I'm starting to get over it

I'm assuming everyone at one time or another seen one of these reality shows that MTV and VH1 churn out every season where a "celebrity" goes on TV looking for love. In case you havent let me give you a brief review of what happens on every single one of them. Said "celebrity" is given this incredibly huge house, which they always claim it is theirs but that can't be true because I've been seeing the same house used over and over again like rap video models. Twenty some contestants usually in the 20-30 age range come in and compete for the love of the homeowner. It usually starts out with the contestants being very aggressive and very dramatic, often trying to bring down other competitors anyway they can like going to the "celebrity" and making up some rumor they heard, etc, etc. Next whats going to happen is the contestants are going to start being eliminated by the man/woman of the house, and this is where the excuses from the contestants start coming out about how they "didn't spend enough time with (celebrity) so they don't really know me" or "I was too drunk when they first met me that's not how I really am" blah blah blah. Each episode the remaining contestants are eliminated based on how well they perform in these ridiculous challenges(example: Contestants always have a challenge where they eat really gross farm animal parts, and whoever eats the most or doesn't puke wins!) that are supposed to show how much they love the "celebrity". So this is what women are looking for in a mate? Who can eat the most pig intestines or cow penises? Now the "celebrity" is eliminating more and more contestants until there is about three or four left. Now the remaining ones get a chance to take the "celebrity" home and introduce them to the family. This is where usually something goes wrong at one of the contestants homes and so they get eliminated. Now the final two or three go on a vacation with the "celebrity" and get to spend a night alone with them and this is usually where intercourse is presumably first had between the lovebirds. Theres either a lot of drama around this time or a lot of "no, i love you more" kind of scenes, depending on what style of show if you catch my drift. Then finally based on whoever was better in the sack they get chosen to be the one that the "celebrity" is going to fall deeply in love with and spend the rest of their rich drama filled lives together. Which never happens, ask Flavor-flav, or Bret Michaels.

This is how you find true love right, get whisked away in a beautiful rented house, meet an aging "celebrity" who had to take this gig or file for bankruptcy, compete for their love by eating gross animal penises, and that's it right? That's the process of falling in love. At least according to mainstream television it is. And apparently America is buying into it to because season after season more and more of these ridiculous shows are ordered up. "Celebrities" like Flavor-flav, Bret Michaels and Ray-J all have gotten deals to do shows like these. Even non-celebrities who have become famous off of these shows like, New York or brothers Chance and Real have done these kinds of shows. Then you have the "Kim Kardashian" group of people who are not famous and got these shows for no apparent reason, Tila Tequilla and the Ikki twins.

I'm usually pretty unopinionated(is that a word?) but broadcasting these kinds of shows is sending a terrible message to our youth. If they are growing up watching famous people, who they are supposed to idolize, go and find love in this kind of way how can that be good for our future? Divorce rates are at sky high levels of %55 and rising each year. You know what the rates were before television? No, me either but I'm willing to bet a lot lower than %50. Now not all TV is bad don't get me wrong, I'm just focusing on the crappy part of it. So lets theoretically say a kid grows up in a broken home and doesn't ever get to witness what a loving marriage is about. He turns on the TV, "Oh look at this new show about my favorite singer Bret Michaels trying to find love, how neat" says the kid, "My parents aren't around so I'm going to do what Bret does and look for my soul mate like this". Maybe not too realistic since Poison hasn't been popular since I was born but I think I'm on to something pretty big here...