Reality Bites

There's a program on Fox right now entitled "The Moment of Truth" which is sort of like "Who wants to be a millionaire?" but the questions are about people's lives. The last question was for $100,000 and asked a man if he had ever had sex with any of his friend's wives. He answered yes and according to the lie detector or whatever they have, he was being truthful. Now he's $100,000 richer, but most of that money will go to his divorce lawyer because his wife is going to dump his sorry ass.

I guess the point of the show is to watch people expose the proverbial skeletons from their closets and cringe as they admit to having unprotected sex with HIV+ transvestite hookers while their wives cry in the audience.

It's an interesting concept for prime time television, but it got me thinking: Do we care? I think I can speak for the rest of America by saying that I don't give a rat's ass whether some rube from Wichita has ever had sexual relations with his pet donkey. It's completely irrelevant in my life.

The same goes for "American Idol." Let's face it. Some people can sing and some can't. Does there need to be a mega-program that half of America obsesses over to reveal who can and who cannot sing well? Who fucking cares? There are enough crappy artists out there without creating room for more. Americans must have some sense of talent and competence if they voted for both Taylor Hicks and George W. Bush within a few years of each other.

Not to sound trite, but I am sick of reality television. If I want reality, I have my life. (And I'm not going to lie; it fucking sucks. I don't have a whole lot to be positive about these days.) That's why I don't watch the shit and I try not to discuss it. Although no horse is too dead to beat, it seems like it's cool to hate on reality television*, so I'm not going to. I'm sure there is a multitude of blogs devoted to this very topic, so I will not elaborate any more than necessary.


*Although hipsters that ordinarily do not watch television at all usually have one reality TV fix such as "Project Runway" or "Celebrity Rehab." However, they never watch "American Idol," even ironically.