All a

teacher has to do to get students attention on the first day is to

bring up a reality TV show.

All a

teacher has to do to get students attention on the first day is to

bring up a reality TV show.

“Did you

see what she did,” “If I was her, I would have…” are popular lines

you hear in every conversation amongst a group about reality

TV.

It seems

everyone revolves their time and day around reality TV and I think

people become as ignorant as the reality TV star they love so much

portrays. Personally, I believe reality TV is a waste of

time.

If many

people would look up the history of it, you would read that there

was a time where females were not throwing drinks on each other and

men and women were not fighting for the love of some

celebrity.

Let’s

rewind for a second. When reality TV started back in

the 1940s, it was mainly game shows and

candid camera shows like recent

times, “Punk’d” and

“Disaster Date.”

But the

real issue with reality TV now all started in 1992 when MTV aired,

“The RealWorld.” Seven strangers picked

to live in a house for three months and have their lives taped for

the world to see weekly.

This has

started a disaster for all mankind as reality TV is up and coming.

As years progressed reality TV has taken the turn for the bad as

everyone is waiting for next week’s episode to see who is

fighting.

It also

started a long line of ignorant reality TV shows that surround

individuals making a fool of themselves just to make a quick

buck.

You can

ask anyone, whether they are in grade school, college, alumni, and

even parents, reality TV has taken over many people’s lives one

specific night of the week.

Rearranging my work schedule to

make sure that I get home in enough time to watch “Basketball

Wives” on Monday and “Bad Girls Club” on Tuesday, makes many

individuals become junkies of the reality TV world.  

Tweeting

every line, and aspect of the episode and forming (#teams) on

Twitter to show who they support, it only makes viewers show their

ignorance as well.

Networks

such as MTV, BET

and VH1 were mostly focused

on music from which they started. But knowing that reality TV shows

are the new pandemics, they all got the “lets get ratings” disease.

Every time you turn around, a new show is premiering. As time

continues, we see new shows coming on and they exceed the old ones

with more ignorance, drama, and stupidity.

Let’s see

if these shows uphold the legacy and give us more to talk

about.

I just

wish a conversation about Gadhafi,

Hurricane Irene or the recent earthquake could be more important

instead of coming second to, “did you see Tami smack

Meeka?”

• Erik Veal, Online Editor