Friday, July 07, 2006

Balancing Big Brother and You

The votes are in. Last night Julie Chen announced the cast of Big Brother All Stars, and I’m in Hogs’ Heaven once again.

Before I discovered the fascinating online journals of strangers, reality TV provided the best way to satisfy the voyeuristic tendencies that lurk beneath my vapid calm exterior. Big Brother does that better than any other show.

The Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday schedule of highly edited episodes may not be enough to hold the interest of every casual viewer who checks out Big Brother, but we veterans know that the TV show is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a whole lot more going on behind the scenes.

The real key to Big Brother’s success is the live feeds, around-the-clock coverage from cameras all over the house, cameras that show all the action all the time (well, almost) to those willing to pay the $39.99 access fee. I’m too cheap to pay for the live feeds, but there are bigger (and certainly wealthier) fans than I who set up camp at their computers and spend the entire season transcribing the action for the rest of us. I love those rabid fans. They allow me to feast at my leisure on the fodder they place before me at TV Clubhouse and other online fan sites.

When my sister and I talk to each other on the phone during Big Brother season, we quickly dispense with the business of asking about the welfare of each other’s children, then move right on to who’s doing what to whom on Big Brother. It gives us a chance to gossip the way our mama taught us better than to do about people we really know. We can be judgmental and sarcastic (for which we both have a natural gift that we've had to learn to stifle) and we can do it all without real-world repercussions. It’s so freakin' freeing!

It’ll take some clever time management to find three-plus hours a week to devote to Big Brother and still keep up with my blogging activities, but I’ll make it happen somehow. I’m addicted to you guys, too. Who knows, I might enjoy you even more if you’d hook up cameras in your homes and provide 24/7 live-feed coverage.

5 comments:

  1. Velvet, I have it on good authority that there's a sure cure for insatiable curiousity about how other people live. Become a counselor and work for years listening and talking with people who reveal their deepest selves. After thirty years of doing that, you'll know about what you want to know. Annie

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  2. Annie, I'm sure you're right, but I don't want to know THAT much, thank you very much. I'll just take what I can get in blog-sized doses along with a few hours of reality TV.

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  3. You're right, Janet. I've already had to stop doing any work around my house.

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  4. i've slipped. i have no smart butt comments to make. What has come of me? I could turn on my live feed and see what has become of me. maybe i'll show where one of me put my keys.
    I'll get back to you on that one.

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  5. Austin, I just now found your comment. I love the idea of using your own live feed to find out where you put your keys. Boy, would that be helpful. You're too funny!;-)

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