I Enjoy Reality TV, but at What Cost?

Binge-worthy and brain damaging.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Season 12, Episode 8

It may not be easy to admit but Reality TV is seriously entertaining. I know what you are going to say, “It’s so fake” blah, blah, blah. Obviously, I am not that daft to recognise that Reality TV can be desperately manufactured. But fake? Hmm, I digress. The bad behaviour is entertaining but where do we draw the line between entertainment and straight-up bullying? Is regularly witnessing this bad behaviour affecting my mental health? Lately, I have found myself emotionally taking on board a lot of the content I was watching, and I wonder if this is because I am a Pisces or what I am consuming is weighing on me more than I thought. If Reality TV is so fake, why am I having all of these real feelings?

I have been one to consume all kinds of Reality TV from The Simple Life to Naked and Afraid as people-watching has always been a favourite pastime of mine. I am an avid lover of junk food and Reality TV is junk food for your brain. The fighting, the gossip, the drama. I eat it up. Every. Single. Time. This year I watched the debut season of Selling the O.C. and tuned in for the latest season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. In the past, I would’ve been starving for this level of drama, but after watching it, I felt full and not in a satisfied way. It was in a: you haven’t eaten all day and then you overdo it and end up thinking you’re going to throw up kind of way. Did my 24-year-old brain decide to become fully developed on a random Thursday evening and present me with the epiphany that I was enjoying watching mean girl behaviour unfold in front of me?

A 2016 study showed that consuming Reality TV shows like The Real Housewives Franchise with lots of relational aggression like bullying, exclusion and manipulation makes us more aggressive in our real lives. No wonder after watching the antics of mean girls like Diana Jenkins and Erika Jayne, I had to literally go calm myself down and then found myself not feeling so good after. Not only was I dealing with these feelings of aggression, but there was also a whole bunch of feelings that followed. Like when I tuned into Netflix to watch Selling the O.C. I was shocked to see a majority of the people in the office exhibiting seriously mean behaviour. It made me feel awful and icky. I found myself thinking about how I would react or handle the situation if it was happening to me and then I ran through about 50 different emotions. Lately, I have needed to perform aftercare after watching Reality TV because it was making me feel low. Scenes like the one below have been a constant occurrence of late and it's hard to swallow.

Another study conducted by two Washington Post journalists further showed what our brains go through when watching Reality TV. Journalist, Hannah Jewell was hooked up to an fMRI while watching The Bachelor. When the season's 'villain' came on screen, Hannah's amygdala lit up which is the part of the brain that is associated with strong emotions like anger, however, her striatum also lit up which is the part of the brain associated with pleasure and addiction. So essentially, we can feel very angry about what we are watching on screen but also lowkey love it and want more. Extremely popular Reality TV shows like Love Island and Married at First Sight in their later seasons have felt a lot meaner. I wonder if this has become an executive decision to keep us addicted or if our overconsumption as a society is making us meaner in general.

Witnessing this terrible behaviour has made me take a hiatus from watching Reality TV in order to protect my brain. However, it has also made me reflect on how I treat people or speak about them when they are and aren't there. From an ethnographic point of view, watching Reality TV through an anthropological lens is the only way one should, otherwise, it can become a part of you. When I rewatch Reality TV classics like Jersey Shore, I find it easier to disconnect from the behaviour as a lot of the discourse was a product of its time and people were nowhere near as socially conscious as they are today. Seeing today’s messy and nasty behaviour on Reality TV as we continue to move forward in a more conscious world has ultimately been quite triggering and left me feeling cringe that I am actually witnessing people behave this way. I will go back to Reality TV sooner or later, but the question if I stick around will depend on whether or not the mean girl behaviour continues.