The Big Brother Phenomenon

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Can I just ask am I the only person who can't be arsed with BB? What is so brilliantly fabulous about this programme? It bores the shit right out of me. Seriously. I'm not putting down you BB lovers but I mean, why the hell do you love it? What's so attractive about it? What makes you addicted to the reality TV show? Every time I look here on ilx it's "big brother this", "big brother that", "he/she must go" and so on and so forth. Maybe I'm just a boring old sod not in on the whole BB craze. Please share your loves, or hates (please tell me I'm not the only one), of the BB house and show.

― bigbrotherdespiser, Saturday, 21 June 2003 20:39 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm not that into it but i quite enjoyed watching the challenge tonight but thats probably because i was hoping the 'south africa swap' thing was really gonna happen. maybe it still will, tho i doubt it somehow.

― stevem (blueski), Saturday, 21 June 2003 20:46 (twenty-two years ago)

i really can't be arsed but the discussion surrounding it is funny.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Saturday, 21 June 2003 20:55 (twenty-two years ago)

It kind of passes me by, if people like watching it, fine. A resounding Meh, really.

― Matt (Matt), Saturday, 21 June 2003 21:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I didn't watch the first three, but the discussion here tempted me to try it this time. That discussion is about 95% of my pleasure in the show.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 21 June 2003 22:09 (twenty-two years ago)

This year's one ain't so good. But it's like, why do you talk to your friends? Why come here? Everything your friends could say, everything anyone here could say, has been said funnier, smarter, with more cruelty & love, more coherently, by someone in some book somewhere. (Some exceptions, whoopy-do.) Big Brother is the opposite of books. Its charm is its glut of mediocrity, as is your friends', as is mine. (Just joking with that last one.)

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Saturday, 21 June 2003 22:09 (twenty-two years ago)

One learns things about human interaction that one can't learn in real life.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 21 June 2003 22:28 (twenty-two years ago)

like how humans react when placed in a hermetically sealed environment with a bunch of vapid fame-junkies?

― Matt (Matt), Saturday, 21 June 2003 22:34 (twenty-two years ago)

No. How people with different personalities. who would normally just be separated in life, interact with one another when forced to.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 21 June 2003 22:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Righto, just wondering.

― Matt (Matt), Saturday, 21 June 2003 22:43 (twenty-two years ago)

it's abt ppl doing stuff: i quite like that topic

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 22 June 2003 09:55 (twenty-two years ago)

haha people doing stuff. It'll never catch on.

― Cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 22 June 2003 10:05 (twenty-two years ago)

yes they DO 'stuff' (apart from having sex with each other) but do they have to open their mouths while doing that.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 22 June 2003 13:28 (twenty-two years ago)

This year's bb is definitely the dullest, but i still watch it. I guess for no other reason than I enjoy watching people. Certainly not in a pervy way, I just enjoy watching people's reactions to different things, it is usually quite funny. Having said that, most of the time, BB can be quite dull.

― Pinkpanther (Pinkpanther), Sunday, 22 June 2003 19:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I've always hated it.

― Scaredy Cat, Sunday, 22 June 2003 19:40 (twenty-two years ago)

of course its dull: its 'reality TV'. I watch TV for, you know, entertainment, and not to watch other people being bored.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 22 June 2003 19:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I just plain don't get any of it. I've not watched any "Reality TV" shows and am quite happy to think that I can live the rest of my life without ever being exposed to one (our local CBS station is infamous for devoting 3-4 minutes of news broadcast time to discussion of whatever their crap reality show is. Of course, this is the same station that opened a big news day [plane crash and something else] with several minutes of "Has Brittn*y Sp**rs" arrived at the Daytona 500 racetrack yet?" coverage - and kept breaking into the rest of the half-hour news program with "updates" of how close she was to the track. Ugh.).

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Monday, 23 June 2003 02:34 (twenty-two years ago)

BB in the UK is crap this year, they all just sit around and sunbathe, and bore the pants off everyone. getting rid of anoushka in the first week was just stupid.

― Bob Shaw (Bob Shaw), Monday, 23 June 2003 08:25 (twenty-two years ago)

bob is wrong: best bb evah

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 23 June 2003 08:26 (twenty-two years ago)

maybe, mark, in that 'wow, isnt it so boring and isnt being bored so relaxing, like televised lithium or xanax?' sort of way.

