FOT Forum
FOT Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: Trotskie on September 11, 2009, 05:15:47 PM
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A friends nephew was recently approached by MTV and asked to participate in a reality show that focuses on the life of high school musicians/bands. He is not the front man or the reason MTV is interested, but would be a significant presence on the show and a participant in the narrative etc.
The nephew is 17; normal middle class suburban kid. No showbiz connections or aspirations.
I don't think MTV intends to pay anything. I think that they are just hoping that he and the other band members will do it for fun and exposure.
My initial reaction was to think that MTV is going to be making money off of me. And worst case I become an internet joke; some sort of persona develops that would follow me around for a while. An outcome for which I'd like to be compensated.
Any thoughts?
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it's kind of hard for me to not be on these things esp when E! is constantly looking for hot studs being rich all over exotic locales throwing money in the air and dancing with my rich thin pals wearing sunglasses.
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I dunno... 'member "Reality Bites"? Winona Ryder is a super serious documentary maker, but then Ben Stiller takes her super important footage and edits it to be super lame and embarrassing? Plus, he makes E Hawke's hair look super greasy?
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No. I would never volunteer for a for-profit enterprise. Unless the kind wants to be a "star" like Sanjaya or Reggie Munroe later on.
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The Best Show is a "reality show". Ever call into that?
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If MTV is going to make some coin of of his work he should get a piece, it's only fair. I know a lot of people who work for and with MTV. They don't work for free and neither should the kid. He should at very least ask for a skee-ball machine or a trip to Space Camp.
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What is reality?
Besides Philip K. Dick's wonderful answer.
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A reality show based around the life of Fredericks. Does anyone else besides me else think this is a great idea?
EDIT: On second thought, it may not be such a good idea.
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The Best Show is a "reality show". Ever call into that?
A) Yes.
B) It's not for profit.
C) Calling into a radio show is not the same thing as agreeing to have cameras follow you around and getting a show made of it.
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I'm Audi 5000 babe.
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I wouldn't do it but you can't blame MTV or any other station for not paying people when people will do it for free.
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"I need fame without bread like I need a hole in the head"
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I wouldn't do it but you can't blame MTV or any other station for not paying people when people will do it for free.
Um...yes you can.
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I wouldn't do it but you can't blame MTV or any other station for not paying people when people will do it for free.
Um...yes you can.
Yeah, I wouldn't make it illegal for them to be exploitative dicks but that doesn't stop me from observing that they're exploitative dicks.
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I wouldn't do it but you can't blame MTV or any other station for not paying people when people will do it for free.
Um...yes you can.
Yeah, I wouldn't make it illegal for them to be exploitative dicks but that doesn't stop me from observing that they're exploitative dicks.
I agree with emma and yesno.
Personally, I don't understand why an individual would let himself/herself be exploited in that fashion. What's the payoff?
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I agree with emma and yesno.
Personally, I don't understand why an individual would let himself/herself be exploited in that fashion. What's the payoff?
I dunno if it's a "payoff" per se, but just about everything in mainstream culture encourages us to believe that appearing on television is the summit of possible accomplishments.
I wouldn't do it, and I would discourage friends and acquaintances from doing it.
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I agree with emma and yesno.
Personally, I don't understand why an individual would let himself/herself be exploited in that fashion. What's the payoff?
I dunno if it's a "payoff" per se, but just about everything in mainstream culture encourages us to believe that appearing on television is the summit of possible accomplishments.
I wouldn't do it, and I would discourage friends and acquaintances from doing it.
Bryan summed up my response quite succinctly.
I also object to reality and television being related in any way. Whatever reality is.
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I'm a lot more pissed at people who eat this stuff up than the stations. If people didn't watch it, it wouldn't exist. I still don't get how it's exploitative to not pay someone. Nobody is forcing them to go on the show, and are most likely having some fun. In the end it's a crappy product but I don't see anything exploitative about it. Now, if they were just going around and filming people and getting contracts signed while people are in an inebriated state or something like that, that would be exploitative. Not this.
