Not the News

That feeling when nothing is actually happening

My great dislike of reality television stems largely from the little amount of activity that actually occurs. The vast majority of time in each show is spent of either describing what is about to happen, or reminiscing about what has just occurred. Often this commentary is spliced into the show immediately after we have just witnessed the event they are describing.

The contestants’ self-descriptive pontification is so closely timed to the actual footage that even a goldfish would be able to remember what happened. What is even more annoying is how the talking head sections are also highly scripted and edited to try and create emotion and drama when very little actually existed. We know there was little emotion and drama because we just watched it unfold.

Now there is Gogglebox. It is a reality television show about people watching and (over) reacting to other television shows. Staying true to the reality television format the “cast” then talk about what they just watched and then reactions to it even though we just watched them watching and reacting to the show.

This is where television becomes meta, and by meta I mean stuck up its own arse. As the Gogglebox “cast” watch other reality television programs. Now we are watching someone cooking (stop crying, baking a cake it not worth crying about) and then talking about the experience of cooking being watched by other people who react to the cooking said cake and the pursuant discussion who then have to discuss their own experience of watching the person cook a cake and discuss the experiences of making this damn cake.

As an aside, since when did making a cake have or need a back story?

Unfortunately this is not the end of the saga. On line “news” sites now have articles about popular shows. If the argument of there just not being enough news in the world to warrant a 24 hour news cycle it is when an news source publishes an article commentating on people commentating on themselves as they watch other people commenting on themselves making a cake.

In other news the Australian government has forced Jonny Depp and Amber Heard to return to defend charges of illegally importing their dogs Pistol and Boo, only to drop the charges once in court. Let’s hope we get to hear commentary from the dogs themselves as they watch the court proceedings from their pampered kennel in Meudon, France.