Want to be a housemate in '08?
"Want to be a housemate in '08?" the Big Brother ads on Channel Ten bray. They're the same style of ad Ten has used for the last eight seasons of Big Brother (besides, y'know, the "08" part), and from my spot on the couch each year, I whimper a quiet 'yes'. Then the shame kicks in.
I absolutely do want to be on the show - without a fucking doubt - but the overwhelming desire (with no real basis) that comes over me makes me question: why? I'm sure on one level, it's coming from some deep-seeded psychological trauma that created a voracious appetite for appraisal from any and every source - but on another level, it's because I know I'd be good on it. To borrow some phrasing from the fucktards that usually inhabit the Dreamworld house / sound stage each year, ALL MY FRIENDS TELL ME I'D BE WICKED ON IT SO IT MUST BE TRUE.
It usually plays out in the following way:
Them: Big Brother is full of vapid retards.
Me: I auditioned for Big Brother.
Them: Ohmigod, you'd be awesome on it!
The thing is, I don't think they put two and two together and pay me out as a vapid retard. It's just that being a Big Brother contestant has the same hold on them that it does on me: it's something you can both aspire to be but easily deride in the same breath. It's pathetically sad yet awesome at the same time.
Therein lies the crux of the problem. While I'm pretty sure I'd gun it once in the house, there's no way I could whore myself out enough to earn the attraction of the producers during the audition process. I've heard tales of potential contestants being made to dry hump each other; and the (I spose) to-be-expected 'act like an animal' bullshit.
Could the audition process be the reason for the abysmal offering of housemates each year? Besides the first season, there's been little humanity on the show: concern for their fellow housemates seems non-existent or forced at best, personal drama is wheeled out at chosen times that will earn the most votes, bonding doesn't really happen. Where are the 'next door' people, the ones you could actually imagine, y'know, liking?
And, wouldn't you know it, I have a theory. Hope you're sitting down.
The particular type of whore that is both attracted to the prospect of being a contestant on Big Brother and able to withstand a rigorous audition / demoralising process will end up being the type of person that you're friends with, but no one really likes. They're not fun, they're just loud and, like a tool, they laugh a lot. They're tolerated, but not respected. And they are definitely self-absorbed, attention-seeking douche bags.
Want proof? You will never see a more focused housemate than one that is being spoken about in a 'voice from beyond the grave' (the video the soon-to-be evicted housemates make, to be aired after their departure). The instant their name is mentioned, and the inevitable prospect of shallow ego-inflating compliments sniffed, they are zoned in on that flat screen like their life depended on it.
This, of course, has larger implications than just boring housemates. Due to their fundamental raison d'etre revolving around perception of self, the housemates are more concerned about how they're being perceived outside the house, rather than inside it - inhibiting their interactions with the rest of the group. In recent years, this hasn't been aided by Big Brother's attempts to have the natural state of the housemates to be constantly set at high confusion: adding intruders at random intervals, double evictions, locking them into rooms for arbitrary reasons, laying out surprise after surprise, setting secret missions, nominations that aren't announced - you can almost forgive the housemates for being more focused on the supposed activity happening everywhere but in their living space.
Would I change this from inside the house? I'd like to try. A part of me honestly believes that bringing in the smackdown in the form of much-needed reality checks with earn me some respect. But the thought that scares me the most is that every housemates that has walked the plank into the house before me has had the same thought, and it would soon become apparent to all but me that I'm nothing more than one of the vapid, self-obsessed retards I love to hate on.
And I'd rather discover that on my own in private.
I absolutely do want to be on the show - without a fucking doubt - but the overwhelming desire (with no real basis) that comes over me makes me question: why? I'm sure on one level, it's coming from some deep-seeded psychological trauma that created a voracious appetite for appraisal from any and every source - but on another level, it's because I know I'd be good on it. To borrow some phrasing from the fucktards that usually inhabit the Dreamworld house / sound stage each year, ALL MY FRIENDS TELL ME I'D BE WICKED ON IT SO IT MUST BE TRUE.
