Truths hidden in reality: how things rapidly changed in society

What is real? And what isn’t? Are you sure you can tell the difference, at this point? When reality tv hit the small screen, it had everyone glued to the Tv. A brand new genre had been invented, and we were all eager to see what was going to happen in front of the camera. No more scripted series (although they never lost their appeal, thankfully), as what was shown was real emotion. Fear was not faked, tears were not faked, smiles were not faked. The more the emotion was considered the hardest to show, the more it drew interest from the general public. Yes, most people were hoping to catch some Big Brother contestant cry in the dark of their room, or have a heated argument, or a love affair no one knew nothing about. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t one of those! Little did we know the monster had got out of the cage and walked silently in our everyday lives.

What had started off as an innocent experiment, was slowly turning into a thoughtless and inconsiderate machine that featured everyday people and their ever expanding egos and had them turning into celebrities overnight. Television was never the same since then. Today, TV presenters speak freely of crime news with celebrity guests in their studio and have them guessing over who could be a murderer or what could have happened to some missing people. Certainly crime series such as CSI paved the way for a general interest in the topic. But as I come across such ‘programmes’ I wonder, who gives them the right to talk about such topics in such way? Could this be another case of mistaking reality for fiction? And who actually watches them? Is it the same audience as Big Brother? Perhaps. I feel obliged to change the channel. It is disturbing.

However, the internet and the newest technologies have given everyone the chance to actually be the main character of the new-born hybrid genre that mixes reality and fiction. Youtube broadcasts your videos and social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter give everyone the chance to reflect their real lives, their interests, their thoughts on a webpage and share it with others. It also exposes people’s lives in such way as no-one could have imagined a decade ago. Interacting with your social contacts compares to being on stage. Are we sure everyone perceives it as such? Sometimes people share more than they think, they fail to consider the little detail that is the exposure of their thoughts. In a nutshell, social networking websites are double-edged weapons because, you can be on a stage and be honest, but you can also be on a stage and act. What is real? The tought you share, is it real or does it just please your audience in order to make you popular? And if you are honest, will anyone accept your truth?

Certainly, in the last few years technology and mass culture have pushed the boundaries of reality and brought a lot of confusion around us. There is a positive side to it: if you’re aware of such chaos, how it came about and how it works, you’re also able to escape it or get the best out of it!

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