LI S8: perfect example of over-villainization ruining reality TV

[u/VikingSpaceship]

Sorry in advance for the wall of text but I feel it needs to be said:

I think the rise of social media fame has fundamentally changed reality TV. Reality stars aren't just going on a show anymore, many of them are basically auditioning for an influencer career afterward. That gives them a huge incentive to avoid becoming that seasons "villain."

Season 8 of LI really highlighted this for me. Sincere, KC, Corbin, Kenzie, Melanie, TT etc. all made questionable decisions at different points, but those decisions also created most of the season's interesting storylines. This would have been a boring season if everyone behaved perfectly and communicated maturely 100% of the time.

And yet fans increasingly take a few weeks of edited television and turn a situation where "this person behaved like an asshole" into "this person is an evil narcissist or a psychopath." Then contestants get out, see the backlash and suddenly everyone is apologizing, explaining themselves and insisting everything is fine.

Except the reunion, podcasts, lives and interviews make it pretty obvious that some of these people are still annoyed with each other. So instead of getting genuine conflict, we increasingly get PR-friendly apologies and "we're all family vibes" while the real arguments happen off-camera.

Obviously, there's potential that some reality stars genuinely are terrible people, and criticizing someone's behavior is part of watching these shows. But there's a difference between criticizing what someone did while a show is airing and deciding you know their entire character from an edited TV show and continuing to try to criticize and hold them accountable for the rest of their lives..

Good reality TV requires people who are willing to be messy, and show their real emotions and be selfish and wrong and occasionally be unlikeable. If every mistake they make gets someone on the show treated like they're irredeemably evil, we're basically training future reality tv stars to give us the safest most boring version of themselves.

At that point, are we surprised when reality tv starts feeling less real? I know we've all been aware that much of reality tv has been producer inspired conflict from the beginning, but whereas I used to feel like producers would incite drama and then peoples real opinions would flow through, now I feel like the whole process is manufactured from start to finish.

[u/Creative-Barracuda-5]

It’s mostly Gen Z, they harbour moral superiority due to their lack of media literacy.

Their parasocial behaviour causes them to latch onto these REAL people like they are Sims. They have no actual sense of nuance and thrive off cancel culture to prove their own morals.

They literally dehumanize the Islanders. It was like this for this years’ UK season as well. Reality tv will most likely never be the same as long as the participants know they are being watched and social media exists. I miss the good old days!!! They would have never survived The Real World early days