The Future's Past

Today’s post is going to be about the following statement:

“Reality TV is a positive force in our modern day popular culture, and it reflects the best values and ideas of our society.”

First of all I want to ask you, the lovely person reading this post, if you laughed when you read this statement; because I did.

The thing is modern day popular culture is a joke. Reality TV doesn’t have a positive force, and it reflects anything but our best values and ideas. With shows on TV like Jersey Shore, Fear Factor, and Teen Mom it clearly shows that our values as a society aren’t as positive and as good as we thought they were.

Jersey Shore has to be one of the biggest and best examples of our society’s terrible values. Although it was one of the biggest shows on TV, this show was the least bit positive. Unaware of what they were watching, people all over the world were being promoted a vast variety of things that people between the ages of 12 and 17 shouldn’t be promoted. The men in this show (if you even want to call them men) would go out almost every single night and scout out for girls that they thought were cute-enough and would be an easy bang. A lot of the girls that they referred to as “grenades” (meaning “ugly”) were actually really good-looking girls; but they didn’t fit the criteria for these boys. A lot of girls watched this show and were googly-eyed over the boys; how do you think they would feel if who they thought was really pretty, was considered not-attractive to the guys that they had fantasies of dating. If anything, Jersey Shore is a negative force in our modern day popular culture. And god am I glad that show ended.

On to the next reality show: Fear Factor. This show is a great example of our culture’s values and ideas, which aren’t the best. This show clearly is for morbid sadists that enjoy watching other people’s pain. It clearly shows that the people of today’s modern culture are willing to do literally anything for a cash prize (in this case, $50,000). One episode which NBC was a little too afraid to air had the contestants drink the semen and urine of a donkey! Now is that worth $50,000 in your opinion? Our culture really has the best values and ideas, doesn’t it?

The last reality show I’m going to talk about is the very well-known 16 And Pregnant. Although 16 and Pregnant showed young teens the truth of being pregnant at such a young age, it also promoted being pregnant at such a young age. When this show first started out in 2009, my friends and I were only a mere 10 and 11 years old. I never saw an interest in this show, but most of my friends did. I don’t talk to most of my elementary school friends anymore, but I can tell you that most of them did get pregnant around the ages of 15 to 17. I’m not blaming the show, but I feel like if it weren’t so promoted when we were younger they would’ve had different fates. I also do know that a lot of teens tried to get on the show after it grew popular. So you tell me if this show was a positive force on our modern day popular culture.