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So I was watcing th National geographic channel, there was an interesting special on the brain. Ok cool. but then I see commercials. A show about how a family is building a castle to weather the apocalypse. Another one where a father is training his daughters with assault rifles to weather the apocalypse. Then i see Duck dynasty. While is is admittedly cool how they built their business from nothing. Why do we need a show about people acting crazy?? Then there was the Swamp Hunters(Is that still airing? Where they follow people just doing their job and acting like red necks. When did these shows become so popular? Why too? Why is people acting crazy so popular right now?

Was this instance the very first time you watched television, perchance?

because we killed off all the cheetahs who were culling the herd...

There is only so much history/science that channels like discovery/nat geo/history/tlc can show.

eventually they run out of material and well this happens.

Because it's shows like these that allow people to laugh derisively and make themselves feel good that they aren't as "crazy" as them. It's the same reason why shows like American Idol, etc. shamelessly release footage of clearly inept and bad singers being eliminated and torn to shreds by judges; it increases ratings from people getting a chuckle at other's people's failures/weirdness.

Another clear example is the ridiculously pointless Honey Boo Boo show. It's a trainwreck where some people can't stop watching just like how people instinctively can't tear their gaze away from a car crash/accident when you're driving.

I don't think it's a fair blanket statement to say that all TV is horrible. Yes, we currently have some of the worst TV ever produced (namely, all of TLC). But then on the other side, we also have some of the best shows the medium's ever seen, like Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Dexter, Homeland, etc.

Just avoid the awful stuff and there's plenty of good there. Although if you do turn on a random channel at a random time, you're probably more likely to find something bad than good.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Then i see Duck dynasty. While is is admittedly cool how they built their business from nothing. Why do we need a show about people acting crazy??

Emphasis on the "acting crazy". A friend's brother works on Duck Dynasty and that's apparently not how they act off screen.

Agreed. You don't start and dominate an industry and not have a head on your shoulders, and evidently a serious aversion to a razor.

 Frazzled wrote:
Agreed. You don't start and dominate an industry and not have a head on your shoulders, and evidently a serious aversion to a razor.

True Fact: All crew are required to grow facial hair.

Reality shows, thats what happened. If you know someone that watched COPS back in the day, it is all there fault.

Hey before COPS, there was professional wrestling.

I blame Homo Sapiens Sapiens myself. Everything was going great until those steenking spear chuckers came along. Spears aren't for chunking. They are for thrusting! Bunch of pansies not brave enough to wrestle down a bison mano o mano...

I don't have TV and haven't had it in nearly 2years now. Though I would admittedly watch the crazy APOCALYPSE showss because you can occasionally learn a valuable survival trick.

What happened to TV?

Same thing that happened to radio, natch.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
To elaborate on my comment:

Creating music with actual instruments and a singer or two takes time and talent. You need to practice, and you have to spend quite a bit of time in the studio to get it right. On the other hand, finding a young kid you can get cheap who can halfway sing, and then putting him/her in front of a synth mix playing a tune mathematically proven to be a hit, and then just autotuning over the rest of it yields better results, because it's cheap and ultimately the majority of people will happily take something bad or mediocre compared with nothing at all.

Similarly, to create a TV show (or movie) you need actors, screenwriters, and special effects, (and others) and it takes time and talent. You need to rehearse, and you have to spend quite a bit of time taking many cuts and then reviewing them and picking the best to get it right. On the other hand, finding a crazy subset of people who will probably get on tv for next to nothing, because they're crazy, and then encouraging them to just do their thing while you record it all yields better results, because it's cheap and ultimately the majority of people will happily take something bad or mediocre compared with nothing at all.

Well. TV's divided into two corners. Theres the brain-numbing gak. The once noble MTV/History Channel and such are prime examples. Then there is the intelligent television that intrigues you and offers a insight into the human condition. Like Breaking Bad, Thrones and Hannibal.

I'm not a big fan of the reality shows because quote often it is fake, staged, or edited to the point where what actually happened isn't even shown.

Only time I watch tv these days is if I'm flipping through the channels and I see a good movie is on or its some sort of WW1/WW2 documentary.

