Integrity and Reality TV

If I was playing a round of Canasta where the stakes were high and the winning worthwhile and someone suggested that I cheat my way to the podium, I'd  like to think that I would tell 'em to shove it where sun don't shine. Lying and cheating just doesn't sit well under any circumstances.

So when there is lying and cheating going on in a reality TV show I am left wondering why. Oh sure it might make for interest in otherwise rather banal viewing, and I can easily see how it might be scripted and orchestrated but the punters or performing seals have got to stick their necks out and actually agree to do the lying or cheating - Clever editing not withstanding.  Slagging off other contestants in a game show or smacking someone in the head or flicking paint of different colours all over the walls just to get noticed, yeh I understand that. That's 'Look at Me!' But the cheating and outright lying I don't get.

Years on there will still be people on the street who perhaps out of boredom with their own silly little lives, will remember and they might yell, ' Hey have you spray painted anything lately?' or 'How'd it feel to bully that bird?' or 'You cheating lying scumbag!'

I know if I had cheated and lied, I would have to move to a place where the tellie programming is still full or re-runs of MASH and The Brady Bunch, so that Joe Ordinary in the street wouldn't know that
I had so little integrity that I sank to the 'cheater cheater, where's the beater?' level.

In this day of social media and instant access to bloody everything, this shit is gonna be out there forever, for their kids and grandies to see. The shame would be stifling for me, but then again I choose not to parade like a puppet on the tellie.

Celebrities who should definitely know better, get caught out in drunken nasty raves, and they apologize and bank on a hefty portfolio of hopefully better stuff to drown out the oopsy, but what have these 15 minuters got?

Bachelors who string women along with lies and deceit and people who lie about paying their contractors, well these are the ones, if any at all, who are remembered, all for the wrong reasons. I wouldn't trust 'em as far as a I can spit and that's not far.

If this is in deed all a matter of direction and editing then perhaps the producers need to revisit the original premise, it means that the idea is not sufficient in itself to attract viewers and advertisers.

I watch more than my share of 'Reality TV'. There, my dirty little secret is out!  I just wish it was more of an insight into honesty and integrity along with that aggressive will to win.