You mean the people who are like “I am an underwater basket weaver and my husband is a turtle dance instructor! Our budget is $800,000!”

I hate those shows with a burning passion my wife cant get enough of them.

I have however gotten her to watch "This Old House" which actually shows real remodeling and home repair as opposed to sledgehammer porn fallowed by contrived drama between the hosts finishing with a walk through of a staged house where they advertise tacky furniture and overpriced appliances.

After watching a couple episodes I figured it was fake but it’s fun too see all the houses! Fun way of seeing what an area is like

Wait until people hear about the person I know who was a contestant on "The Bachelor", who is in fact already happily married. Reality TV is fake? The ocean is wet! Sewage is smelly! and other shocking news, film at 11.

Who was already married, the "bachelor" or the contestant trying to win his marriage? or both? lol

I think it was the reverse-gender version of the show? With many male contenders and one woman. The person who is a friend-of-a-friend is a happily married man with two kids, but was "single" for the purpose of the show.

Oohhh, "The Bachelorette" I guess. Yeah, doesn't surprise me...

I was on people court as one of the audience members that they interview after the case. I never saw the court case, they just grabbed random people off the street and gave them scenario of the case and asked for their opinion.

Oh dang, for real? That's super weak if true! Also, no wonder they have hundreds of episodes... I'd be curious if you have any links/etc. on the subject to share!

Here is an article from a paper local to me.

https://shelterislandreporter.timesreview.com/2016/12/14/she...

“… The segment was shot in July and it documents Ms. Larsen traversing the Island with her friend and realtor Roxanne Briggs as they tour three Shelter Island homes on the market in the $650,000 to $850,000 range.

Spoiler alert: Ms. Larsen actually bought her Longview home back in 2015, a full year before the show was taped, so the outcome was a foregone conclusion by the time the “Island Life” crew came to town…”

It still amazes me that anyone still believes that the pictures they see on TV are in any way real.

100% of content on TV is fake. I used to say except the news, but now I'm not even able to trust that. If it's a commercial, definitely fake. If it's a TV show, 100% fake. Games shows shoot 5 episodes in a day, so when they say "last week's winner" it was last hour's.

Talk Shows are the worst for this. Many of them have a rehearsal with the guests. It's no surprise that all of the guests have amazingly funny or interesting stories about every topic the host brings up. Once you know this is how they work, it's impossible to unsee it when you're watching them. I'm sorry I ruined talk shows for anyone here who may like them.

Whether it is the preshow pre-interview or the post editing decisions, interviews are hard to trust as well now.

I say this as someone that has been involved in all of it. However, the pre-interview is actually less about necessarily leading the interview but about helping the interview avoiding the dead air, blank stares, um, uhs, wells, type of stuff. Also, it is a great way to calm the nerves of those being interviewed if they are not normally in front of a camera which can be very intimidating to people telling a story they may already be nervous about. Trust me, you should be thankful for them.

It's the post editing decisions that you can really get yourself into trouble. You can totally make a sane person sound insane, or totally change the interview. Anything that is not live must be questioned in how much you trust the producers to actually allow the interview to go out as it was rather than chopped up to fit the producer's agenda. If I was to be interviewed, I would make part of my conditions to the interview being that I would be allowed to have my own camera/audio that could record uninterrupted to be able to counter any shenanigans in the edit bay.

> Trust me, you should be thankful for them.

Yes, I actually don't mind the pre-interview. It is a sensible thing to do for a variety of reasons. The thing that makes me cringe is more the late night talk shows (not all of them mind you) where the guest provides the questions to the host because they (or their PR people) have written some anecdotes for those questions/topics.

Except Graham Norton Show, due to the amazing host. They willingly admit (even during the show) that they discuss whether a topic is fine with the guest beforehand, but Graham still brings out the best in people. And since there are several people on the show, he just lets them interact, unscripted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBwepkVurCI This was fun from a while back. Love some charlie brooker

sports!

yeah, you're right, sports have never been rigged <eyeroll>

you might of well have responded with the one word reply of "Wrestling!"

You literally said "100%".

You honestly believe that the NBA has never had officials go soft on calls for their star players, or not call the rules for how many steps without putting the ball on the floor, or the whole under the ball carrying or whatever the rules are they decide not to call?

You think no officials of any sport did or didn't make a call because of some bet somewhere? You think a sports player didn't make a catch? You think sports players aren't using performance enhancing drugs so that you might be entertained while they get rewards?

Some people just really want to believe that television is real. It's just not healthy to have this much faith in TV.

> You honestly believe that the NBA has never [...]

I've never watched the NBA, so I'd have no idea.

> You think no officials of any sport did or didn't make a call because of some bet somewhere?

Just so you're aware, there are numbers between 0% and 100%.

Any number >0 means something was not real

Unless you're claiming it happens every single game, you're applying the wrong number.

Or are you backing your claim down to "100% of content on TV has some faked element in some episode eventually"? Because that's not a very useful claim.

TV is entertainment, and any faith in the images coming from it is undeserved. Is 100% hyperbole, yes, of course. Is the majority of content on TV fake and over produced, yes, of course it is. It used to be that the label news meant something, but the definitions have been blurred so that opinion shows are now touted as news. After the news label, anything else appearing on the boobtube is meant for entertainment. Believing that the "unscripted" "reality" programming is real is farsical to me. I've worked in production for so long that maybe I'm jaded, but I've worked for religious programming, sports programming, drama/comedy production, live interviews, etc. Everything is touched up in some form or fashion. Education channels exist, but depending on what camp you're in, even those are faking/pushing agendas.

> Is the majority of content on TV fake and over produced, yes, of course it is.

That's not a very useful statement either because most TV is openly fictional.

You made a really strong claim and doubled down on it, but I'm not sure if you actually mean anything close to what you said.

A quick google for "reality TV script writing courses" might help reset your reality.