For years reality television has sold itself as a democratic route to fame…
For years reality television has sold itself as a democratic route to fame. A contemporary three-ring circus haunted by the ghost of P. T. Barnum. Ordinary people transformed into stars by the will of “the public”. A meritocracy with contemporary additives and sponsored dental whitening.
But beneath the glossy language sat something far older and rather uglier: the atavistic Colosseum impulse.
The audience has never simply watched. It has judged, rewarded, punished and occasionally demanded blood. Social media merely industrialised the process. We stopped being viewers and became a digital baying crowd with the illusion of voting rights.
Reality TV occasionally resembles an emotional abattoir wrapped in pastel branding and inspirational music. Everyone speaks solemnly about “journeys” while producers lurk nearby with the narrative equivalent of cattle prods.
The current crisis around reality TV will not kill the genre. Public fascination with fame, ambition and human frailty is older than television itself. Pick up my book The Fame Formula from a remainder store and you’ll discover I spent time talking to Hollywood’s architects of celebrity. The Romans understood all this long before ITV executives regurgitated commissioning budgets.
But I suspect it marks the end of reality TV in its most venal form. Audiences now understand the machinery a little too well. They can see the manipulation, the emotional engineering and the economics behind the spectacle.
The next phase may have to be cleverer. Less gladiatorial. Less disposable. More duty of care and less feeding contestants into the content mincer while everyone looks away.
Because eventually every Colosseum has a reckoning. Even the modern ones with influencer colabs and carefully curated authenticity.
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