Reality TV is not a guilty pleasure

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https://www.mic.com/life/why-do-we-l...ess-reality-tv

Shows like Real Housewives and The Circle have been deemed to be mindless or brain-rotting television. "First, let’s get something out of the way: Just because a TV show is entertaining to watch and feels mindless doesn’t mean you’re not actively using your brain when watching it," says Ian Kumamoto. "People often refer to reality TV as a 'guilty pleasure,' but I take issue with that. The implication there is that enjoying something frivolous (and effortless) is inherently bad, a notion rooted in capitalism and the pressure to make everything we do 'productive.' Admittedly, a big part of the appeal of series like The Real Housewives is the drama, but what ultimately makes those shows really interesting is the relationships among the casts — and it turns out that when we watch, our brains are actively processing and learning from the complicated social dynamics we’re witnessing. 'Reality TV is very generative in the sense that it allows us to hopefully better critically consume how we understand our identity and how identity itself is a performance,' Brandy Monk-Payton, Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University, tells me. 'It’s crucial to how we are social creatures and how we create relationships with each other.' When I think about it, this has been completely true in my own life: TV definitely helped me form and articulate my identity."