Kardashian Kover up...

Well the news recently has been inundated with rumors swirling that the entire relationship of Kim K and her recently divorced ex hubby Kris Humpheries was a sham form the beginning. Reports are that she had a interview with Marie Claire Magazine months ago which covered mainly the topic of her divorce... problem is that the interview was conducted months before she was even married??? How could she already know about her impending divorce if she hadn't even gotten hitched yet? Apparently the interview has specific details in it as well that one would only know if the divorce was indeed planned from a previous time.

There are also reports of a number of other NY based athletes coming forth saying that they were approached with a proposition from members of Kim's camp about dating Kim while in NY because she needed a NY athlete as arm candy while shooting her reality show. So your telling me Kim's "people" were pimping her out to NY athletes now... I know I wish I had gotten that call... even if just for 72 days. One of  the NY athletes to come out was former NY Knicks basketball player Danilo Gallinari who turned down Kim's offer.

I for one am a believer. I almost worked on Kim's show while taping in NY and have a few close friends who did. Those freinds have told me a few things about Kim that leads me to believe that all this deception is right up her ally, and those who represent her. They've told me how they would literally pay extras to be on standby to pose as fans to show up to events and appearances that Kim was attending. They even paid a little girl to pretend to cry and say what an inspiration Kim was to her on camera. Kim herself would even tweet locations where they would be shooting to ensure people would show up so she'd seem to be well in demand. One story that stuck with me was when they arrived at a Jamba Juice in midtown and no fans where there waiting, even after all the tweets Kim sent out on purpose, so she refused to get out of the car until the production crew gathered and wrangled strangers from the street to surround her vehicle so it looked as if she was arriving to a massive crowd. Talk about an egomaniac or dare I say "attention whore"?

As for relationships, I heard that when she was dating Dallas Cowboy and New Jersey native Miles Austin, a key reason why they broke up was because of her affinity for attention via press. One time Kim promised Miles that they would have a quiet romantic dinner for 2, no cameras, no press, no paparazzi. No sooner did she make that promise, she tweeted the exact time and location of the restaurant without Miles knowing. When they arrived, bombarded with press, a sad and disappointed Miles wondered how the press knew where they would be, Kim lied to his face and said that she had no idea. Sad part is from what I hear Miles actually liked Kim.

This is yet another classic example of how what you see is not always how it actually went down... especially in the realm of Reality TV. For all intensive purposes Kim K has faked a multi-million dollar wedding, lied about an entire relationship, sabotaged another, lied to us all on TV and who knows what else has been kept under the rug. CLASSIC!

How to... create crap

How to create your own Reality TV show...I think to a certain degree we all feel as if we could star in our own Reality TV show. We all think we are entertaining in some way and have moments that are "made for TV".  In my opinion there are a few key ingredients needed to have a successful Reality TV show that people would want to watch. Id say first and foremost you need to follow the format of sex... sex sells, and the more you have of it the better your show will be. You need a hott guy or a hott girl (or both) to prance around provocatively to catch the viewers attention. Next you will need drama, tons of drama. You need to have fights, disagreements, tons of miscommunications and trash talking. Add a dose of betrayal and you will get the fiery scandal you are looking for. You also need cloudy moral judgment, it tends to help if one of the characters in your show is arrested or does drugs. After that you need a match to ignite it all, and that match is alcohol. Alcohol is the fuel that starts and sustains the inferno that is Reality TV shows. You have to make sure all of the characters on your show are wasted... most, if not all of the time.  If you follow these simple steps even you can be a Reality TV connoisseur.

My dear Snooki

So I found a blog that for the purposes of my own I am going to start paying more attention to. It is called the 
MTV Remote Control Blog and follows all of MTV's reality shows and its band of characters. One post I just have to comment on is one about my dearest old friend Snooki. In the post she goes on to tell a story about when she was interviewed by GQ Magazine and was forced to "think" during questioning because rather then ask her about partying and the Jersey Shore house they actually asked her about politics and life after reality television. She said "I've never really had to think in an interview...This is the first real interview that I ever did in my life!" I never knew thinking about your future and political affiliation was such a process that it throws you for a loop when asked. I guess thats why Snooki isn't exactly known for her "brains".

