31 August 2000
In the "reality" TV debacle of late, Survivor came out as the clear ratings leader over its less slick CBS cousin Big Brother. Survivor, as TV pundits say, tells a story; its editors craft characters out of the contestants and shape plotlines out of their antics. Big Brother, they claim, is just boring: Since an episode is produced six times a week (as opposed to Survivor's one), and the contestants are stuck in an Ikea-infested soundstage/house rather than an exotic island, most of what is broadcast, aside from the dorky "challenges," are the house hamsters' discussions. Yep, we just watch them talking.
If it's so boring, why the hell do I find it so fascinating? I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I park myself in front of Big Brother for nearly every episode.
I think part of my interest is from a psychological perspective. I mean, when you confine 10 strangers in a house with no contact with the outside, no privacy, no books, no TV, not even a radio, you're going to end up with some seriously bored people. Their only entertainment is one another, which forces them to focus all their attention on their interactions and relationships with each other. This results in things being blown way out of proportion, as any of you who also watch can attest to. George voting to banish Brittany because she once asked him to move over so she could have a better view of a sumo wrestling challenge? Completely petty. But not really unexpected, since the unduly heightened focus on personal relationships has transformed at least half the lot into irrational, paranoid freaks.
To further add to this tension, every two weeks each hamster must nominate two of her housemates-cum-friends to be banished from the house. As of late, Big Brother has been revealing how many nominations each person recieves. How's that for fostering paranoia and wild speculation? Maybe it's cruel of me to be entertained by people so obviously under psychological stress, but my evil half tells me that anyone who volunteered to be part of the show pretty much gets what they deserve. And besides, I'm interested in it purely as a psychological case study. Ahem. Yeah.
Another reason for my fixation just recently occured to me: A lot of people watch Big Brother with a "television show" framework in their minds. That is, they expect a succinct plot, character development, and punchlines. Survivor fits that framework; that is why it is successful. Big Brother, on the other hand, has only one of those three things (character development), if that. Now, here's the cool part: think of Big Brother using a "online journal" framework. A ha! Doesn't it all make sense now? Big Brother is a televised, externally edited, online journal in video format! If you think about it, the similarities are there: both online journals and Big Brother have unpredicatable sequences of events, slowly-unfolding stories, lots of personal disclosure balanced by judicious self-editing, long sections of monologue, stupid antics (think journal collabs and Big Brother "challenges"), oftentimes excessive amounts of reflection, frequent 'entries,' and a distinct awareness of the audience.
It's natural for me, then, as someone who writes an online journal and reads a few dozen others, to be hooked by Big Brother, a TV show that possesses the same essential form as an online journal. I'm just as interested in what Josh, Jamie and the gang are doing every day as I am in what Xeney, Pamie, Sasha, Elaine, and Terry are up to. It's basically another link in my list of bookmarks, albeit one that takes a bit longer to "read" every day.
So there we go: I'm a psych major, and an online journaller. Big Brother fascinates me because it appeals to both of those aspects of my personality. Well, and those hysterically snarky episode recaps posted at Salon don't hurt my interest any, either.