Thursday, June 5, 2008

Give up on TV for the summer

About an hour and a half before this monstrosity swings into action for another year, I'm launching a quick pre-emptive strike on the most horrible cultural phenomenon to evolve during my lifetime: Big Brother.
I remember watching some of the first ever series in 2000 (I think it was then) and finding it interesting in a kind of socio-scientific way. I wondered how long people would really tolerate looking at a load of strangers sitting around a house doing very little, but it was mildly entertaining in a voyeuristic kind of way. The people who featured in that series could not have predicted how successful the show would become and the fame, wanted or unwanted, that it would bring to their lives.
Now, the show is a fast-track to celebrity status, thankfully short and sweet for most of them. It attracts massively deluded folks who believe that their "like, totally fackin' mental" personalities will endear them to the British public. mostly it leaves them derided, but still able to make a quick few grand out of it, even if they are voted off early. I wonder where most of these people end up if they fail to make a living from TV presenting, column-writing or "getting their baps out for the lads" in Nuts and Zoo. Are there support groups for these people?
So, before this series' line-up is unveiled to those waiting with baited breath, a quick guess at how the contestants will roughly be made up:
At least two gay guys, preferably one of them a cross-dresser. (I have absolutely no problem with this, I just feel that gay people are probably the most exploited group on this show.)

A couple of kerrrr-razy chicks, one from Essex and one or two more with regional accents that could make your ears bleed.

At least one lager-lout, football hooligan type, likely to come to blows with another guy in there.

Two people who hail from Scotland, Wales, Ireland or N. Ireland. This guarantees good viewing figures and plenty of those money-making phone votes coming in from all those patriotic Celts.

Someone with a good university education and slightly upper-class accent. This person will be cast as the posh snob and their contribution will be edited thus, regardless of what they do. If its a guy then lager-lout will talk behing his back about how he's "gonna fackin' nut 'im" but will fail to do so for fear that the upper-class twit may have played rugby.

There will be fights, there will be live stripping, there will hopefully be someone saying fuck or bugger on the eviction show. There will be tears, hard-luck stories (someone is always doing it for a sick relative), 'love' stories, and often the scenario of two mainstream channels simultaneously showing the same person, asleep, for hours on end.

I will not watch it but somehow I will be aware of these things, and will most likely know the names of at least 4 contestants by this time next week. I will hate myself for it and will desperately try to fill my time with books, walks and maybe even work.

Probably not though, I'm a teacher.

3 comment(s):

Anonymous said...

I cant believe that stocking of sh**e has been on air for nine series! The thing I hate most about it is even if you dont watch it and consciously try to avoid reading/hearing about it, you still end up knowing all about these fuckwits!!

Darren said...

Em, of course you'll be aware of it. I'll be giving you daily updates.

B said...

andrew, every single big brother contestant winds up presenting that stangley addictive quiz show on itv in the middle of most nights.