People stopped watching "normal" shows and starting watching "crazy" shows....so now we get more "crazy" shows

Also relevant:

 Shadowbrand wrote:
Well. TV's divided into two corners. Theres the brain-numbing gak. The once noble MTV/History Channel and such are prime examples. Then there is the intelligent television that intrigues you and offers a insight into the human condition. Like Breaking Bad, Thrones and Hannibal.

Wait you just said MTV was once noble. Er...what?

For what it's worth, aren't TLC, Discovery, and the History Channel all owned by the same people?

 MandalorynOranj wrote:
But then on the other side, we also have some of the best shows the medium's ever seen, like Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Dexter, Homeland, etc.

Please don't put Dexter in the same breath as Breaking Bad. It's (Dexter) become awful ever since season 6.

Shadowbrand wrote:
Well. TV's divided into two corners. Theres the brain-numbing gak. The once noble MTV/History Channel and such are prime examples. Then there is the intelligent television that intrigues you and offers a insight into the human condition. Like Breaking Bad, Thrones and Hannibal.



Wait you just said MTV was once noble. Er...what?

Headbanger's Ball.

That wasn't noble. Epic yes, noble no.

*Flips through 932 channels of nothing but Gak. Pauses at MTV for a moment.*

Oh how the mighty have fallen...

*Turns to much retro and listens to old Nirvana/Megadeth tracks*

Oh well.

Relevant to this thread:

TV outside of Food Network, HBO or the BBC is pretty much crap...

My family used to have at least a couple shows/series each night of the week we'd regularly watch.
Now it's literally down to a couple networked series that will likely get written into a corner and killed off, plus the stuff like GoT's or the odd special on History/Disc.

Thankfully dvd's mean that the good stuff doesn't stay dead!

Noir wrote:
Reality shows, thats what happened. If you know someone that watched COPS back in the day, it is all there fault.

The Real World had more than a little to do with it also. Of course, that show stopped being "real" after season 1. The first San Francisco cast had its moments of reality also. But otherwise it's just been young people playing designated roles and trying to become reality stars.

People here mostly have it right regarding reality TV, budgets, etc. It's discount TV. Wal-Mart TV.

 gorgon wrote:

Noir wrote:
Reality shows, thats what happened. If you know someone that watched COPS back in the day, it is all there fault.

The Real World had more than a little to do with it also. Of course, that show stopped being "real" after season 1. The first San Francisco cast had its moments of reality also. But otherwise it's just been young people playing designated roles and trying to become reality stars.

People here mostly have it right regarding reality TV, budgets, etc. It's discount TV. Wal-Mart TV.

The real world also purposefully chooses people that aren't the most level headed. There is a radio show in Cleveland that has a former Real World DC cast member on it... she was the cryer of the season.

 daedalus wrote:
On the other hand, finding a crazy subset of people who will probably get on tv for next to nothing, because they're crazy, and then encouraging them to just do their thing while you record it all yields better results, because it's cheap and ultimately the majority of people will happily take something bad or mediocre compared with nothing at all.

This. It is just cheaper.

 Frazzled wrote:
Hey before COPS, there was professional wrestling.

No professional wrestling isn't reality TV. It is a 100% scripted show with the winning and lines, it is even rehearsed so the get it right. It is just the "Live Studio Audience" is really big.

What happened is that reality TV shows keep managing to get popular, and are amazingly profitable. How long do you think people need to spend in the field to get all the material they need for a new series of nature specials, plus actually then putting the shows together.

Contrasted to something like Honey Boo Boo where you just let the camera run on a bunch of people, and then when viewers gobble it up also gives you merchandising options. You make some brand new series, you've got production, set, etc costs, and if the show tanks, it's all loss.

It also might have something to do with people opting to view their shows on on-demand services, the internet, and DvD/Bluray as opposed to traditional broadcast.

When most people with even the slightest level of technical understanding can watch the shows they want to watch when they want to watch it, you have to change your strategy and appeal to the lowest possible common denominator for the lowest possible investment of funds.