Reality tv ushers out last shreads of actual reality.

[Luther Blissett]

During my degree course (in philosophy), I read the book in which Neo keeps the contraband disks near the start of The Matrix.

It's Simulacra and Simulation (The Body, In Theory Histories of Cultural Materialism) - Jean Baudrillard.

Baudrillard talks about a land where a map is commissioned which is to be so accurate that it covers the land itself.

After a time the map is taken for reality, and the land underneath disappears (don't ask how - it just does - he's French, and thus allowed to use shit metaphors), whence the map itself starts to wear thin. This he calls the "desert of the real" (a line borrowed in the film).

I think that the maximum number of layers of falseness has been reached with the coming of Reality TV.

Imagine someone taking part in such a program ...talking about reality tv programs. Well,he or she would probably lie, and say what he or she thought would make him or her popular, rather than say what was necessarily true.

Also, imagine that he/she grew up at school never doing anything "different" and always trying to fit in with the current trend/fashion (ans lets face it, Big Brother attracts those types), then he/she will probably have quite a false personality to start with.

We might see the extremes of personalities which would be allowed on TV, but they tend to be people who wear some strange jewelry, or have sex a lot, or show a whole range of other "shocking" but essentially mindless hooks. Truly different people, who might have challenging social or political opinions (or even an IQ which might make this possible) seem pretty much absent from the reality tv circuit.

Now add in the inherent falseness that society accidentally encourages from even good people in the name of justifying palpably unjustifiable things such as world poverty etc, and you have at least four layers of falseness there.

Now add on particular forms of popularity, such as not simply drinking a fashionable type of drink, but drinking a specific brand that you're sponsored to drink, since you got famous for being famous.

That's five layers.

It often feels as though the only people who have time to try and "get real" are deemed either to have their heads in the clouds, or simply lazy.

I have to get a job, but I have a nasty feeling that LOTS of jobs are almost entirely there to propagate falseness of one kind or another, and so I'm going to be VERY careful what I end up letting take up (and over) most of my waking day.

I've mentioned http://www.anxietyculture.com before, I know, but damn it's a good site...

Baudrillard's theory, that reality has come to be defined as that of which a copy can be made, may or may not directly relate to the question of how such crap ever got on air in the first place, but still, it's a perspective.

Luther Blissett, writing for couchtripper.com

[faceless]

That's quite some read.

I used to see reality shows in a similar light, but I've come to accept them as bubblegum for the mind and that a wee chew now and then doesn't really do any harm. Though, at the end of Celebrity Big Brother there was a noticable 'cold-turkey' period when the constant information overload came to a crashing end and I quite surprised myself at how much of a sucker I'd become for it.

I like to be entertained and I like to keep myself informed of real affairs at the same time. I'm sure there are many people who completely immerse themselves in such pap though.

[Luther Blissett]

Right now the nation seems to be subsisting on a TV diet of largely bubblegum.

You personally eat a balanced TV diet by the sounds of things, but then again you supplement it with internet vitamins and other extra-tv minerals.

I just think that there's an intellectual crisis in the UK / world, and that TV is missing a great opportunity to help people out of their prisons of ignorance.

I mean fine if they want to show people acting like brainless cocks, but at least they could be shown in a scornful and lampooned light, rather than celebrated as stars.

Maybe there needs to be some sort of emergency TV law so that if the nation's IQ dips below a certain average, then for every minute of airtime given over to a thick chav on Big Brother, there has to be a "counterbalance" minute of Dr Jonathan Miller talking about the relationship between art and science or something.

[luke]

[faceless]

Luther, you play BF2142 a lot - is that a better kind of escapism?

[Luther Blissett]

[faceless]

"They Live" (the movie from which the picture is taken) is one of my favourites - even if it did rip 'V' off on a lot of levels, the idea of 'awakening' was a good one. The big fight scene is a cracker also - loads of THWACKS and KAPOW MUTHERFUCKERs. Gawd bless John Carpenter.

As far as the point about your choice of escapism being interactive and therefore better is concerned, can that really be a valid reason for dismissing one form of 'fun' for another? Would, for example, playing paintball make you any better than someone who dresses as a wizard and casts spells on people in the park on a Saturday afternoon, or, for that matter, someone who takes coke on a Saturday night and thinks they're great while doing so?

Considering your degree in philosophy I'm sure you must be able to see that the simple psychological desire for escapism is a more important consideration than the method chosen to do so?

[Luther Blissett]

[faceless]

[Luther Blissett]

[alan1254]

but I dont see any problem with all this