Big Mac Please.

There is no such thing as real TV. We only ever see what has previously been decided we can, be that by directors of structured reality TV shows editing hours of footage into thirty minutes of confused drama or people of power dictating how much of the truth we are informed on. Reality TV may be the most dishonest of television of all. Labelled real and the authentic, but concerned less with documenting the real world than entertaining large audiences and boosting ratings.

Ultimately, we, the people, want what we want. You don't go to McDonalds when your on a diet. We are told the meat is 100% but we don't believe it. We get off our high horse (pun not initially intended but I'm gunna roll with it) and we eat it. And we enjoy it! Reality TV shows are doing exactly the same thing. Packaged as the real thing, but blindingly obvious that it isn't. But do we care? No. We live through our own reality everyday of our lives, so why would we want to sit and watch others do the same. We want this reality with a little extra spice.

Just food for thought.

None of the above images are my own, just a play on pictures courtesy of the internet. Enjoy!

“In writing, you must kill all your darlings”

Quote of the day goes to William Faulkner. Or more specifically, the Fine Art tutor who works the other side of the white wall, who quoted William Faulkner when suggesting that your best works are often not those you sit smugly grinning at after hours of editing but in fact, those that are in a sense, boshed out. I hold my hands up to being one of these anal editors. Faulkner also said, "Don't be a writer. Be Writing." So here goes a new start, no edits, no darlings, just writing.

p.s. Blame my tutors for your pain of having to suffer my thoughts and opinions online. All in the name of Fashion Design...

Reality TV has created "a world without surprises" (Boyle 2004:126) and whether you are a lover of a hater, there is no denying the fact that reality television has seen a global explosion of popularity in the twenty first century. I am a lover. And this love is an intense and complicated long term affair.

Some argue that Reality TV is just a passing fad in light entertainment and should not be taken so seriously. The Kardashian's even came top in a poll for what the women of the United Kingdom planned to give up for their 2013 new years resolutions. Now I don't believe that the magazine flicking that led me to that piece of trivia involved anything remotely trashy, trash being a common association of the reality TV phenomenon. But, seriously, giving up Kim K and the rest of her clan? And don't even get me started on the stars from Chelsea, Essex and Newcastle...galore! What LIARS!!! Or were they just in denial? Reality TV is just one aspect of a broader shift in public life. It is an evolution, not a revolution and definitely here to stay.

Now, before all you haters go clicking the 'back' button and skipping off to something more academic, "more enlightening or worthwhile than popular culture" (Strinati 1995: 41), hold up.  I'll have you other people know, whether you be intellectuals, political leaders or moral or social reformers that dispute that today's population should be devoted to more constructive pursuits such as art or politics, I am no passive watcher. Popular culture is not homogeneous, and understandably not for everybody, but the cheap genre of television doesn't just offer us spectacle in the comfort of our own living rooms, but is a strange world that acts as a more exciting, and more real "substitute for reality" (Eco 1998: 8). And this I find fascinating.

There is no such thing as 'real TV', just different degrees of 'un-realness' and it's safe to say that reality TV is a complex subject that produces illusion, then by confessing it, stimulates the desire for it. Reality TV can give us more reality than real life itself can and this confusion in authenticity and hyperreality is baffling, and far from the dumb and simple stereotyping us fashion girls get stick for. "The real world is perhaps in terminal decline" (Stallabrass in Boyle 2004: 181) and I think that makes Reality TV a pressing topic of today's popular culture.

So if you're still reading, and still claim to hate reality TV, like my Dad, but still watch it when your channel flicking lands upon it, I ask you why? Why do you watch it if you hate it? Why does it get your blood boiling at the thought of these 'nobodies getting famous'? Why does Reality TV provoke such strong reactions?

To be continued...