What is TV really exposing us to?

For this assignment I watched a night of primetime television and learned quickly that the reality that TV is exposing us to is one that is not realistic at all. The first show I watched was Dancing with the Stars. Now I personally feel as though that this show is an attempt to sort of be like American Idol but on a different level. The stars that they find for this show are usually no longer popular anymore in the mainstream media. The second show I watched was an episode of the new Bachelor. For some reason I find this show so addicting although in the back of my mind I am saying that this show is not realistic at all. I mean, come on, can you really find the one you’re going to marry in a reality show. These women are put in this “fantasy” that when they come back to reality, is it really going to work out? Both of these shows combined took up the time slot of 8-11 p.m.
By taking a night to watch primetime television, it was easy to see that our world is controlled a lot by reality television. Reality TV has taken over much of regular television both in the daytime and at night also. Whenever you turn a TV on you can most likely be able to find some sort of reality TV program that is playing. Look at what MTV has become now. They used to be a station that only played music videos and things connected to music. Now the station is predominately reality TV shows and rarely ever any music.
The reality that we are exposed to on television is not an accurate depiction of the actual reality that we face in our lives. I mean, how many people do you know that are dancing with a star or finding the one that they want to marry on a television show? Our society has become fixated on the “reality” that is presented to us on these programs. So many people these days base their lives on the things that they see on TV, such as hairstyles and clothes. When most of the time these realities are not an accurate representation of our reality but rather ones of fantasy. For example, the Bachelor shows these girls going on lavish and fantasy like dates when in real life we all know that is not how it usually is on a date with a guy.
Baudrillard’s theory states that “the line between what is real and what the media dictates to us breaks down creating a hyper real world where it becomes difficult to distinguish between real and unreal”. Essentially, illusion has become reality. In watching a night of primetime television, it is clear to me that the situations or experiences in these TV programs are that of a hyper reality that our society believes is real. Society needs to realize that we cannot keep using the “realities” that we see on TV programs to base our lives off of.