― doom-e, Monday, 23 June 2003 08:29 (twenty-two years ago)

boredom is the only non-fakeable emotion

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 23 June 2003 08:31 (twenty-two years ago)

i never did lithium or xanax so i'm only guessing

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 23 June 2003 08:31 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, i find it relaxing. to be honest. oh, look, it's those people who never leave the house. it's a good constant to measure your summer life by.

― doom-e, Monday, 23 June 2003 08:33 (twenty-two years ago)

No. How people with different personalities. who would normally just be separated in life, interact with one another when forced to.

Is this really true? I assumed it was a deliberately typical mix, and you're saying it's deliberately atypical? I though England got rid of its caste system by now.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 23 June 2003 08:40 (twenty-two years ago)

separated in the sense of not being stuck in a house together w/o being able to leave? that is quite atypical

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 23 June 2003 08:45 (twenty-two years ago)

not at ilx!!!

― doom-e, Monday, 23 June 2003 08:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, the people all seem to be classless - in every possible sense of the word.

― suzy (suzy), Monday, 23 June 2003 08:49 (twenty-two years ago)

That just sounds like "auntie's funeral-the movie".

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 23 June 2003 09:16 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah but the sexual tension has all dissapated, at least anoushka's boobs were like bouncy attention fruits. now bb is like a porno where the guy actually finishes fixing the cable or cleaning the pool.

― Bob Shaw (Bob Shaw), Monday, 23 June 2003 09:27 (twenty-two years ago)

mark s is OTM - this year is easily the best year. Saying in week 5 that it doesn't compete with the others, which you (presumably) saw all the way through, isn't even putting them in the same ballpark.

Though they do seem to be evicting the most interesting characters - if Ray and Scott had gone instead of Jon and Federico, things would be so much juicier.

(sorry, this should be on a different thread)

― Mark C (Mark C), Monday, 23 June 2003 09:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Bob I kiss you.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 23 June 2003 09:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I set this question out because I assumed everyone here loved the BB show since almost everytime I looked there was a new BB thread. Thankfully I was wrong and I am not alone.

― ThErEdNeD (ThErEdNeD), Monday, 23 June 2003 20:06 (twenty-two years ago)

but, you say "it's boring" like this is some sort of bad thing. BB is perfect ambient telly, it's ART i tells ya, ART! i've had enough of effing melodrama and rabid punditry i just want to see people DOING STUFF.

anyone who doesn't like BB (the programme, live feeds in particular, rather than the hype surrounding, to a point) is a TELLY ROCKIST.

― CarsmileSteve (CarsmileSteve), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 09:00 (twenty-two years ago)

In the words of Julie Burchill, "to hate reality TV is to hate reality".

Well it makes a change from her babbling on about Germans, Muslims and Tony Parsons.

― j0e (j0e), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 09:06 (twenty-two years ago)

i hate reality, there are less hot chix than there should be

― Bob Shaw (Bob Shaw), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 09:07 (twenty-two years ago)

i like it even better when the sound is off the live feeds!! sometimes there are, like, doves, YET IT'S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!!

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 09:07 (twenty-two years ago)

another reason to hate BB => it get ppl quoting julie burchill.

I want the words 'TELLY ROCKIST' engraved on my tombstone.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 09:09 (twenty-two years ago)

boredom is the only non-fakeable emotion
-- mark s (mar...), June 23rd, 2003

This is not strictly true. I am very good at it and it infuriates Emma.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 09:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Especially when you are in bed.

There are no real birds in Borehamwood - that sound is fake.

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 09:09 (twenty-two years ago)

BB is perfect ambient telly, it's ART i tells ya, ART!

Only in the sense that anything is art.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 09:10 (twenty-two years ago)

meh. watching the current BB is like watching anglican gay porn! (all those wild 'loving friendship' scences)

― Bob Shaw (Bob Shaw), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 09:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Pete, how do you know? ehehehehehe... Not just then, actually.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 09:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Sometimes you're so bored in bed you even snore. This pretense is masterful.

― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 09:53 (twenty-two years ago)

You've been watching!

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 24 June 2003 09:56 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

For some reason I've seen several of the BB5 series (u.s.). But why? It's so boring. And so fake. Drives me nuts. BUT I LOVE PLASTIC SURGERY SHOWS! Go figure. My Rant

― EComplex (EComplex), Friday, 3 September 2004 20:19 (twenty-one years ago)

The US series is boring because the housemates vote on who goes out of the house; there's no involvement or connection on the part of the viewers.

Now that American Idol has hit it big, they should re-introduce the idea of the viewers voting on who goes each week.

― Dan Perry '08 (Dan Perry), Friday, 3 September 2004 20:26 (twenty-one years ago)

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