The Real World

I have a memory of my first exposure to reality television: I am seven years old and alone in my parents’ bedroom, scrolling through the channels of our limited cable offerings in peace. It only takes me a dozen seconds to click through and dismiss all four networks I recognize. Frustrated, I widen my search. This is when I come upon it.

On screen are two teams of attractive young people in bathing suits. At the precise moment that I encounter them, the girls have just scrawled lipstick on to their upper thighs, beginning what looks to me like a valiant and futile effort to transfer the pigment onto a Plexiglas screen. The boys will go next. For now, they just watch. This is The Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Sexes 2.

I have not yet learned to tie my shoelaces and I am horrified. I know immediately — the way children do — that this is not allowed. And yet I stare transfixed. Because I want to see what happens next. Because I am curious and tantalized and obedient (for the most part) in a way that makes me savor this small act of rebellion. Because I am captivated.

I still am. I’ve grown into an unapologetic consumer of millionaire matchmakers and iron chefs and LuAnn de Lesseps. I am what must be the last remaining human in the continental United States to tune in to The Real World each week. I think Sonja Morgan is a national treasure. Human beings — in every twisted and whacky and egotistical incarnation—fascinate me. And I refuse to feel bad about it.

But every once in a while — when Diem Brown died this year and Sonja filed for bankruptcy and Ashley S. had some kind of breakdown on national TV, I remember how my juvenile stomach dropped. I am reminded that the characters and caricatures that populate these shows are real.

That same unease bubbled again this week when Bachelor host Chris Harrison announced that 25 men would have to choose between two women — Britt and Kaitlyn, y’all—on the upcoming season of The Bachelorette.

“It’s more than I can comprehend,” Britt murmured at the announcement. To which I can only respond: Same.

I know that it’s at least a version of hypocritical to protest this latest pop cultural indignity and not all the others that have preceded it. Believe me: I’d much rather forget about it, slip into some state of altered consciousness, and enjoy this next batch of rose ceremonies in peace. That kind of distraction is what the best entertainment is for.

And yet I wonder whether we have been too successful in our escapism. The fact is that Heidi and Spencer and Ashley S. and Britt and Kaitlyn are more than special effects. They’re people. Reality television is the funhouse mirror of mass culture. It takes shapes we know and distorts them. It takes humanity and manipulates it in ways that disgusts and mortifies and pleases us. There’s no point denying why we watch it. I never have. But have we crossed some human line? Have we forgotten some essential truth? Should we at least talk about it?