I have a secret, Hooked on Tonics. It’s the kind of secret that will prevent me from running for Congress, or becoming one of Puff Daddy’s umbrella holders. The skeleton in my closet is that I am a reality television junkie. I’m an equal opportunity kind of gal which means I’ll watch just about anything, the trashier the better.
Most people think these shows are a total waste of air space, and are killing my brain cells one at a time. While I understand that position, I think those people are missing the little pieces of wisdom hidden in these programs.
Sometimes you’re simply overreacting – Real Housewives franchise
Every fight in in these shows boils down to one overly Botoxed person doing something to another overly Botoxed person, and it being completely blown out of proportion. I get it, it’s difficult to get over things when you can’t fully express yourself because your face is more frozen than a mammoth during the Ice Age. Still, these women fail to realize that they’re experiencing first world problems, and that the only person who thinks it’s an egregious error to show up in casual wear to a dinner party is themselves. Sometimes we all need to realize that “problematic” is a matter of perspective, and not a matter of fact.
There are some things you shouldn’t do for love – The Bachelor
When Meatloaf sang about doing anything for love, but not that, he must have been talking about going on The Bachelor. This show is similar to polygamy, but with less marriage, and more phrases like, “She’s such an incredible woman.” I’ll shave my legs, I’ll put on a bra that doesn’t look like it was purchased pre-Civil War, and I’ll even avoid a “that’s what she said” joke when my date mentions he fit into a tight spot while parking his big vehicle. I refuse to awkwardly stand in front of a born again virgin while he decides if he wants to give me a rose he most likely stole off of someone’s grave.
Making it work – Project Runway
I don’t want children, but if I did, I’d want them to be fathered by Tim Gunn. He’s a great dresser, incredibly supportive, well-mannered, and he shoots from the hip. Besides being a sexy little devil, Tim is known for his famous phrase, “Make it work!” Just when the designers are ready to give up on their gowns made from shoes laces and hair from Robin Williams’s chest, Tim comes in and tells them to make it work. I think we all need to be our own Tim Gunn, pushing ourselves when we’re stuck because you never know what kind of masterpiece you can create with just a little perseverance.
Marriage is dangerous – 48 Hours Mystery, Snapped, Dateline, etc.
Most couples assume that the scariest part of their marriage will be looking back on their wedding pictures and realizing they looked like they were extras in a Billy Idol video. Based on these mystery shows, the real danger is snoring right next to you in bed. At some point in a marriage, a couple goes from picking out pillows to smothering one another with them. My advice? Don’t go on any cruises, don’t amass great wealth, and never, under any circumstance, let your partner take out a life insurance policy on you. You might as well hand them the knife, and walk into it, stabbing yourself to death.
Fess up, do you watch reality television? If so, what’s your biggest takeaway from all of those hours staring at pseudo celebrities?
Sips of Jen and Tonic 
Ok, I’ll fess up. For some reason I love Gordon Ramsey and Kitchen Nightmares. When he goes ballistic on the people who ask for his help and then don’t want to make any of the changes he suggests, you just want to slap the people silly. Because I can’t get in their face or bitch slap them, I love that Gordon does it for me. They don’t get that they are insane: doing the same thing every day, making no changes, and expecting a different outcome.
Oh, and I like Tabatha Takes Over, and have recently discovered Bar Rescue.
I freaking LOVE Tabatha. Everything she has ever been on, or hosted, has been awesome. Even when she was on Shear Genius she stole the show, and she was a contestant!
I’d rather watch nothing at all than to have to pollute my brain with the rantings of some of these ‘contestants’ or whatever it is they call themselves. Dancing with the Stars isn’t so bad I suppose. There are guidelines and parameters and something is being taught and hopefully learned. Project Runway fits that category too – something tangible comes as a result. But I’d rather have needles in my eyeballs than to have to listen to the ‘housewives’, ‘tiara toddlers’, or the ‘bachelorettes’. Yikes.
I was writing my own response, then saw this and decided, “No, I won’t respond. Renee already said what I wanted to.” Thanks for saving me from typing, Renee!
Um, when we hang out we are totally watching Real Housewives of Gilroy.
Only if we get to eat lots of garlic.
I can’t watch Dancing with the Stars. There’s something so sad about washed up actors trying to dance. Some are surprisingly good, but most…I just hope the paycheck was worth it.
Project Runway is probably the best reality show on television.
I love you, Jen. Guilty of it all, I am!
I wish we lived closer to each other so we could watch them together. Real Housewives party!
I would be soooo in!
I do love reality tv, if only to marvel at how some people act. It is a little insulting though when people act so over the top that it’s obvious they are just putting on a show for the cameras. Come on, give us some credit, we are not that gullible!
I hate the overly staged drama. At least feed me the illusion that it may be real.
I know right, humor us!
Do HGTV shows count as reality tv? Totally hooked on Income Property. The show’s host/home contractor, Scott McGillivray, makes me school-girl giddy. Same with Kitchen Cousins.
