To think that reality tv has had its day?

[AlternativePerspective]

This isn’t directly about Caroline Flack,but about the fact that her’s is just one in a long succession of contestants on a multitude of reality tv shows have ended up resorting to suicide.

While I don’t think it could necessarily be said that reality tv is responsible for people’s mental health, I think it is fairly evident that people with fragile MH are the people these shows attract, and as such it stands to reason that contestants who have appeared on these shows will b affected by both their appearances and the comments of outsiders.

And love island isn’t the first show. The Jeremy Kyle show was axed last year after a guest committed suicide,

Susan Boyle from BGT had a breakdown and had to spend time in a MH facility,

There have been three love island suicides.

Clearly while these shows are a bit of fun to those who watch them, we should be questioning the kinds of people these shows attract, and asking whether this is really an appropriate way to entertain the public, with people who clearly have MH struggles, many of whom will be pushed to the edge and beyond while the “fans” look on and express horror even though many of them will have been avid viewers.

But were do you start drawing the line, what about all the bloggers, youtubers and instagrammers who post about their children all the time? Are they not just the unwitting members of a reality TV show albeit on a different format?

I think "fame" generally is not good for anyone's mental health because of the intrusive scrutiny it brings.
There are a lot of positives to privacy.

Reality shows and quiz shows are cheap to make. As long as people watch them, they’ll keep making them.

I’ve personally always thought Ricky Gervais was quite on the money when he wrote this line for Extras:

“The Victorian Freak Show never went away. Now it's called Big Brother. Or The X-Factor, where in the preliminary rounds, we wheel out the bewildered to be sniggered at by multi-millionaires. And fuck you for watching this at home. Shame on you.”

I find it distasteful people are all " RIP caroline flack" one minute the next using her suicide as a tenuous link to fill an agenda against reality when her suicide looks like it wasnt connected to it.

Reality TV*

Her death has LITERALLY NOTHING to do with Love Island.

I was wondering that myself but someone mentioned up thread the enormous range of reality tv shows there are now.
It would be hard to pin down which should be banned.
I e never watched any of the "made in" types. No interest.
But I enjoy Gogglebox, first Dates and things like Bake Off.
Caroline's death wasn't really connected to Love Island.
Generally speaking it would be sensible to have a blanket Duty of Care procedure which was the same across all media.

Crazy to blame a show. Especially considering Caroline was the presenter, which is an entirely different thing to being a contestant anyway. Blame the media and the general public who love to kick someone when they're down if you're looking to blame someone.

Reality TV should be banned by OFCOM on the grounds that it is complete and utter shite and is encouraging the population - especially young people - to think that being a vacuous, talentless arsehole is a worthy career.

It's actually worrying.

I don’t think reality tv should be banned, I think people are just arseholes to people they don’t know on social media. I don’t know how we stop that.

I never seen Love Island and have zero interest. I watched some reality tv when it was new. I saw BB when Jade was there.
I stopped watching after that when they put more and more extreme personalities in there to provoke action and I hate celebrity anything.

SunnySully Do you have a link?

Poor Caroline

I dont think this is linked To LI

Its death of mental health to someone who openly struggled and who (felt she ) faced losing her
Livelihood

@SunnySully - that still sounds wrong! that's 3 suicides per minute, 180 per hour. Is that a worldwide figure?

In the UK the rate is about 15 per day.

@ChicChicChicChiclana I think it’s a worldwide figure rather than U.K. (must be!!), that’s why I’ve asked @SunnySully for the link she’s been looking at, to clarify.

Media intrusion may be relevant in the CF case (didn't read it), and any auicidenisnantragwsy, but it's worth remembering that she was part of the problem, presenting, earning from and colluding with LI as a good thing. So whatever you think of LI (personally I see participants as adults who are screened and know what they're signing up to), but actuallly CF made a large part of her career and reputation from it so any vague connection being made between her and people adversely affected by being on these shows (the vast majority appear to very happily make a fortune from it) is surely to be avoided.

To be honest, anyone who would go on a reality tv show and allow their personal feelings and emotions to be scrutinised by the general public for fun, has to be either ill-advised or fragile anyway.
Unless you are tough as old boots, it is inevitably going to do some damage. No money is worth the harm it could do to self esteem. And is anyone honestly that tough?
The sooner they scrap the more extreme versions, the better.

@BrokenWing @LittleRa

Don't know if it's the one they're looking at, but: www.befrienders.org/suicide-statistics

Reality TV when it first started provided an interesting and entertaining insight into human nature (when it was just Big Brother and that Osborne show) but now it is simply used as a fast track to fame.

This is very true. The first couple of Big Brothers were gentle, ordinary people living together in a house, challenging tasks and secret nominations. Then over the years it became all about the controversy, the producers would engineer things to create conflict, people went on it not to "play the game" but to become famous.

"Former Love Island contestant" appears to be a profession these days. Your place guaranteed on ITV daytime output and in endless "celeb" shows ad infinitum. Irrespective of your total lack of talent.

The whole thing is rotten and that's before getting to the whole body image stuff.

In my opinion shows like Love Island are completely detrimental to younger, impressional viewers.
Young girls watch this show (and others like it) and become brainwashed into thinking that looks a trump intelligence, that all they need in life to succeed is a fake tan, trout pout and humongous tits. I'd hate my children to look up to those people as a role model.
Saying that, I really think it is unfair to directly link Love Island to the suicides of 3 people. Caroline Flack was battling with mental health demons and a court case in which she was probably going to be found guilty. I think if anyone/anything is to blame more than Love Island it is the monster we call the British media.

Unlike the previous contestants of love island, her death wasn't a result of that show.

Caroline Flacks death was a complicated concoction of being guilty of assault and being hounded and bullied by the press. The S*n being one of the worst. Does anyone really still read their shit??

Problem with reality tv, the so-called stars want you fawning over them, they want you buying the magazines that they sold their wedding/baby photos to, but then when things go awry they want privacy. The tabloids and social media are such now that they can’t have it both ways. It’s horrendous. It sends people over the edge. They base their self worth on the amount of likes and positive comments they get and once that tips the other way, it sends them spiralling into dark places.

I think a few things need to be done to readdress the balance. Tabloids need to be held accountable for their vile reporting. Names should not be reported until person found guilty.
Twitter and Instagram need to get rid of the likes and hearts, and disable the private messaging function.
Anyone found guilty of in-sighting hate, or trolling needs to be charged and banned from social media.
Comments of tabloid newspaper websites need to be banned.

I took a break from social media whilst on maternity leave and it was the best thing I ever did. I had awful PND after my first and instagram did not help!!

I’m fed up with so called reality shows. The reason being they are anything but “reality”. Cheesed off with the false set ups and ridiculous confrontations which have been set up.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who tweeted etc and tagged Caroline Flack in a post which degraded, hurt and condemned her is complicit in her death. The impact of trolling is so often brushed off as coming with the territory or not that bad because it's not in person but in reality, it's horrid. Imagine knowing complete strangers despised you and they feel they have a right to tell you, harshly, just because you're projected into their living rooms every night.

I don’t like any of them and haven’t watched them for years (I used to like Strictly but stopped watching it when they ditched Arlene for no other reason than her age despite Len being older). I accept many people still enjoy them though so I doubt they will come to an end. I agree with BGT and X Factor existing to make laughing stocks out of often vulnerable people. No idea about Love Island, never watched it.