by Jade LaFemme

Created on: November 03, 2010

If fame were a bedpost, reality television would have whittled it down to the size of a toothpick.

To quote one of my favorite bloggers, the generation that has been raised during the "reality TV show" boom has created young adults whom "know the price of everything and the value of nothing"..

To better understand the phenomenon of reality television, one must look to the website www.wga.org's article entitled "The Real History of Reality TV Or, How Alan Funt Won the Cold War". 

Alan Funt gave birth to the reality show boom with his show "Candid Microphone" in 1947.  It then moved to television as "Candid Camera" in 1948. 

The quest to become famous has morphed from taboo to banal.  The stakes are high, the price is steep, and Andy Warhol's "fifteen minutes"  is now nothing more than a nanosecond.  Credibility is slowly but surely trickling down from a healthy stream with strong currents to the trickle of a leaky faucet, replaced with the never-ending thirst to be notorious.

This "reality television generation" does not seem to fully grasp the harsh realities of day to day life.  They turn on their TV and are bombarded with channel after channel of what amount to molecules in the leg of a chair or a star in the sky.  Their sense of perspective is entirely warped. 

One could make the argument that it is the parent's job to police what their child is watching.  However, I personally always make the argument that as a mother myself, I cannot compete against the sheer amount of sexually suggestive commercials, shows,and televised events.

Even toy manufacturers are cashing in on the overt sexuality of today's media (90% of all media is run by the six major companies of the world-therefore "Big Media" is there for no other reason but to make Big Business even bigger.)  with their "Bratz dolls".  Everywhere you turn as a parent you are faced with not just "Barbie"'s unrealistic height and weight standards, they are also forced to deal with dolls whom look like they are fresh off of the latest pornography video.

Sex sells, and Big Business is doing its best to program that into today's youth.  What ever happened to a human being getting to enjoy their childhood?  One cannot swing a Birkin bag without knocking over a few dozen scantily clad men and women vying for the (fictitious) love of a D List celebrity or the chance to run through the latest maze the "Real World/Road Rules Challenge" on MTV provides.

Pornography is becoming mainstream, and reality television is helping it right along.  I for one would be more than happy to see this trend wane by the time my daughter is old enough to start high school.  I raise her to work smart and use elbow grease where applicable.  No one gets a free ride, not even Tila Tequila.

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