A Healthy Dose of Reality

I am a 25-year-old-male. I’m a football fan both native and American. I am a lover of all things nerdy and geeky with a vast and seemingly never ending collection of comics spilling out into nearly every corner of my home. I am enamoured with classical literature and crappy sci-fi pulp novels from the 60s and 70s. I drink beer but have a penchant for cider. Film is my greatest of loves, no genre is off limits from horror to rom-coms to action extravaganzas. I love a great many things but one thing upon meeting me you would unlikely guess is my interest in any sort of reality TV. I’m opinionated often versing about the classics of cinema history and comics. That's if I’m not skating around attempting to perfect my ollies and pop-shove its. Least of all you would consider me a firm fan in the OG family of reality TV. So to many it comes surprisingly that I am a through and through a die hard fan of Keeping up with the Kardashians.

Me and my younger brother started watching the antics of Kim, Khloe and Kourtney when we were about 15 and 13 respectively. We loved how OTT it was and how everything, everything was a drama. We bitched and laughed about how awful and yet brilliant it was. Which was all heightened by the dreadful reworking and cutting for UK television with us being shown a coming up next segment for it to instantly to go into said scene. We would watch the same clip three or four times, free of ad breaks, before watching no more than ten actual minutes of the program before the process repeated itself all over again. We would argue about who was the best sister, who was the most attractive, who was the funniest. At times we would mute it and create our own scenarios and story lines just for the fun as only a handful of episodes available to us so we knew them all pretty well. We loved Rob but Scott easily stole our hearts like he did for so many others, yes he may be a massive dick at times but he is literally the audience, saying what we are all thinking and throwing at the screen, from how terribly oversized Kris’s glasses are to how bonkers some of Kourtney's ideas are. He verbally manifests all of our thoughts and in a show so over the top mad and extravagant he is a sorely needed somewhat grounded character. While me and my brother would laugh and joke over its ridiculousness we became completely enraptured in the lives of the Kardashians and well and truly couldn’t wait for our next session of Keeping Up.

I am not a great lover of much TV with my prime time television watching this year having consisted solely of The Great British Bake Off, which is a subject for another day. However anytime there is a Kardashian binge on I’m there or if two random episodes are airing over on 4Music again I’m there. I have no interest in the likes of Big Brother or The Hills or Geordie Shore or Jersey Shore or TOWIE or Made in Chelsea and have openly mocked all those shows and struggle to understand their appeal while hypocritically sneaking away to watch more KUWTK. I know the ignorance and judgement involved in the previous statement but some people love them just as much as I love the Kardashians and hate the Kardashians just as much as I hate their chosen show. I struggle to understand my own love for the show and what I find so enjoyable about it. There are only ever two reactions to people discovering my fascination for the sisters it is either absolute disgust and pure judgement (just like I do when others mention their interest in any other reality show that isn’t the Kardashians) or over the top enthusiasm as we get down to a biblical gossip fest about our common interest. When my girlfriend first discovered my interest in the girls she couldn’t believe it as she knew me for all of the things I have previously described. Even so she was an easy convert after I showed her the wonders of the LA girls and we now find ourselves ritually scouring the channels for any glimpses of the girls.

In recent years though I have found myself working in an industry dominated with reality shows and stars which has only grown my detest for the genre and yet the many K’s remain on a pedestal to me. It is a weird internal affair of ideas and notions conflicting with one another. Of course we can prefer one thing to another that is completely natural but to hate a genre so vehemently but then quite possibly love the worst iteration the genre has to offer. Is what many would see as pure insanity. Reality TV is about the most simplest of human responses, the most basic of emotions, it can so widely and categorically divide us all due to connectivity. We connect so easily and quickly with characters within a reality show, maybe because we see something in them that we recognise or something we aspire to. We connect in someway and somehow and that is all that matters, that is how someone can watch Geordie Shore or Made in Chelsea and only love that show and hate the alternative, it is extremely primitive. Like all pop culture it attaches to emotions and time frames and with the enduring nature of most reality shows it allows us to fully connect and create a sense of time and longevity with the people and the show. I may look appalled when someone tells me they love such and such show and yet I completely understand why. I have never nor never will be ashamed of my fascination with the Kardashians, this here post is clearly a testament to that fact. Reality TV is a strange and ever evolving beast, it is just as fake and nonsensical as most other TV and yet it takes a hold of you so easily. My housemates have long been of a similar fame of mind and continually scold me for my love affair and yet their intake of reality TV continues to increase. It seems I can not explain the hold or interest of the reality TV genre all I can say is of its odd humanity even its most outrageous of moments. It is a love or hate genre filled with love or hate shows filled with love or hate characters and yet somewhere along the lines you will find a love for whatever reason and it will stick and fast and completely without explanation. There is no shame in it even when people bad mouth it just like anything you love you should fight for it and believe in it. No matter how absurd it can get at times.