Term Paper 3

 Reality Television

    We are currently in the year of 2022 and the amount of reality television shows seems to increasing as the time goes by. There is Keeping Up with the Kardashians, American Idol, The Bachelor, RuPaul's Drag Race, and many more shows to chose from depending on what you enjoy watching, there is something for everyone. We seem to enjoy watching other peoples' real life experiences and getting a view on how other people are living their life, both on their social media but also on some of the reality television shows being aired.     

    The reality television show Keeping Up with the Kardashians is one of the many popular reality television shows that are being watched by audience from all around the world. KUWTK is an American reality television series that is focusing on the lives of the Kardashian-Jenner blended family, from both a personal and a professional perspective. The reality television show aired the first time on October 14, 2007, which makes it one of the longest-running reality television series in the US. The series is focusing mainly on the sisters Kim, Kourtney, and Khloé Kardashian and their half-sisters, Kendall and Kylie Jenner. The show also features their parents, Kris and Caitlyn Jenner, and brother, Rob. The partners of the Kardashian sisters also appears in the show. 

    Keeping Up with the Kardashians have made such success and gotten the popularity it has, due to the Kardashian sisters interesting lives. The sisters does not really have any filters or boundaries and boundary-crossing seems to be a common situation in their lives which makes it very entertaining to watch their show. Their economic situation is also letting them travel, buy and do cool things, which also makes it interesting to watch.

    Included in the show is also all the normal life drama. For example, they showed the drama between Scott and Kourtney, the drama between Khloe and Lamar, the separation and divorce between Kris and Caitlyn, and all the ridiculous siblings fights. These parts of the show gains attention from the audience since it proves that a famous family like that is also going through the normal everyday situations like any other human being. This would be the reason for why the show got so popular in the beginning of the show being aired, the audience and fans of the family could easily connect and maybe in some situations even relate to the Kardashain family, and realizing they are just like everyone else. 

    As the Kardashian family got more and more famous and visible to the public, the allure of the show is no longer the same. It became an addendum to their fame, instead of it being the main reason for it. The content also started to change in the later seasons and it went from silly spats between the sisters to full-out brwals between Kim and Kourtney over who had the most "work ethic". It could be entertaining from some perspectives but it also started to be a bit concerning. 

    Because of the constant dramas being aired on the show, the audience would most likely be young adults and older, especially in our society today. Most young adults today can be seen to enjoy viewing other people's dramas that they are not involved in at all, which makes the Kardashians' show a perfect match of a reality television show to watch. In my personal opinion, I also feel like a lot of the young adults today are very interesting in seeing and knowing everything that is going on in everyone else's lives, especially celebrities.

    I would like to bring up the similarities between the reality television show Keeping Up with the Kardashians with the Swedish reality television show Wahlgrens Värld (Wahlgren's World). Wahlgrens Värld is a Swedish reality series following the daily lives of the actress and singer Pernilla Wahlgren and her daughter, Bianca Ingrosso, alongside their other family members, and this family is most of the time referred to as the Swedish Kardashian family. Just like the Kardashian's series, the Wahlgren's are also being followed by a camera team through personal and professional happenings. The ways of gaining attention from the audience are also very similar to how the Keeping Up with the Kardashians are doing it, by including the dramas and the real life problems happening, in the series. The relationship between Pernilla and Bianca is also being shown a lot in the series since this has been an ongoing drama for a very long time. 

    The difficulty with these two shows is to know what in this is scripted, faked, and what is a true happening. Having a camera pointed towards you will most likely make you act differently compared to when the cameras are not there. The cutting and portraying someone as they are not, just for the fact of gaining more views and popularity, seems to be a common thing within the reality television society. 

    As an example, in one of the episodes of Wahlgrens Värld Pernilla's son, Benjamin Ingrosso is being shown as he refuses to help the rest of his family members on cleaning up in their backyard. Right after this episode aired his new nickname was "The lazy kid on channel 5". It was not until two years later when Benjamin took part in a podcast and spoke up about this situation, that the show portrayed him as someone he is not. The reality behind the backyard situation was not what was shown, it turned out being something completely different. During the filming of the backyard cleaning, there was another reality television show being filmed about the family, which Benjamin did not know before he arrived to the house that day, he was also in the middle of a breakup and thought he was coming home to watch a movie with his mother. Arriving to the house he realized this was not the case, and of course, gets upset. The camera team only captured the moment of him acting as if he is just a lazy kid not wanting to help his family, but did not mention any of the background stories. 

    Another similarity between these two shows is how the producers are using social media such as Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, in order to create publicity for their programs. Both shows can be seen to post shorter clips from the shows, most of the time ending with a cliff-hanger, in order for the social media followers to get interested in seeing what happens next and immediately goes into their streaming platform to watch the episode. Giving a little short glimpse to the audience what will happen in the upcoming episode in an episode already being aired, will gain attention from the audience to watch the episode, which is a smart way of using the social media platforms for the publicity. 

    What also makes it interesting with reality tv shows like this is how they somewhat fail to make you feel like you are just a fly on the wall, secretly taking part in their most intimate moments, by adding the moments when the cast talks directly into the camera, they are now acknowledging the viewer's perspective. 

    I am not sure what kind of reality program I would do if I had the chance to do one because I do believe, especially nowadays, the reality shows are more and more turning into a place filled with dramas. And don't get me wrong, I can enjoy watching some kind of dramas, but I do feel like it has started to be a little bit too much about the dramas going on.