Dating Show example essay topic

The phenomenon of dating shows has swept over the nation. We turn on the television out of boredom or out of loneliness, and think that by taking an interest into someone else's private dating life will give us some kind of peace about our own pathetic ones! Dating shows have become the most common reality television within the past year (cited in TV guide, 2003). With a variety of selection dating, from singles talking over a cup of coffee, to the multiple group dating which humiliatingly zeros down a lucky man and women in which they share the victory of an already chosen date just for them! Although this ever so popular dating addiction we have all become so prone to is take over evening television, as we know it today, it is far from a new phenomenon.

Take a trip down memory lane. During the 1950's and 1960's, dating shows were very common, not as common as they are today, but just the same, people took a similar interest into the dating world of others. The Dating Show airing from 1956-1987, was the beginning of it all. This show was set up as a game show more so than a reality show. There was a selected person who would be seated in a hidden area, so the various dates couldn't be seen. The "picker" would get to ask a variety of questions to the #1, 2, 3 possible dates, and the lucky one, in which the picker felt most in common with, would win the game!

The prize would be a personalized date set up by the television station. With the unbelievable take off of this show's success, many other television stations began to create their own original takes off this hit. This sensation grew rapidly during the 1960's-1980's. The public's interest took a positive look into this new possibility of reality dating. Boredom was just beginning to hit the public with the repetitive, stereotypical shows in which families were placed in predictable situations in everyday life.

This became a problem for television at that time. "There was a cry for variety, and something needed to happen to revitalize the reputation of television", (Marston, 1999). With the creation of the reality based dating shows slowly emerging during the 60's- 80's, a revelation of public dating was established. It seems as though the newest craze in reality TV is romance / dating shows. During the 1990's-2000's, we have been introduced to a multitude them. There's Dismissed, where someone goes on a date with two people of the opposite sex simultaneously, and then one of the prospective dates gets Dismissed.

Another would be Blind Date, which comes complete with thought bubbles, reminiscent of VH 1's Pop-Up Video, that provides irreverent commentary on how the date is going and what the people on the date might be thinking. Eliminate is like Dismissed, but with twice as many people. In Change of Heart, each member of a couple goes on separate dates with other people, and then they come back to each other to see if they want to stay together now that they " ve had a "taste of something better". And there's Fifth Wheel, where two couples go on a double date, and then a fifth person-maybe a previous lover or even a celebrity-is added to the mix, (web).

What a growth from the generations before! There is no doubt about it that within the last ten years, television has gone through, many different changes. Remember the days of innocent viewing? Families could all gather around the TV and watch a program that suited the entire family in a magical way.

It seems that those days have slowly faded away. We are bored with the same old sitcoms. Ever since the dating show revolution began, we have definitely seen a variety of new programs created to grab our attention in a way we have not been alerted before. Can you see the pattern of fewer and fewer values being blended together over the years? It's like we don't care about the fact that we are rudely nosing our way into other people's lives. Relationships should be based on a privacy enjoyed by the viewing of the two individuals alone, rather than two-million viewers publicly.

Looking back into the beginning of the dating shows, values seemed to be a lot more evident. Getting to know a person involved asking series of personal questions in which to gain a common bond between one another, versus the reality of today's shows in which skips the common threshold and moves right in for the sexual kill! The attraction is what is solely used as bait in the shows of today. Don't get me wrong, it is important to be attracted to a person in considering any type of relationship, but when that is the strongest connection between the two, then there is bound to be a shallow outcome. In the dating shows of the past, there is a very definite line drawn out in indication to a healthy and hopeful connection between the couple.

After an episode of any given reality show of the present, we can almost predict the outcome. The two, already given up to their most common association, the alcoholic beverages they "got to know each other" over, will more than likely give themselves away to each other over the next few days- the extent of their relationship- without even knowing the scope of each other's background information. According to the statistics almanac (Wagner, 1996), it is stated that 20% of set up couples either put together through television dating programs, or good old fashioned blind dates, are going to walk away from the experience with nothing but a feeling of wasted time spent with a person the have absolutely nothing in common with. Unfortunately this is the outcome we are given to take part in, but hey, its only television right? That stuff isn't put on there to project reality, but rather stereotype it, and we all feed off of it, because its not us we are watching make complete fools of ourselves- it's complete strangers!

In that case, it seems to leave us with a clean conscience of the fact that we are meddling in other's relations!