I don’t know who the Kardashians are.
When I admitted this to a friend, she looked at me like I was crazy. Now, thanks to Google, I know that they’re a rich family who has their own reality TV show.
According to their Facebook page, 5,794,563 people like them and 202,911 are talking about them. It blows my mind.
I have not had cable for two years, partly because I can’t afford it, but also because I wouldn’t watch it enough. I don’t have Netflix or any idea how to watch television shows on my computer. I rarely watch movies. However, I did use YouTube to watch something other than a music video last week. For the first time in two years, I regretted not having cable. I had to see the much talked about Jennifer Hudson rendition of “I Will Always Love You,” in honor of Whitney Houston, at the Grammy Awards.
Other than this one incident, I don’t feel like I’m missing out. I’m not bored without television. It doesn’t affect my life in any way; except for the strange looks I receive when I say I don’t know who the Kardashians are. I feel that because of television, along with the other sources of technology surrounding us, we are oblivious to reality. There is so much to do and see that costs little or no money, yet people are more aware of what’s going on in a reality television show.
The reality of it is—reality television is staged. It is presented to us as if we are getting an exclusive, inside glimpse at what it is like to live a certain lifestyle, but is it accurate? Considering I’ve never watched the Kardashians, I can’t really say. If it’s anything like “Jersey Shore,” it’s far from realistic. Either way, it still makes me wonder why people are so drawn in by the prospect of watching someone else’s life unfold.
My theory is that we are bored with our lives. As a society we have lost the creativity to go out and join in community events, or to be satisfied by getting lost in a good book. Everywhere we go people are talking, texting, emailing, listening to, reading or watching some sort of technology.
Sometimes I wish we could time warp back to the days when you had to call—not text—your friends to hang out. Instead of checking Facebook, perhaps we’d stop by our neighbor’s house and say hello. We could check the movie show times in the newspaper, and if Khloe Kardashian wore a ridiculous animal hat out in public, we wouldn’t care. We would be busy experiencing our own lives as they unfold—absorbing reality.
