The effects of reality TV – Part 4

Reality television has officially killed the creativity and imagination of the nation. The work of Twain, Hemingway, Thoreau, etc. are vastly overridden by Hollywood’s lazy endowment of this superficial venue. Scarier yet, we eat it up. In a world where wit and intelligence are rare commodities, television executives seem to have given up trying to create art, motivated more by the dollar. The byproducts are appalling.

Our children can’t think, not surprising, since their main avenues of entertainment require it not of them. Educators fight an uphill battle to bestow hope and inspiration through learning, but the main protagonists on television encourage the opposite. On shows like “Survivor” and “The Real World” children instead learn success is inversely proportional to the amount of work you have to put in to something. It is better to con, form alliances, and be beautiful than it is to contribute an effort.

The American dream was once that hard work and fortitude can propel anyone to a comfortable living. Somehow we’ve lost that. Instead, children perceive people with no applicable skills to the real world gaining fame and earning thousands of dollars merely because they are controversial in their tactics. Rather than persevering during hardship, they find a scapegoat and execute him. Yes, this has always been an individualistic society, but before reality television it was not so unanimously at the expense of others.

There is no creativity in reality television. People are mostly just placed together in an attempt for conflict. Pitting people against each other is wrong and depraved, yet reality television holds that green carrot over people’s heads. They give people absolute opportunity to debase themselves on national t.v. The viewers are entertained at home at the folly of others. Entertainment should not be about laughing at others for their mistakes, but rather applauding writers and actors for their successes. We have turned into a nation of train wreck watchers instead of scenery appreciators. We have turned into a nation of cruelty.

Since 1776, the United States has been searching for a national identity. Unfortunately, reality television has been the inspiration. We are a nation of narcissism, everyone knowing that beauty wins over brains, slyness wins over might, and ethics need to be forgotten in success. Future generations will hopefully laugh at the juxtaposed priorities of the time and see reality television as a passing fad. However, I fear our generation has caused a festering cancer, that will eat away at the collective intelligence of America.