If I wanted to be dramatic about it, I could say I’ve spent a lifetime resisting reality television. It has always struck me as vulgar, an adjective so antiquated it lives exclusively in the Victorian matron part of my head. I’ve now spent an entire summer consuming very little else and can confidently report that it is indeed vulgar. Unfortunately for my stuck-up sensibilities, that’s why I have come to love it.
First, perhaps we should define our terms. What is vulgar? It comes from the Latin vulgus, meaning the common people. For some of my acquaintances, this will bring to mind the Vulgate Bible, a late 4th c. AD translation of the Bible into Latin which eventually became the Catholic Church’s official version of the Bible, thus providing some measure of access to the text for “the common people,” or at least those who could read or find someone to read it to them. By the 15th c. the term pops up in the word divulge, which we now principally use to mean a reveal of secrets, but originally meant to make any piece of information known to the common people. Finally, in the early 19th c., we arrive at my favorite word to make use of the root in question: vulgarian. A vulgarian is a rich person with vulgar (common) manners, like a robber baron who wipes his mouth on the tablecloth. My Victorian matron would be outraged.
But where were we before we took a jaunt down that etymological rabbit hole? Ah yes, the concept of filming the antics of various hot singles. This summer I have been watching: 90 Day Fiancé, Below Deck (Sailing Yacht, Mediterranean, and Down Under), The Bachelorette, Love is Blind, Love Island (UK and US), and F-Boy Island. These shows aim to exist on a spectrum of vulgarity, playing on viewers’ sense of aspirational kinship. Some, like The Bachelorette, feature a lot of contestants who are Just Like You except they’re living in a gilded mansion and going on yacht dates in Paris. Others, like Love Island, initially have no pretenses about their sexy singles’ relationship to actual regular people. When introduced to the 6 original contestants, “wow that 110-pound Instagram model with lip fillers and fake boobs the size of jumbo Cinnabuns is just like me!” is not likely to cross your mind. Give it a few weeks, though, and you’ll be crying into your Cheerios hoping Turkish soap actress Ekin-Su and Italian stallion Davide can just learn to trust each other already.
Reality dating shows tend to fall into two categories: shows that make you want to be like the main characters and shows that are designed as a spectacle of the strange. In watching so many of these shows, what’s clear to me is no matter what intentions the producers come in with, there is just too much human slippage. Watch one long enough and you go from ironic viewer to empathizer, no longer able to see the contestants as characters in a highly scripted drama. I watch Below Deck for a few hours and I go from chuckling at how important hospital corners are to these silly stewardesses to spending 30 minutes trying to get a perfect line on my own bed.
The best of these shows go the empathy route; the worst of them go the spectacle route. The worst offender, in my experience, is The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. Even allowing for this season of the latter being generally agreed upon as particularly bad, the rot goes all the way down in Bachelor Nation. The producers know that they draw viewers in by humiliating the women, all while maintaining an insufferably sanctimonious tone. The worst behavior of the men is rewarded and as a dating show, it isn’t particularly effective. A 2017 Huffington Post analysis found,
In fact, only two-thirds of the seasons end with proposals. Then out of those proposals, only 5 have led to marriage, with the Bachelorette having a better success rate at 30% versus the bachelor at 11%.
Shows like Love is Blind seem to exude empathy, but put far too much pressure on the format to solve little problems like physical attraction or racial bias. The best of the reality dating shows, like F-Boy Island, commit to not taking themselves too seriously while respecting their female contestants and holding their male contestants to high standards.
But what keeps me coming back to the best reality shows is the certainty that the antics of my fellow humans will continue to move me. Reality shows are not just vulgar, they’re also full of artifice. It’s a well-worn joke that the “reality” part isn’t exactly… well… reality. These shows are largely scripted, with heroes and villains and storylines heavily plotted and producers pulling puppet strings behind the scenes. One of the best meta-commentaries about reality television is Lifetime’s scripted series UnREAL, which followed the producers on a Bachelor-esque show. They scheme and manipulate, getting contestants drunk, convincing them to take embarrassing risks, and manufacturing dramatic situations. We all know that this goes on behind the scenes, but what entrances me about these shows is the real human messiness that even the best producer cannot manufacture or hide. There’s something in us that recognizes human authenticity and responds to it.
Above all, I have to admit that I continue watching these shows because the contestants are so very different from me and my circle. I don’t know anyone who would go on a reality dating show. I don’t know anyone from the Instagram influencer universe or the modeling world and I think I can be very quick to dismiss Gemma the 19-year-old dressage socialite or Kat the Mukbang YouTuber. But when I watch them fall in love, form lasting friendships, and grow as people right in front of me, I can’t dismiss them.