Who was following the original reality day to day life programming was pretty apparent in earlier days.
Gossip, misinformation and other times deadly accurate details were part of the social banter.
And if a person wanting to be in the conversation know spotlight was in the dark on something, ah here comes the embellishment. Added to the dialogue like seasoning standing at the cook stove. Into the supper skillet of what tastes so juicy, tasty and at someone else’s expense.
Maybe some folks thrive on the gossip, missteps, plight, perils of others so readily because their own existence is painful.
Life just not going, headed in the direction they wished so park it. Put your nose where it does not belong, your eyes on the paper of another. Other times sheer boredom is the culprit. Not enough going on to occupy the person and hand me that wooden spoon will you? Let’s stir the pot and enjoy what it generates. With the currents of a community where all the personalities, hopes, dreams and ambitions mix so marvelously. Or like oil and water depending on the day.
My Mom like lots of other housewives in the 1960’s and beyond watched The Guiding Light, As The World Turns, The Young And The Restless. Her soap operas, where you could miss a few weeks, while ironing, watching and listening. Not be following the episodes, out of the loop and then “ta da”. Tune in.
Suddenly back up to speed quickly when you found out Victor was headed to prison. Sophie that trailer trash two timer but easy on the eyes tart was the cause in the frame, set up. That alley cat that the majority of the housewives in the audience did not trust. Were not so fond of Victor, a lady’s man who was no prince, saint. But did not deserve to go to the crow bar hotel for three hots and a cot at the expense of this stylish little witch. That could turn it on and off to suit her Jezebel motives, needs.
Reality television is cheap programming.
Find an virtually unknown, low compensation character in a small location. Watch his or her exploits at the storage wars, moonshine still, pawn shop or in the kitchen / bar of a very poorly run establishment. Expose all the tension in those settings for a few episodes in the series, and you have an instant following.
The ups and downs of another’s life. To take your mind on your own life roller coaster ride part of the reason for the following? Or just it’s fun to study others, why they do what they do when this or that happens. Whether you were a political science or marketing major or not in college. Or enjoyed all the psych classes you got credit hours for sitting through.
Maybe watching someone unfoiled, getting what you or I think they deserve appeals to the judge holding the scales of justice in all of us. To seek what is fair. To right the wrong, to attempt to make everyone wear a white not black hat. Or to inject a little spin because agendas needing addressing, attention to somehow come back to benefit yourself going on in the background. Never liked the process called huckstering where a smile is flashed, platitudes exchanged when deep down inside the exterior gestures did not match the inner emotions of the person playing the game.
I think that is one more of the attractions to buying a forty acre property, land in the middle of nowhere in under populated Maine.
Ker plopping a cabin in the center of it all for a simple living away from others existence. I see lots of new to the areas but from larger population centers too hemmed in, tightly crowded all their life doing that.
For too long they have been knee deep in other people. And nothing anti social about it. But just want their own space, to keep others with long beaks out of that personal buffer boundary area surrounding them. And will return the favor. Too much reality programming exposure on and off the tube part of the reason? Causing the I got to get out of this concrete urban jungle, the walls are closing in and have to bust out. To relocate, move to Maine, some off the beaten location with none many people.
A don’t bother me, I will leave you alone let’s shake on it agreement for the later years taking place? Just wanting to avoid the drama, soap opera in real life with dysfunctional family, social, work, church or whatever groups that make them have to ask “what is wrong now that needs to be dealt with like it or not?” This is one theme I hear from the moving to Maine relocation group wanting to avoid a steady diet of drama, altered reality and spin in their life.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com