My intervention, circa June 2004, was among one of the most difficult, yet important moments in my life. My friends found me, comatose on my couch at home, half-eaten ding-dongs and yodels everywhere, an unfinished pie of cheeseburger Dominos pizza, and enough Ben & Jerry’s to make Kirstie Alley feel ill. I was barely alive, they told me later.

But I suppose it all makes sense; after all, I had already made it through 2/3 of the Real World Season 8 marathon on MTV and the first three seasons Big Brother on special bootleg DVD. You see, I was, I admit now, a Reality-TV addict. I remember vaguely, through a haze of madness certain moments of disgrace associated with my addiction: a moment of weakness where three small children were nearly hospitalized when they accidentally stepped in my way at a local Circuit City the same moment Joe Millionaire Season 1 went on sale; or that one time I nearly stabbed that girl in line for a glimpse at the last Road Rules cast. And now, a full year later, I am able to look at Reality TV with that same sober disdain that a former alcoholic can view Dewar’s, a drug addict can view Crystal, or Joan River’s can view Botox.

And with this new-found sobriety, I have been able to see the pitfalls of the reality TV movement and its recent, disturbing metamorphosis. In only a few short years, since those golden TV words first spilled from Probst’s mouth, “The tribe has spoken,” reality TV has changed from something (admittedly) socially questionable to socially reprehensible. In those years, shows like Made or Real World, The Bachelor or Average Joe captivated us by exposing peculiar quirks in our culture. Unfortunately, the new trend is very different, and ominous. With new shows like The Simple Life, Kept, Rich Girls, and even the new Princes of Malibu, wealth in our nation has become demystified, uncovered. But these shows are not exposés as they might have us believe. Instead, they serve to draw viewers in so that we may watch the antics of the elite, but instead of reproaching them, the audience is captured and hegemonized into accepting these antics, with surface disdain, but underlying desire.

To see what reality TV has become, let us see where it came from. Although shows like Real World came much before the behemoths, the reality show that first started the obsession was Survivor, that television spectacle that pits average people from all walks life in a jungle environment. They are to fend for themselves in team challenges while forming alliances and treacherously stabbing each other in the back. Think: Congress. Nevertheless, the show was a huge hit. According to Newsday “Survivor is now officially the highest rated summer series in TV history." (June 30, 2000) And it wasn’t only Newsday, but at least another dozen newspapers and magazines including the New York Times and Time Magazine gushed as noticeably within one month of the airing. And when InsideTV ranted, “Survivor, the well-produced, irresistible, inessential and insanely successful hybrid of fantasy and reality, has changed television,” reality TV had been born.

And in that time, reality TV exploded with dozens of other shows in the mix. Over the next few years many reality TV shows bombarded Prime time such as Big Brother (now at season 6), The Mole, The Amazing Race, Lost, The Bachelor, and The Biggest Loser and so on. In the past five years over a hundred reality TV shows have come and gone. In fact, the craze has become so horrific as to incite completely preposterous and inappropriate suggestions such as the new reality show about the recent Michael Jackson trial. Proposed by the Jackson camp after his latest acquittal, Entertainment Tonight reported on June 16, 2005 that the Jackson camp was actually interested in possibly revealing all the sealed documents and information from the trial as part of a new reality show. The idea has actually, just at a mention, caused me to turn over in my own grave, years from now. Possible titles for the show: Weirdoes Gone Wild, Chimps, Kids, and a Creepy Has been Musician or Queer Eye for the Strait Guy: Kid’s Edition.

According to Steven Reiss and James Wiltz in Psychology Today (2001), “The message of reality television is that ordinary people can become so important that millions will watch them.” Furthermore, “…The secret thrill of many of those viewers is the thought that perhaps next time, the new celebrities might be them.” If this is true (and it appears to dead on if we look at the new shows and their incentives) then the newest type of reality shows are perhaps the most alarming. These new shows such as The Simple Life, The Princes of Malibu, Rich Girls, Kept, and I Want to Be a Hilton ask viewers to be force fed the antics of the wealthy which hegemonically places the wealthy on pedestals and us even farther beneath them.

