I have been in my house for what feels like two months of self-isolating because of the COVID-19 virus. During this time, I got into something I thought I would never be interested in, reality TV.  Binging shows like ‘Love is Blind’, ‘Keeping Up with The Kardashians’ and UK’s hit TV show ‘Love Island’. I loved the drama and the tension between characters and even considered going on one of these shows as a joke. When I looked into what goes on behind the scenes of these shows my laugher stopped. My thoughts of the villains, my attitude toward the contestants were put to a holt. Reality TV is a caged experiment deteriorating people minds.

I knew producers let people on shows only for entrainment reasons only.  We all see throwback clips of American Idol auditions of horrible singers in front of the famous judges and getting shitted on by Simon Cowell.  The truth is they probably go through 3 auditions with producers before they even see the real judges. Producers set people up to be humiliated on national TV, and they signed up for it. No one really understands what they are signing up for until it’s too late.  

These people are isolated from the outside world and put in a controlled environment set by the producers. The producers quite frankly don’t give a shit about the contestants and only care for the ratings. Purposely painting bright colored walls for them to feel nauseated and lower ceilings to make them feel claustrophobic. Even putting little touches of needles in cushions to make the most perfect place for discomfort when the world sees a beautiful fantasy on their television screen.

The shows edit what people actually say, create villains in the most heart-warming people, ruins people’s lives and sometimes ends them.  People have lost their jobs and aren’t hirable until they’re forgotten. Many seek psychosocial therapy, legally TV shows are supposed to help contestants psychologically but do the bare minimum because it wouldn’t be good television if they didn’t have a meltdown in front of a camera.  Many past contestants are still experiencing trauma.  

The reality show I loved the most ‘Love Island’ really shocked me. The UK created new laws about television because of ‘Love Island’. Two people that were on that show were pushed to a point and committed suicide. There are many people on reality TV that came forward saying that they have attempted suicide. I was watching the season after the laws changed and I’m curious on how they ran the show previously but apart of me doesn’t want to see the torture those people went through.

The Netflix show ‘Love is Blind’ is a psychological experiment and one person on the show really forgot the cameras were there or they edited it to make it seem like it. Jessica was made a laughing stock for the whole world to see. With memes still appearing all over my news feed. Legally contracted Jessica can’t say anything and can’t even speak up for herself. People receive death threats and rude comments after these shows. Most of them contact the producers asking for them to respond to these threats and all they say is to stay off of social media till it blows over. Jessica’s life has defiantly turned to the worse.

The harsh things about these shows is how friends and family watch these TV shows turn their loved ones into something they’re not. Seeing their minds deteriorate and melt down on the TV screen while thousands of people watch unable to contact them. It’s not only torture for them but everyone they know and love. I wouldn’t recommend going on a reality TV show.

I have always had a curiosity on other people’s perspectives. People’s thoughts on religion, conspiracies and just the daily thought process of a person. Escape your world and enter a lens of someone else’s. I am fascinated on how television has entered the lens of mental illness. Going behind the thought process of a murderer or someone clearly insane. The crazy thing about television is how these perspectives are so vivid to viewers they start to feel empathy or clarity in these people’s minds when the outside perspective is closed.

Recently I watched a Netflix movie called ‘Horse Girl’. First of all, I just wanted to say the title of the movie sucks. It’s super cringy if you live in this generation of horse girl memes you wouldn’t want your curser to touch that movie with a 10-foot pole, but I watched it! And it was a mind f***. The movie is about this woman, Sarah. Sarah has a family history of mental illness. The movie begins with Sarah being shy and socially awkward like most people can be.

Sarah’s mental state started deteriorating quickly and through this process it was scary how you can think she was being pretty rational from her perspective. She starts to notice bruises and claw marks on her body when she wakes up. Looking up things on the internet she finds conspiracy theories about aliens that she believes to be true. During this age where conspiracies are very popular, even I love conspiracies, and the way she was diving in these theories was extremely relatable. Throughout the movie you would think that her actions were reasonable or maybe just a little out of proportion but on the outside, she was INSANE.  

