Reality TV. We have all watched it at one point. This genre of TV that is becoming such a staple point of our pop culture. But have we really thought of how shows like this affect us. How they help (or harm) us into growing into the people we will be.

For starters let’s get it clear that reality TV is rarely reality. Most of the drama that happens on shows such as Keeping up with the Kardashians and the Real Housewives of some place, is prompted by producers on the TV show to get better ratings. Recently Lifetime even aired a new TV show called UnReal which is supposed to show audiences the manipulation involved in a show such as The Bachelor ( or as UnReal calls it, Everlasting) The actions of the real life people that we see in the show may not even be how they are in real life. Someone who is nice can be portrayed as the trouble maker on one of these shows.

But how does seeing something like this affect us? Or for that matter our society.

The value of appearance is a huge theme in most of these shows and it has carried on to influencing some adolescents in the past few years. With many young women believing that their value is based on their appearance. Now there are countless TV shows that this appears in, Next top model, and shows such as Botched being some of them. And many regular viewers of Reality TV idolize the endless partying of the people on these shows and believe that that is just a part of life. As they believe that it is also just a part of life for there to be extreme gossip and drama in their everyday worlds. When in fact such an amount as portrayed by Reality TV is extremely unhealthy.

In a poll done by Girl Scouts 73% of girls said that they thought that reality TV made fighting in a relationship look like a normal part of relationships and 70% said that it made people think it is ok to treat others badly. Reality television more often than not shows extremely unhealthy relationship that many young kids see and might think are ok. In these “characters” that the future leaders of our world are watching they are seeing vain, possessive, gossipy people that are glorified in society. Making it seem like they are who everyone should be. Just look at Kim Kardashian, she did nothing to earn the fame she has and yet everyone worships her. And the whole family and general can be toxic to each other. Do we really want kids to become like that?

The current way of reality television has affected our society, and all the young, influential people in it, in an extremely negative way. Now sure there are many shows that could be considered under the reality TV genre such as Property brothers or something of that sort that aren’t extremely bad. But shows such as Dance moms, or Keeping up with the Kardashians has made all the new generations value vanity over virtue. Reality TV overall has become a sort of stain on pop culture. A powerful stain too, and while it could use its power to teach lessons to everyone; and some shows have, it usually does not and only encourages a society full of vain, obsessed with themselves and their own problems people.