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The Rice Thresher
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Garret Merriam The new season of "Survivor" recently debuted and several million people tuned in to watch the spectacle. That means millions of us ought to be ashamed of ourselves. From "Survivor" and "The Real World" to "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire," so-called "reality" television has been spreading faster than an STD on "Temptation Island." If this wave of programming reflects anything about the America, it's the fact that we've lost all sense of dignity and taste. Is anyone else taken aback by this? At the rate we're going, we're only a few years away from creating our own versions of "The Running Man" or "The Truman Show." These are fables, people, and there's a moral to the story we've clearly been missing. There are a few harsh lessons we have to learn. First, "unscripted" is not the same thing as "realistic." By the very nature of television, anything that is reproduced in millions of homes is going to be more generic than the lyrics to a Britney Spears song. Second, though television has never had anything that can rightly be considered a Golden Age, our standards have dropped. Gone are the days when game shows showcased the most intellectually astute and TV dramas portrayed the most engaging archetypes of the human condition. Reality programming is instilling the idea that we don't have to work to become famous. Any schmo can win a million dollars - you don't need to be smart, you don't need to better yourself, you just have to tune in. Collectively, we've lowered the bar of expectations so far that we'll celebrate absolutely anyone who bothers to step up to the mike. We've become so accustomed to championing mediocrity that we line up to reward our most banal citizens by showering them with adoration. Are we so desperate for heroes that we'll worship anyone the networks tell us to? It seems we'll watch any group of nimrods that manage to land themselves a prime time spot, regardless of content, character or the lack thereof. Andy Warhol once said that everyone's going to have 15 minutes of fame. If this trend keeps up, we're going to prove him wrong. Each of us will get our own show. But that's precisely why we love this tripe. The programming fuels our common addiction - being at the center of attention. We want so desperately to be popular that we'll entertain any show that promises, "You, too, can be one of the in-crowd." Our self-image is so weak that if we don't receive validation from the masses, we believe our lives amount to nothing. We're all supposed to want to be celebrities, and until we satisfy that goal, we will never be happy and our lives will never be complete. And reality television feeds the promise of this adulation. It requires very little imagination to picture yourself in the limelight, up on a pedestal high above the crowd. I'm not saying that television is evil or that we shouldn't entertain our fantasies. In appropriate doses, even reality TV has its value and place. But we need to ditch this pathetically pretentious craving for popularity that is driving millions of us to watch these shows. What does it say about our values when most of us can name all 16 members of the new cast of "Survivor," yet none of us can name a single one of the 10,000-plus people who died in the earthquake in India? You want reality TV? Set the next season of "Survivor" in Bosnia and whoever survives the genocide gets the million dollars. Or better yet, try "Who Wants to Establish Democracy in a Third-World Nation?" Anyone who can give their final answer before being assassinated by the military dictatorship in Burma will be the winner. When you need a dose of reality, your first instinct should be to turn the TV off. Don't buy into these hollow portrayals of "real" human life, and don't let the programming reduce your hopes to the approval of the horde. The next time you feel like experiencing some reality, do yourself a favor: Get off the couch and go outside. Garret Merriam is a graduate student in philosophy.
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