in Galloway's case. He won two parliamentary by-elections, in both cases losing the seat in the subsequent general election.

KITA and Voter Apathy

Re John's posting on KITA's POSIWID In many countries, the willingness to participate in the electoral process is diminishing. It is easier to get people to vote for some TV reality show (think "Big Brother") than to get them to vote for their political masters. 

One of the causes of this apathy is the perception that there is not much to choose between the candidates. In a two-party system, it is not uncommon to have two candidates from the same social class, who went to the same university (Yale, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, Sorbonne, Ecole Normal.) For all we know, they belong to the same golf club and the same church. Dead White Males.

In the American election this year, there was a great effort to portray Kerry as somehow different to Bush. Kerry had a Plan instead of a Faith. Kerry and Bush possibly worship the same God, but definitely not in the same church. Members of the Democratic Party, as well as many Europeans, pinned their hopes on a Kerry victory. (European support for Kerry probably helped Bush, just as intellectual support for Gore helped Bush last time around.)

As if it would have made any difference. Kerry's policies on everything that matters (e.g. Kyoto, Iraq) would have been practically indistinguishable from Bush's. In order to get elected, you have to have popular policies on everything, and be able to win votes from the other side. Thus the two-party electoral system has the effect of eliminating any significant policy differences, leaving the voter to choose on personality alone. Kerry was a conservative on everything that matters, with slightly more liberal instincts only on things that don't matter so much. 

As John says, you often need a KITA to get people to vote. The less the outcome mattered, the more cash the candidates spent to persuade people it really did matter. The country was divided down the middle, with extraodinary levels of polarization between Republican and Democrat groups. Tens of thousands of lawyers were mobilized to quibble every vote. OBL was commissioned to release a pop video.

But KITA (kick in the ass) produces NITA (numb in the ass). Political shenanegans like these typically have a superficial short-term effect upwards, but a deeper, longer-term effect downwards. Motivation entropy. Trust is a hygiene factor, so abuses of trust or immoral behaviour may cause voters to reject not merely one individual (Nixon, Clinton) but the whole system. One bad apple spoils the barrel.

 

Update: In my post on the Purpose of Diversity (December 2014) I qualify my comment on the Dead White Males. An appearance of diversity - for example by gender or race - may not be sufficient to deliver a real choice of policy.