By Aaron Darc
Posts tagged Reality TV
LOVE IS IN THE AIRWAVES
May 8th
In the post-post-9/11 world, can reality television deliver us from evil? Big Brother, please take notes…
Seven years ago, I had very little presence in the digital sphere. As an oldschool comms marketer who was eager to cross over into the future – and, yes, as a writer with a little audience looking to find a big audience – the potential of the online world called to me with tempting stories of little people with big websites. And I was late to the party. By the time I got there, it was already a little like a Corey Worthington bash – the press, similarly to their ridiculous stories of businessmen who made it big from their garage (we liked those, didn’t we?), often toted around success stories of talents who had been “stumbled upon” online; but in the now crowded cybersea, nobody was being stumbled upon, because nobody was able to sit there in anyone’s way to be stumbled upon. But I knew enough from my marketing background to understand what this meant - you had to be connected to something else, something big, something commercial, that people were quite deliberately stumbling into, and, through association, there you were. I needed to write about something everyone was talking about – or reading about – online. And I needed to write about something that also gave me the vehicle to slip in the same things I’d be writing about, anyway – disguised as discussions not about those concerns (psychosocial concerns, a the end of the day), but of the topic du jour. I investigated commercial hitrates, did a bit of cybersurfing, and found what I thought was too good a vehicle for Aaron Darc to be true: Big Brother. Aaron Darc meet reality television. Whether you like it or not.
OPEN SEASON (part two) The Top 100
Feb 11th
As the clock ticks for Big Brother 2008′s online audition hopefuls, let’s take a peek at the hits and misses, and the final 100 that will bring forth the lucky little devils who win a chance to play this very strange game of democracy. Links to corresponding videos are highlighted in pink.
“There are one million people in Australia who love Big Brother, and we can help the 90 percent who don’t have a reason to watch, to see why it shouldn’t be axed.”Julie (auditionee)
Well, here we go. Last week, my initial excursion into the forthcoming series of the king of Reality TV, Big Brother, caused a bit of a stir in the BB online community, and I had to stop and acknowledge, once again, that the realm of Big Brother exists in a most volatile consumer market. Everybody wants their two cents worth, after all – it was one of the reasons I chose it as a subject matter for my adventures into cyberspace. That is it’s nature. In the contemporary world of Big Brother (slowly becoming passe, but still powerful enough), our lust for recognition, our striving to be seen and heard in the overcrowded hyper-media landscape, mixes dangerously with good old fashioned crucifixion. Either you’re crucifying someone else who has put themselves out there, being crucified for being out there, or both. The lines, for some, may blur.
And the winner is… a matter of perspective
Feb 11th
Australian Idol 2007 comes to a close, as Natalie Gauci gets “the best birthday present ever”. But Matt Corby has done alright, too. Let’s leave this atrocious series, remembering why…
“We know you’re a little girl who wanted to be a star.”
Natalie’s Grandfather
And, so it was. With mere hours to release what is set to be one of the biggest (quickest) wads of cash made off the Christmas music retail push, there was simply no way – none – that this single could be attached to an enduring week of press, where the artist had so totally detached himself from the product. Sony BMG was never going to have it. No business, in its right mind, would. Once again, publicity directs the outcome of reality television. But, worth remembering, is that once again, we have seen that publicity narrative interfered with by the uncontrollable nature of talent, in a generation fast wising up to the falseness of the genre. It was an awful, awful series – I don’t think anyone would disagree with that – but, regardless, it actually had one of the most productive endings we’ve seen in the recent dramas of reality television. Natalie Gauci, wedding singer extraordinaire, won Australian Idol. Like she should have.
Thank God it’s over!
Nov 26th
“They really do love me!”Jessica
Well, that was that. Idol 2006 ended like a bad ode to Young Talent Time, dragged into the merciless future of cross-promotion heaven (or is that hell?) – every barrier for bad group choreography smashed, and every advertisement cleverly placed in the corner of every scene. The final twelve were reunited one last time, complete with finger-clicking, and “ooooh wop wop” backing vocals, and cheesy grins. Deni and Marcia Hines gave us another “world first” (the rest of the world must have been dying to score this particular one) and sang together, in front of a chorus line that seemed to jump straight out of an early 90′s Peter Andre clip, and giant screens ablaze with the golden arches. Australian Idol… brought to you by Mc Donalds. And Telstra. And everyone else who made a buck off it. It was awful, really. I sat there for over two hours, my friends rolling around the floor in hysterics. More >