When viewers watch reality TV, sometimes they can think that what they are watching is real. They see things that don’t appear to be scripted, like a sitcom or a drama, and the people on the show look like real people, not actors.
But does reality TV reflect real life, especially with high school kids? The truth, like a lot of things in life, is somewhat in the middle.
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"High School Vs. Reality TV".
High school has its moments of drama, as we all know. There are friendships made, good times are had, as well as crises and problems; some of it major, and some of what we may think is major. One person may be dealing with something such as health problems, while another person may feel her day is ruined because her boyfriend didn’t text her back within five minutes.
Yet, there are also plenty of times when high school isn’t so dramatic, such as those long hours of sitting in class and time spent doing homework. If producers were filming a typical high school kid in a reality show, they may show five seconds of the kid in class on TV, while filming them for an entire day. Showing a kid sitting in class all day, answering algebra questions, isn’t exactly the most exciting thing to watch.
When we watch a reality TV show, we’re watching shows that are edited by producers and directors. The scenes may be real, such as arguments, but there aren’t scripts. The directors and producers may not know what is going to happen while they are filming, but they know something will happen, at some point, which is why they keep filming, and they edit the show to make it seem dramatic. But reality TV people are filmed for much longer than they are portrayed on TV. They may be filmed for days, or even weeks, just to get enough interesting footage for one episode, which is even less than a half-hour or an hour if you count commercials. One example is the “Jersey Shore” on MTV. Although the show constantly shows the people having sex and partying; they don’t do that all day long. They eat and sleep too.
However, one thing that reality TV reflects that isn’t reflective of high school is how everybody looks. Rarely do you see fat or ugly people on reality TV shows, unless the show is specifically meant to talk about how fat or ugly the person is. Look at shows such as MTV’s “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom”. The girls on the show are always nice looking, and their friends are always attractive. In high school, that’s not always the case. High school kids may have both attractive and unattractive friends.
Another thing about reality TV is that sometimes the producers seem like they go for a certain plotline, and constantly use it. Such as, with the MTV teen pregnancy shows, how the boyfriend is usually portrayed. The shows like to portray the boyfriend as someone who, many times, doesn’t care about the baby, spends more time playing video games or hanging out with friends than changing diapers, or want to support financially support it. In reality, though, the boyfriends are all different types; some of whom are loving and active fathers, while others are like MTV portrays them to be. Another example is “My Super Sweet 16”, a show about rich girls and their Sweet 16 parties. They always show the girls acting very snobby about their party; she always gets upset because some uninvited person tries to crash the party, and at the end, the girl is happy because she gets this fancy brand-new car for her present. In real life high school, most girls don’t get brand-new cars for their 16th birthday.
High school and reality TV have some similarities in that there are many moments of drama. But the difference is that reality TV drama is frequently manufactured by the producers, while high school drama truly is real. Kids should not feel bad if they don’t measure up to reality TV performers, because what they are watching, in many ways, isn’t real.
