Life Lessons from Reality TV
Reality TV is Australia’s version of prestige television. America has House of Cards. We have Married At First Sight.
The reason for the genre’s popularity is simple: it provides us with nuanced and textured glimpses of life. But mainly it’s just fun to watch drunk people yelling at each other.
Reality TV presents us with valuable lessons that we can adopt in our own lives. These shows are a masterclass in how to be an effective communicator.
For example, when you find yourself in a social setting where you’re simply not seeing eye-to-eye with someone, there’s no need to raise your voice and get into an argument. Instead, just throw your glass of wine at them, like the great merlot-hued tidal wave of 2019, where Married At First Sight enemies Cyrell and Martha engaged in a tit-for-tat splish-splash.
Even after throwing wine at an annoying social acquaintance, there’s a chance they still might not understand your point. And that’s fine – some people just don’t comprehend subtlety. In these situations, don’t be afraid to kick things up a notch. Make your point a little more clearly by simply standing above them and smashing your empty wine glass on the table, like the great MAFS-quake of 2022 with Domenica and Olivia.
But what do you do if you find yourself in a social altercation with no wine glasses in sight? You can always resort to basic insults. After all, C-word scandals are just bread and butter for reality TV producers. If all else fails, you can simply break into your enemy’s bathroom and dunk their toothbrush in the toilet, like David did to Hayley on MAFS when he wanted payback.
The cultural impact of these shows runs deep. Reality TV has even revolutionised the Australian language. Centuries from now, linguistics experts will study the evolution of modern English in this country and structure entire university courses around it. Thanks to obtrusive dental veneers and silicone lip injections, our pronunciation of certain words has been hindered for the better. If you’ve ever watched the cosmetically enhanced contestants on these shows, you’ll be familiar with how quickly your brain adapts to the botched pronunciations of everyday words. For example, the word ‘blindsided’ is frequently pronounced as ‘blime-fibe-eb’.
These shows are all about people getting blime-fibe-eb. They gleefully blime-fibe each other, and then talk ruefully about how they’ve been blime-fibe-eb. If reality TV has taught us anything, it’s that you are nobody unless you’re getting blime-fibe-eb.
James Weir