by T-Bone
Okay, because I am from a certain part of the country where eccentric behavior is not only desired and rewarded but taught in college, I have done my share of stupid stuff. I have jackassed some stunts worthy of Johnny Knoxville, Jimmy Nashville and Bubba Hooterville in my time, but these days, it seems entire networks willing to program around your stupidity.
And now and then, the results are not the entertainment that was intended.
You don't have to be Sasha "Borat" Cohen to smell this trend. We've all seen American Idol (at least about 40 million of us a night) for years, and it's clear that having talent is not the most surefire way to get featured on the early season shows. For that, you have to be willing to dress like Uncle Sam, stand on your head and flatulently extrude the Star Spangled Banner; or have a tragic story that propelled you to the audition like Kelly Pickler's dad being in prison, or the Ohio high schooler who told her parents she was staying with a friend and skipped school and drove to NYC and made the finals in LA.
Lacking a sympathetic story, you'd better be ready to pony up some humiliation to earn your 15 minutes. If so, you get ushered straight to the front of the 30,000-idiot line. Oh, and sign the release, we're not responsible for your sorry arse (as Simon would sneer).
Reality TV is so unreal as to actually change reality. Remember when script writers used to come up with stories for Andy and Barney and Fred and Ethel? Now all you need is a video camera and some idiots willing to surf a moving bus or eat a plate full of maggoty donkey genitalia.
And I used to wonder what kind of sick notion would propel a
person to sign up for Jerry Springer so he could admit to his wife that
he's having an affair with her mother's secret boyfriend's dad. That's
child's play now. You can see that on 50 shows any time of day or
night.
Want to live in a house with strangers and have every sick moment
videoed and aired on prime time? Or get punked or jacked or dogged or
whatever else some adolescent producer in Hollywood can come up with to
make their fellow men and women look stupid? Sign up here. Willing to
subject yourself to absolutely any kind of degradation to win a shot at
50 grand or maybe just a chance to show off those new implants in a
bikini while hanging from a rope as you're being pummeled Bull
Conner-style with fire hoses? We know some people who can hook you up.
Willing to die to win a video game?
That's the latest from a radio station stunt gone bad. This story makes Howard Stern's 8th grade male humor (getting women to strip off nekkid in the studio while we listen) seem almost Jimmy Stewartish.
A 28-year-old mom died on January 12 from "water intoxication" after drinking 2 gallons of water in a radio station contest to see who could "hold their pee for a Wii" (computer game). Her family is suing the station.
That stunt ups the ante by quite a bit, doesn't it?
Clearly, nobody held a gun to her head and poured the water down her throat, but how responsible was it to have a contest where one of the winning options is dying from a condition that you could have Googled in 60 seconds to know it was seriously dangerous?
The morning jocks and producers were fired. Great. Doesn't bring Mom back. And to add insult to death certificate, she came in second, so she missed the Wii as well. Death as the consolation prize is not a game I want to play.
So where does this headlong tumble into YouTubishly stupid stunts lead us as a nation as we ponder 75 candidates for president? Barack Obama or Bam Margera? My money's on the guy who's willing to get X-rayed after shoving a metal car up his butt.
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