SHP Forums

Dating Shows - and other things
I’m sure you’re familiar with this disgusting phenomenon – TV dating shows. Adult human beings on national television, GROVELLING for dates! Have some self-respect. If you want to pick someone up, go to a bar, to the park – even to the library – or (if you're that desperate) just buy a Playboy. Of course it's sleazy, but you won't be sharing it with the rest of the nation.

The 'contestants' (I hesitate to call them victims) are usually chosen for their potential to amuse the TV audience as opposed to any concern for their happiness or compatibility. Just think of shows like Beauty and the Geek or Please Marry My Boy (both on channel 7) or The Farmer Wants a Wife (on channel 9). Shows like these is one reason why I've stopped watching TV.

These abominations have taken something that should be private and romantic and – who knows – maybe even intimate, and turned it into something cheesy and repulsive. You can say what you like about the dating scene and singles' bars, but at least I’m not on The Bachelorette. You'd think that anyone with an IQ over about 50 will be appalled by the very idea, yet they're still on air - and herein lies the mystery - but I guess that in today's idiot-o-cracy, I shouldn't be surprised.

The irony is that television used to mean something. It was a medium for intelligent discourse, for exposing national scandal. Remember Ed Murrow's See It Now and his exposé on Joseph McCarthy? Fat chance of that happening now. Now, everything has to be bright and colourful - perhaps to distract the population and stop them asking awkward questions, like 'what did my taxes get spent on?' - and that's the bigger mystery. Shouldn't we be asking awkward questions? Hey, if Woodward and Bernstein never asked questions, do you think they would have cracked Watergate? If Rosa Parks never questioned the status quo, where do you think the civil rights movement would be? Examples go on and on, and yet some people don't question what they read and see. Why is that?

What do you think, hmmm?

I dislike them and feel ashamed when I see the things they do.

I don't watch much television. Except for right now, since Omroep Brabant is showing the Bosch Parade, that's a boat parade where all floats are inspired by the works of our second-most favourite Brabant painter, Hiëronymus Bosch. It's pretty awesome!

Our most famous dating show, one that specializes in farmers, gets 5 million viewers per episode, meaning one in every three people watches it. There's a lot you can have against such shows, but since so many people are watching them, well... they can go ahead as far as I'm concerned.

Three points:

1. TV has never been primarily for information or intelligent anything. The primary function was to entertain. Going back to the early days of television in the 1950s, the most successful shows were sitcoms, talkshows, and gameshows.

There's a reason TV has been called "the idiot box" for decades.

2. The people in reality TV aren't victims, at least not in the classic sense of the word. True, most aren't treated with dignity, but they have to apply to be on the show in the first place. That means every single contestant had, at some point, auditioned to be on a show that might humiliate them in front of a global audience.

Even in reality shows like COPS or Taxicab Confessions, where no one auditioned, anyone on it must give permission to show their face.

3. Why would anyone purposefully put themselves into such an embarrassing position? Fame, plain and simple. The largest and most consistent goal among young Americans (the target audience for most of these reality shows) is "being famous."

It's understandable, to a degree, in shows like American Idol, but I'm always amazed when I hear people giving permission to show their faces while they're being arrested on COPS.

DeadPoolX wrote: There's a reason TV has been called "the idiot box" for decades.

To be fair, it's like anything. It's how you use it.

You can watch brainless reality shows; or you can watch well written shows.

Like the internet.

Tons of information. But how many hoaxes have surfaced, fooling, thousands, and millions of people, through social media, email, etc?

It's all how you use it.

Tawmis wrote:

DeadPoolX wrote: There's a reason TV has been called "the idiot box" for decades.

To be fair, it's like anything. It's how you use it.

You can watch brainless reality shows; or you can watch well written shows.

Like the internet.

Tons of information. But how many hoaxes have surfaced, fooling, thousands, and millions of people, through social media, email, etc?

It's all how you use it.

I agree, but there's far more people watching brainless shows (reality or not) than there are those watching anything well-written or informational.

Look at channels like the History Channel and A&E. They used to show historical and educational shows. Because they weren't making enough money, a new CEO was hired and changed the programming. Those channels nowadays show crap about aliens or moronic reality TV, like Duck Dynasty. The sad thing is they make far more money showing complete nonsense than they ever did when they were actually about information and learning.

The lesson learned here is that the vast majority of the viewing audience wants to see ridiculous shit, most of which contains people yelling at each other or being otherwise humiliated. Unfortunately, it's a lesson that TV executives paid close attention to learned well.

DeadPoolX wrote:Three points:

1. TV has never been primarily for information or intelligent anything. The primary function was to entertain. Going back to the early days of television in the 1950s, the most successful shows were sitcoms, talkshows, and gameshows.

There's a reason TV has been called "the idiot box" for decades.

Hmmm... I don't know about this. Surely Ed Murrow's See It Now (or, at least, his explosive and - for that time - highly controversial focus on Joseph McCarthy) was very popular? McCarthy was a hugely controversial figure at the time, so Murrow's criticism of McCarthyism would surely have drawn huge crowds?

I don't know if there actually were any talk shows in the 50s.

(By the way, I'm sure that my political leanings are showing - but I do admire Ed Murrow enormously, particularly his honesty, integrity and courage).

Rath Darkblade wrote:

DeadPoolX wrote:Three points:

1. TV has never been primarily for information or intelligent anything. The primary function was to entertain. Going back to the early days of television in the 1950s, the most successful shows were sitcoms, talkshows, and gameshows.

There's a reason TV has been called "the idiot box" for decades.

Hmmm... I don't know about this. Surely Ed Murrow's See It Now (or, at least, his explosive and - for that time - highly controversial focus on Joseph McCarthy) was very popular? McCarthy was a hugely controversial figure at the time, so Murrow's criticism of McCarthyism would surely have drawn huge crowds?

I don't know if there actually were any talk shows in the 50s.

(By the way, I'm sure that my political leanings are showing - but I do admire Ed Murrow enormously, particularly his honesty, integrity and courage).

Note the use of the word "primarily" in my previous post. That doesn't mean information-based shows don't exist or that some haven't done well. It simply means that TV is used as a means for entertainment far more often than its used to educate or inform.

As for talk shows, yeah, they existed. The Tonight Show, for instance, has been around since 1954.

DeadPoolX wrote:Look at channels like the History Channel and A&E. They used to show historical and educational shows. Because they weren't making enough money, a new CEO was hired and changed the programming. Those channels nowadays show crap about aliens or moronic reality TV, like Duck Dynasty. The sad thing is they make far more money showing complete nonsense than they ever did when they were actually about information and learning.

Don't get me started on the loss of those two. Can't they leave something for those with more than a double digit IQ? Another channel sacrificed on the altar of the lowest common denominator is the SciFi channel. The "Syfy" has been dumbed down to the point that it is nothing more than brainless fantasy and horror boring garbage. Good SF can be deep and thought provoking. It can be a vehicle for exploring aspects of the human condition that cannot be explored any other way. And let's not forget that they not only show reality ghost shows, they also show big time wrestling on Friday prime time!

Again, leave something for the rest of us that have more than two neurons to rub together. </rant>

Gee, I don't think I've ever seen you rant, Collector. *surprised* But I agree... if this is what the Sci-fi channel has come to, good riddance to it, I say!

I've given up on a good sci-fi TV show. I'm re-reading my collection of short stories by Asimov and Heinlein. (Not a big collection as yet, but I'm working on it...)