Sarah wakes up in random places and sees things that didn’t happen. Sarah doesn’t know she’s delusional and the viewers have a hard time realizing what’s real. The movie literally got in the mind of someone with mental illness. The way you saw her perspective you would probably act the same way which is the scariest part of all of it. Through these kinds of movies, you start to understand mental illness and how real things can be for these people. I just want to give Alison Brie a shout out for playing Sarah in this film. She did a phenomenal job breaking the barriers of mental state being able to perform something so hard and real.

Your mind can change and have different forms of mental illness. This TV show gets behind a lens of a serial killer. The TV show ‘Dexter’ goes in depth of what a murderer is thinking. One thing I like about these shows is that you only get the view of the killer, no one else. There is no persuasion to think what they’re doing is wrong. Dexter kills other serial killers that prey on the innocent to make him self-consciously feel like his doing good.  Through out the show you emphasize for Dexter and there were moments where I felt so bad and thought ‘why do I feel so bad for him? He’s a serial killer?’ or another thought that I’m sure everyone that watched the show was thinking, ‘I hope he doesn’t get caught.’  

A recent TV show about a serial killer is ‘YOU’. The show is very popular and is still going. The TV show goes in the mind of a man that has obsessions over women he’s dating and murders negative people in their lives. With only his point of view he justifies each person he had killed. Thinking killing these people is better for everyone. Some of his crazy actions actually went viral on the internet because it was so RELATABLE but also out of proportion; but the same thought occurred to me and probably everyone that watched the show, ‘I hope he doesn’t get caught.’  With these kinds of shows you start to understand the minds of mental illness, their thought process and maybe they aren’t as crazy as you thought they were…

Although it may seem like I watch a lot TV shows. I don’t watch that much; I swear. Recently I came across something on the internet and I was what you call ‘woke’. Everyone remembers their favorite TV show when you’re a kid. The famous cartoon shows that bring you down memory lane but do you remember episodes that were just a little off? A lot of these cartoons had some dark messages behind them and even shows today. One of the most popular cartoons that everyone knows and loves is Looney Tunes. As a kid I used to watch them every weekend morning. Looney Tunes target audience is ages 6 and up. The cartoon was huge in the 1930’s and is still aired on TV today. Have you ever noticed how many of the characters just kill themselves for no reason? Lonnie Tunes inflects suicide in almost every episode and sometimes multiple times an episode.

They promote suicide in an extremely alarming amount. Most of the time the characters just pull out a gun and shoot themselves for no reason. Sometimes they get weird; It gets super creative. Like Road Runner and Wile Coyote it’s basically plots on how to murder someone for children. The TV show is literally like those books for dummies, “How to Commit Murder and Suicide for Dummies.” I remember an episode where Bugs Bunny was playing piano in front of a crowd and someone started coughing in the audience and Bugs stops playing piano; shot the man coughing and just continued playing, Wile Coyote jumping off a cliff and held up a sign saying “bye” and there is way more TV shows that give bad messages.

A more popular kids TV show this generation is Sponge Bob. They also have suicide jokes in their episodes but there is one episode where it just got ridiculously dark. We all know Squidward has depression. A lot of people suffer from depression and in this episode, it just consists of Squidward’s suicidal thoughts and he tries to kill himself multiple times. Squidward tries to stick his head in an oven and even tries to drown himself in his bathroom. Sponge Bob goes and checks on Squidward as he’s in the bathroom trying to commit suicide and Sponge Bob peeks in his bathroom window and says “At least he’s still alive” and leaves Squidward alone. I haven’t watched Sponge Bob in a while but when I was watching the review of the episode it started jogging my memory and I have watched that episode so many times as a kid and never understood it. Not only does the TV show Sponge Bob mock suicide but they also have a lot of sexual jokes.

Dark messages have been in Kids TV shows since the beginning of television. Currently there are TV shows that are a remake of loved comics books by children. They took those comics and literally took fecal matter and smeared it across the TV screen. The remake of Riverdale and the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is literally soft porn for children. The shows are not at all what the comics are about and it’s very disappointing. Riverdale doesn’t even have a plot line and two main cast members left that flaming trash and they were smart. From this I hope you are more aware of what your children are watching or your future children. You have been warned.