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These are kids, aren't they? So that's one problem.
It's preying on human weakness for another. Maybe some people get real value from being on TV. But I think some of it is the hope that being on such a show will somehow kindle a showbiz career. It's hard to know where to draw the line between giving people something they want and taking advantage of bugs in the human brain.
Generally speaking I'm against people not getting paid by for-profit organizations. I feel the same way about the internship scam at a lot of media companies. (There's a great article on this latter point, "The Intern Economy and the Culture Trust" by Jim Frederick, from the Baffler; also, there was a recent piece in The Economist tracing fact that journalists in England now tend to be upper-class, unlike 50 years ago, to the rise of the need to take unpaid internships, which only kids with rich daddies can afford to do. I've worked for free for non-profits and the state government before.)
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I'm a lot more pissed at people who eat this stuff up than the stations. If people didn't watch it, it wouldn't exist. I still don't get how it's exploitative to not pay someone. Nobody is forcing them to go on the show, and are most likely having some fun. In the end it's a crappy product but I don't see anything exploitative about it. Now, if they were just going around and filming people and getting contracts signed while people are in an inebriated state or something like that, that would be exploitative. Not this.
It's tricky, right? On the surface it seems like it might not count as exploitation if someone agrees to it willingly, participates enthusiastically and theoretically knows all the possible outcomes, like for example they could end up an embarrassing youtube remix sensation. But you and I both know that people who seek out attention on a scale that large and ridiculous, like people who are willing to endure all of that potential humiliation just so they can get the very specific kind of fame a reality tv show brings, are not average people. Their desire for that kind of fame (I know I'm totally generalizing here; I'm sure the Musical Nephew is not the same as, like, someone who auditions for Big Brother) is so strong and overpowering that they can't see all the incredibly obvious risks that keep most people from wanting to be on Survivor or whatever. And the people who produce these shows know that, and they exploit it, or at least they play on it in a way that is not defensible or moral or cool.
I'm not suggesting we should shut down the industry or anything, I'm just saying I think you're being kinda deliberately obtuse.
(Plus I don't think it's fair to make people responsible for the art they consume or enjoy. Like while potential sales are a pretty big influence on whether or not the next Twilight book gets published, it's not the kids who read the book who have to write it, i.e. it's the person or people who make the thing who are responsible both for what they make and what their motivations are for making it. Nor is it fair to be "pissed" at others for having what you feel is bad taste. But that's a whole other thing.)
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I'm not all that upset with either really. It's not my cup of tea, but if people choose to watch or participate so be it. Let people do what they want to do, and don't blame anybody. People get rich off worse things.
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Like what Gilly?
I'm looking for ideas.
For worse stuff, I mean
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Wow, I evidently had a lot of feelings about this yesterday.
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about ten years ago, my friend/roommate responded to an MTV ad looking for young folks with relationship drama. We were part of a small group of guys/girls where there was a bit of that (typical) nonsense, so a producer ended up scheduling an on-camera interview with the gang at my apartment. I called bullshit on it all pretty much from the get-go. My pals didn't seem to have much of a problem with discussing all sorts of personal shit, the document of which is now property of Viacom.
Not that I didn't entertain the idea for a moment, but when I spoke with the producer on the phone and asked what kind of money we could expect for taking part in the interview, and she said "none", that settled it.
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about ten years ago, my friend/roommate responded to an MTV ad looking for young folks with relationship drama. We were part of a small group of guys/girls where there was a bit of that (typical) nonsense, so a producer ended up scheduling an on-camera interview with the gang at my apartment. I called bullshit on it all pretty much from the get-go. My pals didn't seem to have much of a problem with discussing all sorts of personal shit, the document of which is now property of Viacom.
Not that I didn't entertain the idea for a moment, but when I spoke with the producer on the phone and asked what kind of money we could expect for taking part in the interview, and she said "none", that settled it.
Did your friends' personalities suddenly inflate once the cameras were turned on? Just wondering.