Let’s take a look. The simple Life with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. Both relatively nice young women and the show can be funny. But what is the real message: look at these pretty rich people who DO NOT NEED to work a day in their lives and how funny and cute that they are doing a crappy job at tasks that most people ACTUALLY HAVE TO DO. And we love it. Do you know what we call people like Hilton or Richie who do half-assed jobs at actual occupations: unemployed. But they rake in the dough and we further accept our own distance from their fame.

Or Rich girls on MTV which is simply disgusting. According to TV.com, Rich Girls asks us to, “Meet Ally Hilfiger and Jaime Gleicher -- normal teenagers who enjoy doing normal teenage things like shopping, talking on the phone, and going to the prom.” It gets worse: “But there's one important difference between them and the rest of us -- they're rich. Really, really, rich.” Just imagine! “Get a first-hand look at their super-fabulous life when MTV follows two of the wealthiest teens on the planet to see how they live their lives and spend their mountains of money.” Wow, this sounds really exciting. I can’t wait to see people who never really had to work for anything obnoxiously spend the money they did not earn. Talk about the American dream.

Jerry Hall’s Kept on VHI is almost worse. Here VHI displays, “Jerry Hall, the sexy, sassy supermodel & "ex-Mrs. Jagger" is choosing 12 men to compete for the opportunity to live her lavish rock 'n' roll lifestyle as a "kept" man.” What is a kept man? “The lucky competitors will share in her life of luxury, accompanying her to star studded events, rock 'n' roll parties and socializing with her friends and family in London.” Oh, so now we televise people who compete to be some ex-super model’s house boy. Dare to dream young men, dare to dream.

Ignoring the social implications of other shows like, I want to be a Hilton, the worst of all must be Princes of Malibu on Fox. According to canwestmediasales.com, “14 time Grammy Winner David Foster struggles to kick out his two adult stepsons, Brandon Jenner (23) and Brody Jenner (21), from his 22-acre mega mansion in the heart of Malibu.” What? “But the two boys, with the support of their mother Linda Thompson, are hell bent on staying in the palatial paradise. Linda struggles to keep the peace among the important men in her life.” Wiping away the melodrama from my eye. “While her two sons from her first marriage to Olympian Bruce Jenner are enjoying the life of luxury with yachts, fast cars, exclusive parties and unlimited restaurant accounts (all at Foster’s expense), David has been trying to instill his over-achieving, workaholic lifestyle on the boys.” Basically, we are paying two deadbeats to continue to be deadbeats but now glamorized on television and actively spurning their father’s work ethic.

If Reiss and Wiltz are even remotely correct in their assessment of people’s real reasons for watching Reality TV, then we are in big trouble. It would appear that television has become a true reflection of real life: rich people do nothing, get what they want…the rest of us make them richer and desire to be those rich people. It’s the American dream at its best.

And there appears to be no real end in sight. Now not all reality TV is the same. Survivor, The Apprentice, and others like them, pit contestants to get a prize, in the case of Trump’s apprentice: an actual job. These new shows however serve only to make people feel worse about themselves while putting incompetent and spoiled wealthy heirs on pedestals they do not belong on. Psychologically, this can only serve to produce three frightening consequences: first, it reaffirms the reality in which we live in this society – the wealth gap widening at an alarming rate, the rich getting away with endless counts of corruption and greed, and the rest of us somehow believing that everything is as it should be. Second, that this trend is not only reaffirmed, but these acts of incompetence, indolence, and greed are idolized in our lives and so these already rich people actually get rich and famous at our expense; third, these useless examples of effort and success actually can claim employment just by being rich which further draws the rest of us in, sending the message that the way these people act is not only glamorous but also a legitimate form of employment.

We must not stand for these new forms of hegemony. We are being attacked from all ends and now even our entertainment is being used as a specific mean to further indoctrinate the wealth gap. We must fight this reality not only by boycotting such shows and reproaching them, but also allowing our ire to cross over into the “real” world and standing up for “real” work, “real” people, and the “real” American dream.