Assignment 5 - Oliver Fister

There's a TV show out there for everyone. You've got your dramas, your sitcoms, the news, game shows, reality shows, cartoons, documentaries... you name it, someone's slapped together a TV show of it. And different people like different shows - that said, different people also dislike different TV shows. I watched plenty of cartoons in my TV-watching heyday: Spongebob Squarepants, Gravity Falls, and The Amazing World of Gumball were among my favorites. While I don't watch much of any TV anymore on my own, I often end up watching America's Got Talent with my dad's family, and Family Feud makes excellent background noise for my mom's dinner. Essentially, like all entertainment, it offers a brief escape from reality, where you can watch a yellow sponge flip burgers  or watch some family from Oklahoma win a few thousand dollars for a half-hour and leave feeling satisfied, ready to take on the world again. But TV, in my opinion, does the best job of bringing people together among other entertainment forms. It can be accessed the most easily (it doesn't require, say, a gaming system to use or a trip outside to the movies), and it has just as much variation, with something for everyone, including families. While I used to watch TV for the plot, art styles, etc., I now pretty much watch it as an excuse to hang out with the fam, when I almost always would rather be doing something else.

One genre, however, that my mom and brother watch, I cannot get behind: reality shows. Shows like Survivor (that's pretty much reality, right) and 90 Day Fiance are just ridiculous. The people who participate are either complete idiots or you can tell that all the "drama" is mostly scripted. I watch for the sole purpose of laughter and making myself feel better about myself.