Reality TV full of education, life lessons

I have watched more crappy television this week than I’ve watched in the past 1,011 weeks of my… I have watched more crappy television this week than I’ve watched in the past 1,011 weeks of my life. (Yes, I calculated how many weeks I’ve been alive, for the sake of that sentence).

I’m not really sure why I’ve watched so much TV. I enjoy a good brain numbing every once in a while – at home on my couch, it’s a welcome solace from the work I usually face here at school. But normally, I only follow “Grey’s Anatomy.” It’s practically a requirement for being female.

It’s been one of those slow weeks, though. I had a paper and a test early in the week, but naturally, I didn’t worry about them until the night before. So that freed up this whole past weekend and even a few days before that for a lot of hours of crappy, crappy television.

In my suite, we have this great habit of turning on the TV sometime in the morning and leaving it on until we go to bed. Somebody is always in the room and watching it, but still, who does that? Who leaves a television on all day?

The first person to wake up gets to decide the channel. We don’t change it. That’s just the rule. And, in case you couldn’t guess by the first sentence, that channel is usually MTV.

If you’ve ever even heard of MySpace – or MTV – you might have heard of a lovely young woman by the name of Tila Tequila. Her own MySpace describes her as “the baddest b*tch on the block” and “the Madonna of MySpace.” Time Magazine says she is “some combination of rapper, singer, model, blogger and actress.” Perhaps the best way to understand Tila Tequila is by typing her name into Google Images. She’s only wearing a shirt in one of the first 15 pictures that pop up.

Tila Tequila has a show on MTV now that’s not all that different from “The Bachelor.” Except that she’s dating 16 straight guys and 16 lesbians, and she didn’t tell any of them she was bisexual until the end of the first episode. Classy!

When we get tired of Tila Tequila, there are also these fun spectacles called “Real World” and “Road Rules,” which may not be possible to truly explain. A bunch of young folks move into a house together and cause drama. On “Road Rules,” there are also physical challenges.

And I guess I can’t forget “The Hills.” Blondes. More drama.

None of the shows are particularly intellectually stimulating, none of these shows will change the world, but none of them are not seriously hurting anybody.

In fact, I think I would argue that they’re helping me.

The overwhelming majority of the wannabe-celebrities featured on this network are shining examples of what not to do in life. Technically, that means they’re actually educational.

Boys on MTV hook up with a girl and then her friends, and act surprised when the girls find this out. Cite: “Real World.” “Road Rules.”

Girls on MTV hook up with the same guys, act surprised when they find this out, and blame only each other. Cite: same as above.

Boys and girls on MTV experience difficulty wearing all appropriate articles of clothing for extensive periods of time. Cite: “Tila Tequila.”

Girls and boys on MTV are highly competitive, and often forget that it’s not whether they win or lose but how they play the game. Cite: all of the above. Did they ever see “Friday Night Lights?”

Oh yeah, and everybody’s a wreck.

If I went through life a stable, productive member of society who never got involved with dumb boys or blamed my friends for doing the same, and didn’t objectify myself and never cared about winning – well, that would be just fabulous. But it’s highly unlikely.

But let’s be truthful. I will act like that sometimes in life. I will forget that I don’t live on Planet Carolyn or that no boy can ever replace the spot my close friends have in my heart. (Precious, I know).

So, while I hope that I’ll never star in a show like “Tila Tequila” – I think I’d be disowned – I still can’t completely smirk at those guys. Nobody’s perfect – well, except George Clooney.

However, even if I do know I will make the same mistakes, the numerous hours of MTV I’ve absorbed in the past few days enforce in my brain what an idiot I look like when I do act like that. I think that watching them, I’ll act like that less often. Like, only when really, truly necessary.

Ergo, stars on MTV are making a sacrifice for the education of America.

E-mail Carolyn about your favorite bad TV shows at ceg36@pitt.edu.