What really threw me for a chuckle was when Snooki said she was upset with how she and her fellow cast members are perceived by the public. She says...
 
"people just think that we're stupid, that we have no education, and all we do is drink, have sex...I would love to [change that]. I have an education. I went to college, you know?" 

Well Snooki NO I DON'T KNOW!... Even when you're not in the cast house and out in public or making appearances you are constantly acting like a drunken fool, in fact all of the Jersey Shore cast members are. You make party appearances at night clubs, its not exactly as if you are showing up to a fund raiser for the March of Dimes. You yourself are the one who acts in the very way we perceive you. I mean in a previous blog entry from the same site you are staining a wall with the immense amount of makeup you wear??? And I'm supposed to look at you differently and not like the idiot to which most of the world thinks you are? Cmon Man!

If you want us the think differently of you its simple...act differently. I personally don't think you can, and you just want some remorse for some of the harsh things people in the media say about you. Its OK if you are exactly what we think you are, no need to put up a fake front to change our opinions, we just wont like you. I know I don't... and that's that. SO keep "GTLin", keep staining walls with your face, and keep getting drunken misconducts and arrested by the police... Its who you really are... and any future questions about politics will cease in further interviews because lets face it... no one really cares.

If you want to see the post I am commenting on or to read more about my girl Snooki or other MTV reality shows read... http://remotecontrol.mtv.com/  

For the entire official GQ interview with Snook read... http://www.gq.com/entertainment/celebrities/201111/snooki-gq-interview-college-politics-election-jersey-shore

Real Reality...

While working in reality TV I always had my own idea of a reality show. My thoughts for a reality TV show would be more of an expose than a dramatic scandalous reality TV program. Having seen all that goes on behind the scenes first hand I always thought it be cool and revealing to have a show that focuses on the show within the show. I would focus the show on probably the most underrated and definitely most underpaid members of Television production in every aspect... the Production Assistant.  Having been a Production Assistant early in my career I know the perils that you can face, often times asked to do the impossible in the most improbable of situations. Many of my experiences as a "PA" sucked, and I think capturing some of those experiences would make for great TV. I know the show would never take flight because it would expose many of the people who think they are the masterminds behind a production as frauds, and also uncover the many un-truths within reality TV.

If I wasn't bound by confidentiality agreements I would be able to go in further detail and really "let the cat out of the bag" but unfortunately I cannot. But having been there trust me when I say that what you see on the screen is NEVER what actually happened. My show would follow PA's during there typical 14 hour day of work on set, and at some point the REALITY of it all will draw the audience in. My peers and I often fantasized of sneaking in a camera to work so people could see what really goes on and how ridiculous it can be, my show would be just like this, except legal... lol

In my opinion a realty show on the behind the scenes happenings of a reality production would make for great TV. Maybe then the raw uncut truth of what really happens would open viewers eyes so they could finally see the crap they watch on TV for what it really is.

Reality Scandals...

Reality TV is no stranger to its stars being involved in juicy scandals. With the majority of reality TV stars being some of the most morally compromised people on the planet, scandals are always on the horizon. From sex tapes to annulled marriages these scandals sometimes can be more entertaining than the reality program this pseudo star comes from  itself. A few sandals in the news right now that have peeked my interest are the recent Project Runway Season 9 winner Anya Ayoung Chee sex tape, as well as the elephant in the room that was the Kim Kardashian wedding.

Anya Ayoung Chee was the eventual winner of Project Runway but during the season there was a leaked sex tape of the designer back from 2008 when she was actually Miss Trinidad and Tobago competing in the Miss Universe Pageant.  Now these pageants are no strangers to scandals themselves but this one crossed into one of the most popular Reality TV programs out.  The tape shows Anya with another girlfriend and a man having sex in a threesome. As always when asked about it Anya said the tape was somehow "stolen" from her computer and she apologized to her fans. Obviously it didn't hurt her in the running for the champ of Project Runway because she ended up winning anyway... hmmm, could it be she won because she was now in the public spotlight and helped shine that light on the show?... food for thought. They always say all press is good press right?

