big brother

It’s odd with Reality TV. People have it down as a mindless thing that shallow people like to watch with a couple of pizzas and then discuss with other shallow people, and that it’s all just a collection of brainwashed people who go on the program so they can get famous because they can’t otherwise because they don't have any skills that would contribute to the stream of society. I’d say all of that is accurate. But Big Brother, they find it funny to watch and find it funny the way all the people in there behave, or they find it ridiculous and attention seeking, but they haven’t been there and they don’t know what it’s like. I do. I’ve been there, on Big Brother. The only difference is that I didn’t choose to be there and where I went wasn’t on T.V. This is far more of an insignificant factor than you’d expect.

When I was there it was called the Priory Marchwood for 3 months and Huntercombe for 1 month. But it was the same. How their whole lives and routines and everything they know and do and all the people they see and everything, they’re just taken out of it, removed from their own life stream for a while. People think that sounds nice and relaxing and just boring but that’s not right at all. Situations are relative. So, if you suddenly have none of the day-to-day, nothing to worry about and no responsibility and no decisions to make, those things start to creep back but in different ways to before, because they're ingrained in human nature. And you don’t not have them, the angles just alter. I watched Big Brother a second ago and they had routines, they had decisions to make and responsibilities to take within their little community. That’s what happens.

And the way nothings in your control, that’s a strange feeling. Like in Big Brother, everything from their Fate down to what cereal they had was decided by something higher up than them, decided by processes and unseen discussions that to them were completely masked. We knew only what they decided to tell us, even about ourselves. You've no idea when you or anyone else is getting out till the week it happens. You’ve no idea what’s going on “out there” in a situation like that. I mean, at least we could watch the news and get telephone calls and letters, but the people on Big Brother hardly even had that. Your whole world just carries right on ahead completely regardless of the fact that you’re not even a part of it.

The thing that struck me most though was the group interconnections. The relationships you form with the people you’re with are so unlike any others that I can never describe it right. Sort of, you’re all stuck in the same boat, you all got there in all different ways and you’re all headed different places but right then, and there, you’re all in the same boat and there’s nothing you can do about it whatsoever. It’s not like friends or family. Everyone’s stories and characters are all so, so different, but you’re the same. What happens to them happens to you. You don't know if you'd even look at each other in the street outside the situation you're in, but you influence each other; you have to be wary not to take on other people's behaviors, and wary of them taking on yours. You're all fragile,easily molded. Whether you hate them or love them they have more of an impact on your life than you can realize until your out of there, and you don't forget them.

So I’ll probably not ever say anything bad about Big Brother from now. You watch their states collapse as they can’t deal with the confinement but it’s not collapse, its adjustment. It’s easier and more difficult than you think, (unless you’ve been there, in which case I’m very sorry I spent all this time telling you about somewhere you’ve been.) If you haven’t been there then I’m also very sorry as I didn’t describe it right at all. It’s very hard to describe.