The End Is Maybe Nigh.

The End Is Nigh! Repent, Repent Lest Ye Be Swallowed In To The Pits Of Hell!!

2012 may represent the end of times to the type of person who would form opinions based on something that they read on the internet. But the end I refer to is that of Reality TV. One can hope.

Jersey Shore, I felt, offered a gracious end to reality TV, a bunch of people with nothing to say being paid to get drunk, take drugs, fight and fuck. It was entertaining in the sense that these people actually exist, and not only that - you get to watch their magnificently oblivious lives play out on Music Television... I know, I know. If you remember MTV playing music you are old as fuck.

I watched weekly, I don't care what you think. But something happened and it wasn't the end of it. Which is a real shame. Instead the theme of the show spread over to us, we got Geordie Shore, where a group of even more retarded individuals mistook their entire heritage and upbringing and tried to convince the world that "true geordies" get tanned, and dress up like complete fucking idiots. This show was, in a sense, even better than Jersey Shore because while the Americans found a way to become insanely famous - to the point that someone known as Snooki, a truly awful individual with little or no common sense and absolutely nothing to say of any importance - became an international best selling author, their UK counterparts simply looked cheap, nasty and completely devoid of absolutely any sense.

As is the way with all shitty things in life, just when you think things can't get any shittier it does. And as is often the case in the UK, the standards were shat on once again by a stupendously shitty human being and all round awful cunt, Katie Price. Her abomination of a show "Signed By Katie Price" is just about the worst thing to have ever been commissioned by any TV network. It is massively pointless and feeds the growing trouble with the world. There were no objectives to speak of, it took the basics of all shows before it, the panel, the judges house etc, but it wasn't interested in any talent. The contestants walked on to the stage and, based on how they looked, were selected by Jordan to be signed for no real reason... By the time I stopped watching it some weeks in to the series, they still had no prize to offer. That is the trouble, the dumbing down of society and the lowering of standards we have shown in the last few years as a race. The biggest issue I have with this form of TV, and it is perfectly personified in "Signed By Katie Price" is that the younger generations desire to get something for nothing and a strong desire to have it now, in favour of working for it and earning it.

Which brings me to this. The reason I am glad Reality TV didn't disappear after Jersey Shore. The US version of X Factor peaked this week, and I saw something that warmed my heart and almost caused me to have a hernia from laughing. In would like to vote for Rachel Crow's reaction to being booted off the karaoke championships as the greatest moment in reality TV history. I can think of nothing that made me smile more than the moment that kid broke down on stage and cried to her mummy "you promised I'd win". This may seem harsh, to laugh at the tears of a child, but you are missing the point. This kid seems like every inch the kind of child that you would despise if you had to spend time with it. She learned a valuable lesson last week. What that lesson actually is, I am not sure... And more importantly I don't care. But what we have earned from this is one of the funniest moments in a history of other peoples triumphs. Millions tune in to put people like her on a pedestal and, for some obscure reason, give a damn about them... I tune in for moments like her being booted. Much like I only watched Big Brother on eviction night in the hope that one of the assholes would fall face first down the metal steps, no one ever did. Ten years, not one missed step, not one stumble.

"You promised me I'd win". What an idiot. She put her faith in the wrong people. Watch the moment that Steve Jones and his weird hybrid accent say "the act with the fewest votes" she smirks because she has been promised she'd win, and she believed it. Idiot. It made for glorious TV though, unless you watch it for the other reason. Perhaps you believe that these people deserve the fame they get off the back of these shows, in which case you can go fuck yourself. It isn't for any musical pretentiousness on my side, I don't listen to it, I don't care what they sing. My problem is what these shows have done to the idea of working hard to become good at something. These people don't want to be good at what they do, because by going on these shows they already think they're amazing. They just want to be famous and can't be bothered putting the work in. They don't want to wait 10 years, at the end of which they might not be famous. They want sleazy pricks with cameras to follow their every move so that everyone can see them falling out a club. Which is the only amazing thing about them. And not in a good way.

It maybe all boils down to my inbuilt hatred of stage school kids, or kids with the kind of confidence that would result in them standing on a stage at 12, in front of the world and not having even a shadow of a doubt that they would win.