So, what's the big deal about reality TV?

I hate reality TV, I can't stop watching it...

Okay, I hate shows like Big Brother, and Wife Swap, etc. I don't watch those. That genre is a killer. I mean, watching it makes you think the world is all about bitchy gossip and petty back-stabbing competitiveness, and oh, that it's full of people with very low IQ who cry a lot and say racist things (it's very 1990s, people).

No. It's the other kind of reality TV that I watch with guilty pleasure. Like Strictly Come Dancing (Dancing with the Stars if you're American, but you don't have eighty-five-year-old Brucie hosting your show...), or the X-Factor, or even (yes, I admit it, with shame) all those Top Model shows.

Everyone is always crying on these shows, and saying how this experience is the single most important thing that's ever happened to them, how they'd rather die than go back home (makes you wonder what's going on at home), and being on this show is more important than world peace, and losing would be as catastrophic as the Iraq war (my words, not theirs), how they've made so many amazing friends on this show, and how finally, after a lifetime of being derided and laughed at in school, they've finally realized their true destiny... But I find myself watching with a hand over my eyes as the contestents get slated by the judges, or some ageing gentleman who looks like a garden gnome dressed as a plump dracula (John Sergeant doing the paso doble) keeps getting voted in by the viewers, or anorexic women dressed in Barbie's clothes start throwing chicken breasts and plastic bottles at each other...

I may be an elitist about education and being clever and artistic and creative and witty and all that new-agey twaddle. But, my god, I love it when they start throwing things and calling each other names....