Mano D Sz Annotation Hoax Reality Tv Show

REALITY TV
Remaking television culture
edited by Susan Murray and Laurie Ouellette
New York University Press, 2009

HOAXING THE REAL
On the metanarrative of Reality Television
by Alison Hearn


Alison Hearn commences her essay by telling the brief stories of the ramped innocent character of the fake or 'hoax' reality shows from their point of view.

Hoax reality show is a special genre of reality shows.
Usually it is about one single person, who believes that he is in a reality show. But everybody around him who takes part in the who is a paid actor with a certain role. Everybody, except one people who is the one and only subject of the whole story.
All the viewer of the program are aware that this is a hoax. Hoax Reality tv show is an inside-out reality show: the viewer is on the side of the makers, so he has the acces to knowledge of everything.
They are aware that it is a trap, a lie, a hoax.

These shows reveals what is happening behind the scenes during the production of a reality show. They are the story of how the show is made. The viewer see the whole crew working on the show, their emotions, their dilemmas.

Alison Hearn finds one of the key factors of the invention of hoax reality shows is the promotional culture we live in, since the mass production of goods – or in other words the mass consumption society. Everything is branded. But how brandedness comes to reality shows?
The beginning was the what we call product placements: Shows, films embed in the story the sponsor's product: the characters in the story use a specific mobile phone, drink a special drink, or brush their teeth with with a certain brush of paste. In the story the character does not have to nervelessly talk directly about the product (as usually the advertisements do) they just use it.

The author thinks the same methodology happened in the case of the reality show, or even to the tv channels. Tv channels become branded through the hoax reality tv shows.
What they embed in a hoax reality show, is the production itself – so how a TV crew works, it give us the opportunity to have an insight look. So a Hoax reality show is a promotion for the tv channel as a brand itself. Later on the reality tv show becomes a brand as well: they sell as a pack, as a format for instance 'The Big Brother™'.
The end result is a bunch of fresh celebrities. They are a product of the reality show program, and the channel makes them also consumable. Some of them become singers, some of them will have their on new TV show, some of them will become the face of a certain product.
Every tv program's aim is binary: the entertain, and to motivate the viewer to consume a certain product or service.