[Blarg]

Yeah, the savings are enormous, so there's a lot of appeal on the supply side for them.

I am curmudgeonly about lots of things, and plenty deserve them. Regarding "reality" shows, I am bothered by their lack of reality -- much of it is actually scripted, I'd bet, and the rest is very far from how people would act without a camera on at the time -- and their implied assertion of reality at the same time. It feels like a silly gyp. They are neither fake nor real, but something grotesque in between that we are asked to play along with in order to believe and care about. I don't really feel like playing along. I don't see the point. I feel hustled and like an extremely shallow and stupid part of me is being assumed to exist, and then being pandered to. I don't particularly want to live in that world which is created on the assumption that I'm a vapid idiot and then sets out to reward me for being a loyal one and buying in. No thanks. I don't want the t.v. to be a friend to me, especially one that presumes I'm a moron.

I'll play along on some shows, the type where people actually have to display concrete skills, like Survivorman or Top Chef, rather than dumb ones made up on the spot, like throw a coconut and vote each other off the island. That just seems imbecilic. If I'm that tragically exhausted that I would want to watch a bunch of douchebag wanna-be actors doing stuff that's basically random, it's time to turn off the t.v., maybe take a nap or something until I regain my focus and self-respect again.