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Entertainment expert Mike, Hollywood's Ultimate Insider, explained to Bored Panda that reality TV shows are popular for two main reasons.
"The first is we like to imagine what it’s like to live a wealthy and luxurious lifestyle. It’s fascinating for us to peek behind the scenes and see how rich people live, and imagine ourselves living such a life," he said.
"The second main reason is watching the constant drama and turmoil between the characters on reality TV actually makes us feel good about our own lives. We realize a quiet, and what some may call boring, life is really not so bad after all. Watching the drama of reality TV creates positive feelings about ourselves," Mike pointed out that these shows give us perspective.
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The entertainment expert stressed the fact that reality TV isn't actually very real at all.
"Every show has a team of producers, writers, editors, and casting directors behind it. The casting directors are looking for people that will create drama, the producers and writers are crafting storylines to create conflict and drama, and the editors cut out all the boring parts, and only present the viewers with what’s compelling," Mike shared how everything works.
"The scripting and editing are necessary for good TV, or viewers would be completely bored, and would tune out quickly. No one wants to watch boring lives on TV, we’re craving drama and excitement. Good reality provides that."
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Even if we like to consider ourselves the protagonists of our own stories, the fact of the matter is that real life is rarely as dramatic as what we see on TV. There definitely are Important Events and Heroic Fights Against Evil, yes. But they’re rare. Usually, it’s all about Washing the Mountain of Dishes that You Ignored for a Week and Surviving Until the Weekend (Part 128).
If we were in charge of creating a reel of our own daily lives, the odds are that we’d edit out huge portions of what we feel might bore our audience. Instead, we’d probably focus on the spiciest gossip and conversations, throw in some epic arguments, and show off how cool we are by doing a montage of us mountain climbing, painting, and dancing in the rain. We instinctively know that our audience wants to be entertained, so we’d do our best to make them happy.
Keeping in mind how we’re likely to edit our own lives if they were ever turned into a movie or show, it’s no wonder that reality TV shows aren’t 100% real. The crew needs to focus on the most important events (often, drama), so they might edit out all the calm, casual, and friendly chats between the contestants.
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Meanwhile, drama often doesn’t just appear out of thin air. Scripting certain events can help the show crew create structure because they control at least some aspects of what happens. It might not mean that the entire show is ‘fake,’ but it would be naive to think that it’s all free-form.
Besides, not everyone might act naturally in front of the camera either way. They might feel pressured to act more interestingly. So they might construct a character for themselves. Both to help them stay cool under pressure and to be more memorable in the eyes of the audience and the jury.
In other words, some contestants might script their own characters… or the producers will most likely give them a nudge or two to behave a certain way. It really all depends on each project.
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As we’ve recently covered here on Bored Panda, the audience is generally willing to suspend their disbelief for the sake of enjoying the story. However, things need to happen logically and there needs to be internal consistency within the framework of the show or film itself.
So, for instance, when we turn on a reality TV show, we subconsciously expect that some things might not be completely genuine. We might see some creative editing to create more tension than there actually was. Or the producers might stoke or create arguments to move the ‘plot’ forward. If it’s all done skillfully, we’ll simply enjoy the illusion of reality. However, if we can recognize that someone’s messing with reality, we might be upset because our immersion in the scenario has been broken. It’s all in the details!
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The only thing that really disappoints me about the Biggest Loser is the length of time between the weigh-ins. Have you ever wondered how the contestants manage to lose a staggering 12 kilos in a single week? We don't. In my series a weekly weigh-in was NEVER filmed after just one week of working out. In fact the longest gap from one weigh-in to the next was three and a half weeks. That's 25 days between weigh-ins, not seven. That "week" I lost more than nine kilos. I had to stand on the scales and was asked to say the line, "wow, it's a great result, I've worked really hard this week". The producers made sure that we never gave this secret away, because if we did, it created a nightmare for them in the editing suite. The shortest gap from weigh-in to weigh-in during our series was 16 days. That's a fact. The thing is, overweight people get inspired by watching the Biggest Loser. They get off the couch and they hit the gym. But after a week in the real world, some people might only lose 1kg so they feel like they've failed and they give up.
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According to ‘Social,’ nearly 4 in 10 people watch some form of reality TV. However, not everyone’s comfortable sharing that fact with others. For instance, 34% of Australians who watch reality TV lie about the fact!
Meanwhile, ‘Statista’ points out that a whopping 61% of Americans believe that what actors in reality TV shows say is mostly scripted. 18% think that everything’s mostly unscripted.
If you’re in the mood to dig up some more juicy secrets about how ‘real’ reality TV is, take a peek at Bored Panda’s earlier feature right over here.
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Interviews are almost always set up. When we had rehearsels it was mostly three days apart from eachother and we had to wear the same clothes so it would look like the same day.
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