It usually plays out in the following way:
Them: Big Brother is full of vapid retards.
Me: I auditioned for Big Brother.
Them: Ohmigod, you'd be awesome on it!
The thing is, I don't think they put two and two together and pay me out as a vapid retard. It's just that being a Big Brother contestant has the same hold on them that it does on me: it's something you can both aspire to be but easily deride in the same breath. It's pathetically sad yet awesome at the same time.
Therein lies the crux of the problem. While I'm pretty sure I'd gun it once in the house, there's no way I could whore myself out enough to earn the attraction of the producers during the audition process. I've heard tales of potential contestants being made to dry hump each other; and the (I spose) to-be-expected 'act like an animal' bullshit.
Could the audition process be the reason for the abysmal offering of housemates each year? Besides the first season, there's been little humanity on the show: concern for their fellow housemates seems non-existent or forced at best, personal drama is wheeled out at chosen times that will earn the most votes, bonding doesn't really happen. Where are the 'next door' people, the ones you could actually imagine, y'know, liking?
And, wouldn't you know it, I have a theory. Hope you're sitting down.
The particular type of whore that is both attracted to the prospect of being a contestant on Big Brother and able to withstand a rigorous audition / demoralising process will end up being the type of person that you're friends with, but no one really likes. They're not fun, they're just loud and, like a tool, they laugh a lot. They're tolerated, but not respected. And they are definitely self-absorbed, attention-seeking douche bags.
Want proof? You will never see a more focused housemate than one that is being spoken about in a 'voice from beyond the grave' (the video the soon-to-be evicted housemates make, to be aired after their departure). The instant their name is mentioned, and the inevitable prospect of shallow ego-inflating compliments sniffed, they are zoned in on that flat screen like their life depended on it.
This, of course, has larger implications than just boring housemates. Due to their fundamental raison d'etre revolving around perception of self, the housemates are more concerned about how they're being perceived outside the house, rather than inside it - inhibiting their interactions with the rest of the group. In recent years, this hasn't been aided by Big Brother's attempts to have the natural state of the housemates to be constantly set at high confusion: adding intruders at random intervals, double evictions, locking them into rooms for arbitrary reasons, laying out surprise after surprise, setting secret missions, nominations that aren't announced - you can almost forgive the housemates for being more focused on the supposed activity happening everywhere but in their living space.
Would I change this from inside the house? I'd like to try. A part of me honestly believes that bringing in the smackdown in the form of much-needed reality checks with earn me some respect. But the thought that scares me the most is that every housemates that has walked the plank into the house before me has had the same thought, and it would soon become apparent to all but me that I'm nothing more than one of the vapid, self-obsessed retards I love to hate on.
And I'd rather discover that on my own in private.
Trackbacks
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13 January 2008, 9:19 PM
Josh Dare: This blog will eat you wrote:
"I'm going to chat to her," I told Michael as we crossed the street to the local milk bar."You're fucked in the head," Michael replied.Continuing on from my post about my not-so-secret and persistent desire to be on Big Brother, another "thing" I have (I like to think of them as quirky character traits, but I'm good at self-denial) is that I chat to shop assistants. Doubly so when that shop assistant is a local trader that I may see often.Apparently triply so when it's the sweet old Korean lady at the independent convenience store at the end of our ... -
13 January 2008, 9:19 PM
Josh Dare: This blog will eat you wrote:
"I'm going to chat to her," I told Michael as we crossed the street to the local milk bar."You're fucked in the head," Michael replied.Continuing on from my post about my not-so-secret and persistent desire to be on Big Brother, another "thing" I have (I like to think of them as quirky character traits, but I'm good at self-denial) is that I chat to shop assistants. Doubly so when that shop assistant is a local trader that I may see often.Apparently triply so when it's the sweet old Korean lady at the independent convenience store at the end of our ...
I see you still haven't come down from the dizzying heights of Deal then, Mme F. Whore
BB ended any delineation between housemates circa season 2 or 3, I think. At least back then they had maybe one token housemate who was over a/ 14, b/ 40kgs and c/ an IQ of 87.
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