Shopping was on the agenda today, and a lot of texting my friends. Sometimes I feel like my blogs are eerily like Carrie Bradshaw's columns, but that might just be me being conceited and wishful.
It's funny how money and competition drive us as people. Another guilty pleasure of my reality TV repertoire is The Real World/Road Rules Challenge. The one that's on now is Fresh Meat 2, and this one is so that the 30-somethings can slowly cycle out of competition, basically. There's a lot of drama, booze, and sex on the show, which is probably what makes it entertaining.
I like the challenges sometimes. They sound interesting and watching the attempts are amusing, since usually people don't always finish the challenges or figure out what they need to do in order to win. There's generally about a 15% success rate, I'd say. And then the underdog usually pulls it out.
Lately it's been getting rather redundant with the people who have been winning. I haven't seen this week's episode yet, though, and I think that something changed with it. But the competition isn't the reason why I watch it when I find out that there's a new season of the challenge. I've watched sporadically, so I know the personalities of a lot of the returning challenge members. And there's always someone who drinks too much and gets in trouble with their mouth.
There's always people who are attracted to each other, and get in a "relationship" that later makes them choose between their lover and their drive to win the prize money in the end. It makes for good TV, and good drama to watch. Not only that, but there's usually alliances formed very early in the game, and watching them grow and betray each other progresses the show.
But this past season Real World best friends ended up betraying each other. They have known each other for a few years, and one of the alliance leaders decided that for the good of the alliance he should throw his friend under the bus. It's amazing to me how quickly relationships can break down when there's a potential threat of not having an easy shot at winning $100,000.
We are amazingly greedy people, and this show exploits it. It shows us that we'll do almost anything for money. Hold our breaths in freezing cold water, betray friends, pretend to be interested in someone to further your chances. Basically we're willing to use people and exploit any means necessary to win $100,000 without doing much of anything.
And in the end, when the friend was sent home, he wasn't angry about his betrayal. He decided that it was just a game, and apparently at that time the game was more important than his friendship. Now, I'm pretty sure if that happened to me, best friend or just good friend, that I'd be pretty angry, especially if I went home.
Maybe the other people in this alliance will see that they're not safe either, and that the alliance will throw anyone in to save their own asses. Just like how everyone is willing to pin the blame on someone else if something starts going horribly wrong. And the game is going strong. These people still go back on the show, knowing that there's a good chance they'll get stabbed in the back and won't win this money. There's a good chance they'll expend all this energy and end up not winning anything.
But I guess the idea of winning $100,000 is more important for a few weeks than maintaining friendships. I hope I never get that way.
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