Hoarders/Hoarding: Buried Alive sucks me in every time. Bonus: by the end of the episode, my home is spotless.
I love HGTV! It makes me want to get super handy and build myself a desk. That’s probably why I have all of this plywood laying around.
My TV and my head both explode whenever one of those shows comes on. Or most other things, too, now that I think about it.
My tv does sizzle a bit, I’ll admit.
I like watching “The Amazing Race.” I only really like watching it with friends and family, though. I can’t really enjoy it alone.
I’ve only seen that show twice, and one of the episodes was where that girl got hit in the face with the watermelon when she tried to use a slingshot.
Hahaha!
We watch survivor and The X Factor. That’s pretty much it as far as reality tv goes. That life insurance policy made me laugh..cause we do watch Who the Bleep Did I Marry? lol
I can’t do X Factor being Howie Mandel really bugs me. There’s something so obnoxious about his bald head.
Howie’s on America’s got talent. X Factor has Simon Cowel and Demi Lavato and 2 other chicks. Love X Factor.
Oh damn! Too many shows for me to remember!
lol. there are too many shows…
Admittedly, I am a big fan of Hell’s Kitchen. Only because it brings back so many fond memories of my years as a chef. Not that I yelled a lot…
You were a chef? Did you make desserts with those tiny torches? That is my only motivation in being a chef, using one of those things.
Oh yeah, torching a brûlée was my favorite. Mostly because it sounds like something from one of those naughty self-help books. Seriously though, that was always fun. I knew one chef who always lit his cigar with one. Until he lost his mustache.
I don’t watch these shows because I want to go through the TV and tell them to go to anger management and other things. I am hooked on Dance Moms and get angry at the Moms and the teacher for yelling at the kids. My blood pressure is still up from the last show.
That lady on dance moms is cray cray. All of those people are off their rockers.
Oh, dirty little secret. . .I too indulge in reality TV. Please don’t tell. Love watching the House Ho’s duke it out rich bitch style. Even love Hoarders, because it always gives me the incentive to clean my own hovel. Unfortunately, can’t afford satellite anymore, so am stuck with watching re-runs of My Strange Addiction on Netflix. However, ran across a piece of hillbilly delight the other night called The Fabulous Whites of West Virginia. Co-produced by Johnny Knoxville, how can you go wrong?? 😉
Hoarders is a train wreck for me. I never want to watch it, but if I catch a glimpse of it I can’t look away. The thought of my dead cats just being buried beneath a pile of stuff I’m laying on top of makes me sick. I don’t even like it when my magazines pile up.
I have a hard time with the dead animals too. 😦 I freak out every once in awhile if I have too much stuff stacked on a table, and will just push it all off on the floor, forcing me to do something with it.
My wife always watches the Real Housewives. I like to call it “Rich White Women Yelling at Each Other”
Yep, that sums it up perfectly
I’m addicted to all cooking competition shows. Eight seasons of Chopped just came on Amazon Instant Video – I’ve already watched two seasons. And I will sit all day and watch Gordon Ramsay yell at people on his million shows. (I wish he would yell at me.)
Oh, and the one I’m a little ashamed of is America’s Next Top Model. No talking is allowed when I’m watching. It’s like art to me.
Tyra Banks is like part Deepak Chopra, part Anna Wintour in that show. I love how seriously she takes herself without acting like she is. Sometimes I just want to scream, “JUST SMILE WITH YOUR EYES SO TYRA WILL SHUTUP ABOUT IT.” (Note: I’ve practiced smizing)
The one thing I’ve learned about reality shows is that I can identify, assess and disregard tehm in the time it takes me to click “next channel” on the remote.
So help me God if I get a reality tv show one day and you turn the channel…
I think reality shows are the Devil’s purview.
Besides, how could I not want to miss HGTV’s “Tonight on Jen Beats The Crap Out Of Stupid People And Pours Tonic In Their Open Wounds: The DMV Lady”?
Emmys for sure!
I would love to be a traffic cop on a segue. I just think me being on a segue would be good.
I’ve ridden a Segue in Portland.
Madness!
WHAT?!
It was fun. We went along the river, crossed along the railroad bridge, then went up along the river promenades.
It wa a good time, about a two hour tour.
I watch. I’m ashamed. But, I just can’t turn down the opportunity of seeing spoiled rich people act like total jerks. I get sucked into Real Housewives almost every time. We also started watching Below Deck, rich people on yachts. Just as obnoxious. Is there a Betty Ford clinic for reality tv viewers?
WHOA WHOA WHOA. There is a show about rich people on yachts? I need to step my game up.
even better, it’s about the drunk people who serve people on yachts … white trash and ultra rich at the same time! boom
I don’t watch any reality show regularly, but I have been known to (sadly) check out Read Housewives and…Keeping Up with the Kardashians, from time to time.
