Reality TV finds a home on the Internet
By Jessica Scott
With last summer's unexpected phenomenon of Survivor, Reality Television
has become the newest fad. Now almost every network has at least one
Reality show, or one in the works. When CBS introduced the show Big
Brother, the show itself was a colossal failure compared to Survivor.
However, interestingly enough, the website for the show was a huge
success. It featured four unedited streaming cameras from the Big
Brother house, so viewers could casually watch the activity in the
house whenever they felt like it, without any manipulative editing.
Although most of what went on in these streams was, well, pretty boring
(as was the content that did make it on the show), the site
remained immensely popular during the show's run.
Taking a cue from this phenomenon, a couple, Josh Harris and Tanya
Corrin, decided to wire their home with cameras and start a website
where visitors could see their every move - there are cameras in the
bathroom, even above the couple's bed - for 100 days. Additionally,
the website has a chatroom where visitors can interact with each other
and people in the house.
The site is set up fairly well. There are four different streams from
different cameras, and one of the streams changes camera depending
on a motion detector. The chatroom is simple and easy to use.
Convinced that the only people who would subject themselves to such
a thing were attention-whores, a friend and I, in a fit of boredom,
decided to see if we could make one of the resident's do something
silly, just for attention. We actually got Tanya to stand up and twirl
around for the cameras just by asking her to in the chat room.
But the proverbial honeymoon didn't last long. As it turned out, Tanya
couldn't handle the scrutiny of the cameras, and ended up leaving
Josh and the house before the 100-day stint was over.
I think this site is an interesting example of reality entertainment,
of its excess and of the mentality of those being observed. The popularity
of the site also says a lot about those who watch Reality entertainment,
as this site was a lot more invasive than most shows.