to think that watching excessive reality tv / popularity contests is vulgar.

[ABroomOfOnesOwn]

All that judging, the 'emotional journey', the pointless recaps, the amounts of time - hours and hours of it, the cruelty and manipulation of the editing process.

AIBU to think that people who watch reality tv/ popularity contests waste a lot of time and desensitize themselves to humanity in real life.

I think you are over thinking it. Just turn it off if it bothers you.

turn the tv off or better still throw ut out the window and read a Dickinson book under candle light!

I don't like reality TV so I don't watch it.

I also try not to publicly judge people who do.

You're quite right, it's extremely common. But then again, I say 'pardon' and 'toilet', so what do I know?

Not vulgar.

Just depressing.

You know an awful lot about reality shows for someone who finds them vulgar

Admit it, you love them really.

The trick is knowing fact from fiction. The editing is obvious, the stories formulaic, the judges scripted.

I'm sure a big percentage of viewers watch these shows with their tongues firmly in their cheeks.

I wouldn't assume they are vulgar. How vulgar!

I just wonder if people think about how scripted they are or if they assume it is real?

I agree that sometimes it can seem as if everything is there for entertainment and mockery, and that it can spread out into the way that people treat others IRL. Needing to gawp, to no every detail and to enjoy the schadenfreude of someone else's distress.
Personally I hate them and never watch them, and I do judge people who watch numerous ones in my head.
I also like watching material with actors in it, people who have a skill they are sharing, a talent. Not just 'What are the neighbours up to?'

My Mum & Nan enjoy BGT and they're not vulgar so YABU!

I agree with you, so I don't watch them...but I'm not arsed if anyone else does. I find them cringemaking and painful.
Other people find them entertaining.
To each their own.

This kind of cultural snobbery annoys me. I have a pretty demanding job and am doing a Masters in my spare time. Watching reality TV/talent shows is how I relax and unwind, just like some people read chick lit or play computer games. I do neither of these things because I don't enjoy them, but I don't judge those who do!

Come Dine With Me is pure comic genius.

I sometimes think overdosing on the news constantly is likely to desensitise people to tragedy. We get used to images of famine, flooding, war and are no longer shocked, and are less likely to take action in response.

Come Dine With Me is great!
I don't go out of my way to watch it...but when I do I love it!

meh. I could say the same thing about people who watch soaps, but I won't because judging people about their perfectly legal leisure pursuits is the definition of vulgarity.

So that would be Lousy Expectations, or Great Expectations...

Dickens pun.....I am here all week...

I spend my days funding research that saves lives. Fuck you if we don't share the same taste in TV, frankly! What do you do for people that's so bloody great you can look down on others for not sharing your "cultural tastes"?

Ephemeralfairy this is not about cultural snobbery, I'm not keen on Chekov, all those gloomy Russian plays full of women staring out of windows, whining about ducks going to Moscow.
I find that genre depressing.

The reality / popularity contests I avoid. With fresh eyes they are cruel and manipulative. Some of my friends swallow gallons of it, rearrange social events for semi-finals and they do see them as 'real', they believe in it as a depiction of truth rather then highly edited formulaic entertainment.

The only one I've ever got into is The Voice, I think it's brilliant.

Why I like that one is precisely because they don't show public auditions which can turn into a cruel freak show.

Sanitary Owl why do you like these shows? do they help you to relax, do you get emotionally involved? We all need a break from the drudgery of life, I just don't understand wanting the emotional feedback from this particular genre.

Dear OP, YA N BU. They are absolutely frightful.

If I want to see people subjected to cruelty and humilation, I can watch Game of Thrones: the epic Anglo-Saxon-style heroic narrative means all the nastiness counts as Art. Ditto the gratuitously graphic shagging.

Well haven't u got your judgy pants in a pointless niggle?

I sky plus it like most (normal) people (or whichever way they tape it) we happen to know and we all fast forward all the pointless back stories to watch the main bits. I can do an hour 30 show in about 20mins.

I really couldn't give a flying piglet if ur nan died when u were 12 and u, like, really really wanna be 'famous'. Shudup, audition, leave. Ill watch u later in the finals properly. I'm not nearly as desensitised as those who just like to sneer about these shows and the thousands who watch them either in total or part. Ur attitude is also a bit unkind considering it children that are the major audiences..

I wouldn't say vulgar, but I find the whole genre tedious and boring. Easy enough to just not watch it, though.

I think watching an excess of television is vulgar, full stop. Certainly arranging your life around it is sad in the extreme, when most things are repeated, on catch up TV or can be recorded. The Voice is usually the only thing I sit down and watch all week. But then I spend too much time on the net, which is not good either.