What I take away from these types of shows is how shallow and vain some people in this world can afford to be. It’s kind of sad, in a way. I can’t relate to anything or anyone on these shows so I am often confused about why I can’t seem to turn the channel sometimes….
Oh, honey, I’ve kept up with the Kardashians. There is something about the sisters’ dynamic that I love. It kind of reminds me of me and my sisters, except I’d never squirt my sister’s breast milk on my leg.
I like the competition reality shows: Survivor, Big Brother, Amazing Race, etc. Nothing wrong with that.
Have you seen American Ninja Warrior? I LOVE that show.
I just introduced my boys to that show. It’s crazy!
I don’t watch reality TV, but I watch enough crime dramas to make me just as guilty of being a time waster…
Crime dramas are the best. They’re also kind of the worst because then I can’t sleep.
I, alas, have a terribly tenacious ‘Millionaire Matchmaker’ habit which I call the ‘cannabis’ reality show because it invariably leads you into getting hooked on others, in my case the Real Housewives franchise (heroin) which is impossible to quit because just as one show (say OC) finishes, another bunch of extension haired, demented, middle aged, botulism/filler pumped, over privileged bitches (Atlanta perhaps) hit our screens ready to duke it out over someone not liking their weave, smiling at their boyfriend, chipping their nail polish or whatever.
MM’s Patti Stanger in particular fascinates me though, in (a) the way she talks to people and (b) the way that they meekly accept her criticisms/condemnations/shrieking at them.
She might want to avoid doing a Sarf London show as if she told a Brixton honey that she looked like a slut/needs to lose weight/was having a midlife crisis, she’d be picking up those veneers with broken fingers, believe me….
Bravo is of course the dealer and should be stopped! But not until the next series of New York is aired. 🙂
Just one more series and I’ll quit, honest….
How could I forget about the dating devil, Patti Stanger?! She is the worst. I can’t believe people fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars for her “consultation fee” or whatever bogus thing it is. Here is how I feel: if you are a millionaire and can’t get laid, YOU DON’T DESERVE TO.
I also love that she broke off her engagement at the last minute with her last boyfriend, and then was engaged like a year later to a guy she just met. Methinks she needs to get her shit together first.
I’d love someone to critique her the way she does others, and perhaps send her off to one of those mad therapists she uses.
Can you imagine any man sharing a home with her?!
I’m not big into reality TV, but I know that everything in Breaking Bad is real. I’m pretty sure opening a car wash and laundering huge amounts of cash is in my immediate future. Thanks for making my Wednesday morning all smiley, Jen…and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
I always – always – look at car wash places now with a suspicious/ giddily hopeful eye now.
Same thing with the cleaners. How can people make a living off of pressing shirts for $1.25 a piece. DO THE MATH, I DARE YOU.
Happy birthday?! Is this just really early, or really late?
I’ve never seen Breaking Bad. Feel free to slap me now.
Once in a while I do watch Project Runway — I liked that “fierce” kid, LOL. And, I still contend, that if folks really want to watch a “real” housewife of New Jersey, the producers should give me a call. I could use the extra cash. LOL.
Great post, by the way!
Wait, are YOU a real housewife?! We need to hang out so we can fight, and then have a reunion special where we talk loudly over Andy Cohen.
Contact Andy, I’m in!
I think people piss on reality shows because they all, except for maybe ice road truckers, hit way too close to home. They want to escape into a story and think they are above the people in the show. But they end up seeing the same type of asshat they work with on tv. And the kicker – those asshats actually get paid handsomely for it.
We always end up watching those 48 hours and Dateline type things. Though one day I did watch 6 hours of Swamp People.
I haven’t seen Swamp People, but I’ve heard it’s a good time suck. I think there is truth to your statement about some people hating it because it’s too close. A friend of mine won’t watch it because it’s “beneath him” which is the same dumb asshattery he hates about the show.
I’m more of a First 48Hours fan. As opposed to Survivor where the better lying psychopath wins. Me love TV!
First 48 is such a good show! When I first watched it I was like, “Hey, this doesn’t look nearly as slick or sexy as Law & Order makes it seem.”
Yes it is… A guy kills someone and is caught because he called a Domino’s Pizza hours later and thru triangulation they know it’s him?? Amazing.. And not one of them has a lawyer present during questioning..
I KNOW!
I can’t believe you included Dateline, etc! Those shows are my crack. I will seriously flip over a table if anyone tries to change the channel when one of those shows are on.
speaker7,
I’ve never seen a woman flip over a table… but now I really really want to.
-Soul Walker
You would be able to see it if you watched The Real Housewives of New Jersey.
No I need to see this in real life…
Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHsql84h56k
Speaker Giudice, is that you?
Jen,
It’s more like which reality show I don’t watch… Project Runway, America’s Next Top Model, Survivor. On the plus side, I did have enough of CNN, it was getting redundant…
Le Clown
You watch American’s Next Top Model? No wonder you smile with your eyes.
Smize!