why reality tv is my guilty pleasure (and why i’m taking a break)

My obsession with reality tv started sometime around 2012. I was in between shitty jobs and I had recently discovered the streaming side of Netflix. This was back when Netflix still offered rentals by mail — a wild concept by modern standards.

Keeping Up with the Kardashians was the first reality show I remember getting really into. At that time only six seasons had aired, and they were all right there on Netflix at my disposal. My curiosity got the best of me. What were these people doing to deserve one of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time?

I blew through those first six seasons of Kardashians in a matter of days and immediately moved on to Kourtney & Kim Take New York. From there I somehow made my way over to MTV and got hooked on Jersey Shore and Teen Mom. Let me reiterate: I was unemployed.

But then I got a real job, and suddenly the free time I would have had to binge on trash tv vanished into thin air. From that point, I stayed off of reality tv for a good six years or so. It wasn’t until 2018, when I was pregnant with my son, that I rediscovered my penchant for reality shows — specifically, The Bachelorette.

It was Becca Kufrin’s season. I’d heard about the controversy with Ari from the previous season of The Bachelor, so I knew her being named as the lead for season 14 was a big deal. I was a huge stan for Blake Horstmann at the time, and I was disappointed when she gave her final rose to Garrett. The joke was on me because it turned out they both suck.

Becca was my gateway drug back into the reality television. Since then, I’ve religiously watched every season of every iteration of the Bachelor franchise. And I’ve subsequently listened to every episode recap on The Viall Files.

I’ve basically known that it’s all trash. Yet I’ve allowed myself to persist in consuming this brainrot for years and years. I’m not here to judge anyone who indulges in their reality shows, and I’m not even swearing them off forever. But I do think a break is warranted — a rumspringa, if you will. Then my shows and I will come back to each other in a couple months and see how we feel.

I’m doing this for a number of reasons, the first being that I literally don’t have hours per week to invest in keeping up with all of the shows in my roster. As an aspiring writer, and having recently read some painfully relevant advice in Stephen King’s nonfiction, On Writing, I need to actually write — which, it turns out, requires a time commitment.

I also recently read No Logo by Naomi Klein and, without going off on a complete tangent, I’ll just say that it radicalized me against all forms of advertising. Of course ads are ubiquitous in our present media environment, so the idea of trying to wall myself off from all advertising is a fool’s errand. But reality tv has evolved into an exceptionally fertile landscape for brands to market to their target demos.

Love Island has got to be one of the biggest offenders in the product placement domain. One episode of season 7 was sponsored by Maybelline and they had the women breaking the fourth wall to endorse the product. Not to mention the QR code that appears at the end of every single episode where viewers can shop the clothing and accessories worn by the islanders.

This trend is no doubt perpetuated by the thriving symbiosis between reality television and the social media influencer biosphere. Because of course the people who get cast in reality shows skew disproportionately toward having a large social media following, and their livelihoods depend on sponsorships.

Perhaps the final nail was hammered into this coffin just a couple of days ago, when I heard Tressie McMillan Cottom on The Sam Sanders Show talking about how country music and reality shows perpetuate regressive ideas about gender roles. We all know this intuitively, but I think I needed to hear it from someone like her.

How apropros that my detox from reality tv is happening immediately after the season 7 finale of Love Island aired on Peacock. I PROMISE I didn’t plan this. Will my sabbatical conveniently run its course on August 25th when the reunion airs? I guess that remains to be seen.