As for Kim Kardashian and what was coined the "American version of the Royal Wedding", Kim and New Jersey Net forward Kris Humpheries were wed just a whopping 73 days ago and on Halloween (insert irony here) Kim filed for divorce, ending her marriage to the currently locked out NBA player. Many of us saw this coming seeing that the relationship was turbulent at best from the beginning. Anyone who watched the E! show Keeping up with the Kardashians could see that this marriage was destined for divorce from day one and yesterday that is exactly what happened. What amazes me is what Kim actually made from the wedding... $17 million dollars!!! Id marry just about anyone for $17 million... especially if I could divorce them 73 days later. Alas the Kardashians again show us how you very well can become rich and famous for having absolutely ZERO talent what so ever...

Reality TV or Surveillance?

I worked on a shoot for Microsoft where one of the gentleman we interviewed had a unique opinion about Reality TV. His outlook was different than anything I have ever really heard before. He believed that the future of reality television was closely related to that of surveillance. He described a world  where every individual was the star of their own reality television program in a sense. He used blogging as sort of the stepping stone to his theory and I found this correlation very interesting, especially now that I myself am blogging. He said the very way many of us like to blog about opinions or update our statuses with what we are doing we will do in a very different way in the near future.



Will we be watching ourselves one day?



He stated that we will begin to voice ourselves through private personal point of view videos. I found this interesting because I know Vloging or video blogs are picking up steam but I never really thought of them as a sort of "Reality TV". He said the very way blogs and personal status updates are super popular, adding videos to that mix is only going to happen by the natural progression of things. It makes a lot of sense, I could see people becoming very free in giving video updates on their twitter or Facebook just to see themselves doing something, or record web cam convo's with more frequency. I mean you can already upload videos on Facebook so whats to stop us from adding more, more frequently, inevitably becoming a video log of our daily lives as we live them. I think calling it surveillance is a bit of a stretch but who knows, some people love to see themselves on the "big screen", and with cell phones having video capability and video cameras themselves being so small I think we have already begun to enter that era. Especially with YouTube it gives us a forum to create our own brand of stardom. These videos kind of say "hey look at me" and if enough people do "look at you" who's to say where that can lead you.

To a degree I can see why he compares it to surveillance, but this is surveillance that we are doing on our own accord, recording our every move. I think that is the cool thing about social media and reality TV in general; that they will continue to combine in ways we could have never imagined, and possibly develop into something we never saw coming.





The punch heard round the world...

The Jersey Shore is probably one of the the most if not the most infamous Reality TV programs on air right now. With its equal part haters and supporters it has put MTV on the top of the map of Reality TV show makers. What initiated the shows popularity during its inaugural season was what I like to call "the punch heard round the world". Snookie, one of the shows main characters, was inebriated at a bar, as she often is, and began to curse and throw something at another patron across from her. The patron, who was later to be revealed as a school teacher, took action to Snookies drunken shots with a shot of his own, and preceded to punch her in the face. When looking at the video this whole thing is shocking, disgusting and just flat out wrong, but this is what MTV is looking for.

MTV, and other Reality TV show creators want this, they want to capture the borderline crazy and very much of the time illegal to happen. It makes for good ratings because viewers want to see the risque shocking and appalling to happen. But where do we draw the line? As much as I have expressed my disdain for Snookie even she doesn't deserve to get hit like that. I mean in my opinion MTV all but sets this up to happen, they constantly send these now very public and very publicly hated figures out into the most volatile of situations. It's easy enough for a normal person like you or me to go out to a club and get into a fight, now imagine going out with a crew of cameras and a group of people with a negative reputation in a place that feels the very show being filmed paints it under a negative light.  You are just asking for things like this to happen and continue to happen.

My point is that today its an always drunk Snookie getting punched in the face for her antics, but tomorrow who knows? When is this going to stop? Will we have to wait until someone gets really hurt or maybe even killed before we stop following around cocky drunken characters into the night? The same way Snookie was punched in the bar that night  future violence can escalate, someone could end up getting shot or stabbed the next time they are in  one of these heated altercations, which happen on almost every episode. Or is this what MTV and Reality TV creators want to happen next...to capture the first live Reality TV show stabbings, or shootings or worse on their prime time television show?