The reality of reality TV

Whether you love it or hate it, there is just no avoiding it - Big Brother is back. It’s that time of year again when 16 fame-hungry wannabes are about to be locked inside one of the most famous houses in the UK.

I don’t know about you, but I am one of those people who every year say that I am not going to be sucked into the furore, but always somehow find myself glued to my TV screen for 13 weeks.

Phil Edgar-Jones, executive producer of Big Brother told bigbrotherwebsite.net: “We’re getting tougher on wannabes and on the causes of wannabes. We’ve been very careful with casting this year and there are some characters of the like you’ve never seen before. These are not your typical screaming wannabes, but people with a bit of depth, from different backgrounds."

Of course, wannabes makes great TV, and wannabes are what we’ve got. It would be a miracle if there weren’t any on Big Brother since so many of us now wannabe famous.

As I travel around towns and cities on buses and on trains, I have noticed that it is a large part of what people are talking about. Even in school playgrounds children as young as six are talking about being a celebrity.

I suppose there has always been an element of this in the child who wants to be a footballer or the child who wants to be a film star. But now being famous for being famous is all that’s desired.

I recently spoke to a primary school teacher who told me: “Children used to aspire to be nurses, doctors, train drivers and firemen, now they are concerned with fame, celebrity and riches - becoming rich and famous to them is plausible. Young people today believe it is a valid option when they leave school.”

"If stardom and fame is all we strive for then who will be there to design, invent, build and produce?"

There have always been young people who are unsure of what they want from life before they leave full-time education. They often take the option of further education and develop skills, which lead them onto a particular career path.

However, a survey of 16-19-year-olds carried out by the Learning Skills Council in 2005, revealed that more than one in ten said they would drop out of education or training to be on TV. The survey also found that 9% of young people believe that fame is a great way to earn money without skills or qualifications, with an additional 11% sitting around, ‘waiting to be discovered’.

Ruth Bullen from the Learning Skills Council, when commenting on this very subject said that she hoped that the findings would encourage young people to stay on in education or training, stating: “For many young people trying to be famous through reality television can be tempting, particularly if they are unsure as to the direction they want their lives to take. The truth is however, that the majority will not achieve fame.

Once education and aspirations are abandoned all together in favour of ‘Stardom’ and stardom is not reached, what will be left as the main fabric of our society? Is society at risk of becoming a black hole for non-identity rather than a rich culture of skills and investment for the future? If so, what will this lead to?

The obsession with celebrity can have a knock-on effect to obsession with money and material gain. For with fame comes money and this can have many other adverse effects, ‘wanting to have’ will become the driving force behind the emergence of an even greater consumer society. As we strive for better things we demand the best of everything from medical attention, better houses and lifestyles to our choice of televisions, radios and other electrical goods.

But if stardom and fame is all we strive for then who will be there to design, invent, build and produce? Where will the technicians, scientists, doctors and educators be if our young people who create much of our society trends are all vying to be famous?

Will people realise that many of the successes they think they can acquire through fame - a comfortable affluent life - can be had by achieving something, by reaching a good standard of academia and creating a good lifestyle for themselves and their family? Creating an existence that is not just that – an existence – but something they can rely on all their lives. Skills and strengths that are there to propel them throughout life, long after stardom and fame have left them.

In the meantime, on we go with the 9th series of Big Brother (not counting the celebrity versions). This has surely moved far away from the social experiment of Big Brother 1. Nevertheless, the questions has to be asked, how much responsibility should the television company, producers and programme makers of reality television have to take for this rise is society of the fame hungry wannabes emerging from our youth today. In the meantime, I along with millions of others just won’t be able to stay away!