Chaos Theory

Cliche checkoffs

"I've noticed that one of the more overused phrases on reality shows is "I'm not here to make friends." It's that moment in the competition where some controversy/confrontation comes up and the player that everyone seems to dislike the most explains to them that they're "there to win the game" and "not here to make friends." Of course, the fact that many of these people probably can't make friends even in real life probably doesn't even cross their minds.

Now someone has taken a bunch of those "I'm not here to make friends" moments and created a YouTube montage."

"I'm not going to lie to you, I spent the first ninety minutes of my time there trying to figure out a way to sneak out politely."

"Your first reaction upon hearing that someone has started a school teaching people a) how to get on a reality TV show and b) how to maximize your exposure on the show once you do get on is probably similar to mine: oh, good, the world is ending; I guess not paying my taxes was a good move after all.
I honestly didn't believe a school like this could actually exist; I thought my editor Keith was joking when he repeatedly told me that he'd like me to travel to New York to cover the first day of classes. I mean, how could this school exist? Were there really people willing to pay $200 a piece to learn how to lose their dignity on national TV?
Apparently, the answer to that is an emphatic "yes". I opened the door of the assigned classroom and found twenty such people. And, to make matters worse, they were dancing."

Yup, this is as disturbing as you think it's gonna be!

"I had learned my first lesson of the day: the kind of person who pays $200 for a course on reality television is not the kind of person who experiences life through cool ironic detachment. These people believed in things, no matter how transparently useless those things were.

One of the women described herself as a "brain-damaged recovering alcoholic." I'm not going to make fun of this woman (though she said I could if I plugged her blog); I mention her because her candid revelation of what I considered some deeply personal issues was not met with any kind of discomfort whatsoever. In fact, later on in the course, Robert encouraged people to find these deeply personal issues and refine them for the cameras. I found this sad and evil on so many levels that I was almost moved to write an epic poem about it, Dante-style. Maybe I'm alone here. Maybe everyone in the world looks at their personal tragedies as a source for fun and profit.

First was a philosophy that Robert follows in his own life, but that he felt worked perfectly for those seeking to be on reality TV:
Never Deny, Always Reply, Never Ask Why.

At first I thought the slogan was the kind of thing that you would design as the heart of a shady religion. Or, maybe, it would be something an upperclassmen would use on a sorority sister who was hesitating to take her top off.
This was, however, the first really solid advice offered for those seeking to be on reality TV. Because, like people being fleeced of their money by soulless evangelists or freshmen girls being talked out of their virginity by beer-soaked frat boys, people on reality shows are, for the most part, victims. Producers use their willingness to make fools out of themselves as entertainment fodder; the ideal reality show "star", then, is one who gives themselves over completely to the needs of the production.
Whereas a normal person should Sometimes Deny, Reply When Appropriate, And ALWAYS Ask Why, that kind of common sense is death on a reality show.

There's a sad, Faustian bargain at work when you consider that the majority of reality TV show wannabes are actors. Here's what I mean: you would assume that an actor wants to become famous by dint of their talent. Ideally, their passion is for their work and any fame they get is just a by-product of that passion. Seeking a spot on a reality TV show is essentially saying that you've given up on your talent. As Russel said: it's not about the talent. So, these people who at one time had their hearts set on being recognized for their fabulous talents are now willing to do whatever it takes just so they might be recognized.  "

Here's another take on the event.

"It amounted to a three-hour lesson in cultivating narcissism—being one's self as noisily as possible. It was not quite as imbecilic as I'd hoped.

There was a woman who introduced herself as a recovering alcoholic, and we applauded her years of sobriety. Then she explained that she suffers from alcohol-related brain damage, and we didn't know what to say. She, of course, showed a lot of potential.

For instance, our only handout listed his "8 Commandments" of reality TV—"with an all new 9^th Bonus Commandment!"—and its fifth item was, "Thou Shall Groom Hairy 'PITTS,' " which stands for "personal issues to tease."

Why?

Why does THIS get a remake?

This will make you cry.

"The Hills stars Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag have collectively made $3 million over the past two years just for living their fake lives—or, as Heidi and Spencer said recently, for being “entertainers” and “improv TV personalities.”

The next phase of reality TV

Total Drama Island (great title!) is a cartoon. How's that going to work?

Whaaaaat?

Jamie Oliver kills cute baby chicks on television.

*eye-roll*

The guy who makes his career on dropping the word "tranny" at every opportunity gets busted.

More reality show romance. NOT.

"On the reunion of the final episode of Flavor of Love 3, which is the final season of his series, Flavor Flav proposed to a woman, but not to one who appeared on any season of the show, thereby officially rendering the entire thing to be a charade, if an occasionally enjoyable one. He revealed that he broke up with Thing 2 to start dating Liz, his youngest (and eighth) child’s mother, and he proposed to her.
Flavor admits on VH1’s blog that he knew Liz was the right woman for him during the second season, meaning that it and season three were pointless, and explaining how he could so confidently say that season three would be his last. “Honestly, I kinda realized it around Flavor of Love 2, but we had to get past Flavor of Love 3. You know what I’m sayin’ and the whole 9? Definitely, man. This [gestures to Liz] is something to realize here,” he said.
As if to rub it in even more, he said, “People really thought that Flav couldn’t find love. That’s not true, because I had love all along.” But Flavor does credit the series with helping him realize he should stick with the mother of his child, rather than a floor-shitting face-spitting attention whore."

Living Lohan: a review

"Living Lohan (E!, Mondays at 10:30 p.m. ET), however, is not just a symptom of cultural decay but an active agent of it, commodifying the very youth and soul of Ali Lohan—younger sister of poor little Lindsay. It's part of a package deal with a Las Vegas casino and a Sacramento basketball team, actually, with Varietyreporting that the Maloof Prods, co-producers of the show, will use it to showcase other holdings, including a recording studio at the Palms.

Ali, 14, is a lanky brunette with a cute beaky nose and an affection for hoodies—a starlet's little sister in the Ashlee Simpson mold. She wants to be a singer, but, in the first episode, disdains the lame tracks that the label keeps sending over. She hopes to hit it off with a "producer" named Jeremy, an obvious punk who needs tighter beats and also to pull up his pants. "I can really trust him," the girl says. The episode ends in a cliffhanger as Jeremy is called to account for the fact that his hometown paper caught him insinuating that he was hooking up with Lindsay. Note to Ali: You can't trust anyone, doll face. Get used to it.

As a mother, Dina is a pretty good manager. Given how Lindsay has turned out—just barely employable, overly fond of the wrong kind of attention—I don't quite understand how it is that this show does not constitute child abuse by its very existence, and yet I cannot deny that Dina Lohan's parenting skills are superficially OK. We see her teaching Ali to stay true to herself, and she has yet to exhibit either sad permissiveness or pushy stage-mothering on-air. The main signal of how out of whack things must be in the Lohan household is the avidity with which she flips through tabloid magazines in search of items about Lindsay."

Can't we all just get along?

"We’ve got black and white, we’ve got Hispanic and Asian, we got gay, straight, and Guttenberg, all working together for one common goal: to get the mirror ball."