Danny ChaiNo one cares, but the most recent season of Survivor was one of the best they’ve had. Mainly because it was unpredictable until the end. People this time around actually played to win, not just to last another week. And you had a completely psychotic individual who lasted a long time. All in all, very unpredictable, and very entertaining.
The reason I like certain reality TV shows is because even in my entertainment, I like to think, to learn about something. The more something makes me think, the more I like it. Come to think of it, that’s probably why I like the first two Harry Potter movies more than the next two. The first have fortune cookie wisdom, especially the second, which tells us that it is our choices, far more than our abilities, that determine who we are. The next two are just plot. Which is fine and entertaining. But I like things better when they make me think and if they say something about life.
Reality TV shows, at least the ones I watch, are really interesting to me because they’re a commentary on human nature. The environment is always contrived and artificial, but the participants are real and unscripted, so you still learn something about humankind based on how they act and react. And that fascinates me.
Like one interesting thing about Survivor is that everyone is always obsessed with integrity. At the last tribal council of each season, the finalists always say how they’re proud of how they played the game with integrity and the jury always harps on how devious and blatantly non-integrous the finalists were. It happens every single time.
Which says a few things to me. One, everyone has a different standard of integrity, and it just happens to most closely match how they themselves naturally act. I personally think this is one of the hardest barriers to evangelism – everyone thinks they’re mostly good; it’s hard to convict people of their own sin. I think there was some survey that said like 90% of people think they are more moral than average. That’s pretty much how it is.
In any case, I think the integrity thing is a crock anyway. The players don’t really care about integrity; they just use that as an excuse to explain why the finalists made it and they didn’t. It’s a defense mechanism they use to explain why, despite not having made it to the final 2, they’re still better people. But they don’t really care about integrity, else they wouldn’t be bashing other people about it. Calling into question someone else’s integrity doesn’t exactly demonstrate a lot of integrity yourself.
It’s also fascinating what happens when people are stripped of their authority or title. People who are in positions of respect and power in real life can come across as childish and petulant when stuck on equal ground with everyone else. Which shows how much personality is dependent on context.
Anyway, we also watched the last season of Beauty and the Geek, both the US and UK version. Also fascinating. For one, to see the differences in geeks for the two countries. But yeah, the show makes me both happy and sad at the same time. Truth is, I relate to geeks; I feel like I’m one of them, and I’m on their side. Team. What makes me happy is that the beauties always say, after getting to know them, that geeks aren’t so bad; maybe they should consider dating a geek. What makes me sad is the knowledge that even though they say this, there’s pretty much zero chance that they’d ever really date a geek outside the show, unless he was uber-rich. That’s just how life is.
I dunno, that bothers me because I still feel like that geek who was never given a chance with the girls. Which actually makes no sense whatsoever because I was given chances and I’m married now. But you know, so little of our self-identity actually makes sense. And deep inside, I’m still an unattractive geek.
Speaking of human nature, there was this brief article in the paper about some village in China, where the authorities, to ease the transition from a rural to urban society, offered apartments to the residents, a one bedroom apartment for singles, and a two bedroom one for families. What happened was, couples starting divorcing solely so they could get two apartments and rent out one of them. The government found out about it and closed the loophole, but many of the families remained broken as the newly divorced husbands ran off with younger women. What a sad commentary on human nature. Any opportunity to be greedy or selfish, and humans will take it.