Cynthia Frisby Getting Real With Reality

Every Tuesday and Thursday night for years, my family, like millions of others across the nation, sat together in the living room and watched the reality show, American Idol. The famous vocal competition was the most-viewed show for seven years straight, a feat unmatched by any other program in television history. However, when it’s ratings began to drop, the show was eventually forced to discontinue due to a lack of popularity. The end of Idol symbolized the end of an era, not just for itself, but for the genre of reality television as a whole. People no longer enjoy comparing their lives to and relating to those on reality TV shows simply because they aren’t interested in them anymore. In Cynthia Frisby’s essay, Getting Real With Reality
TV, Frisby discussed how and why she believed that reality TV shows are so popular because viewers enjoy comparing their lives to and relating to television stars. The article included an interview with CBS News Associate, Presley Weir, multiple theories and studies, and a social experiment, all of which successfully proved her argument to be correct. In fact, everything within Frisby’s report supported her opinion- except for one sentance featured in the introduction: “This essay appeared in the September 2004 issue of USA Today Magazine.”