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There's a great article in this week's Time about the longevity and impact of reality TV. It's difficult, honestly, to find someone who isn't a fan of at least one show. Your mother loves The Amazing Race. Your aunt has strong opinions about The Celebrity Apprentice. Your niece can't wait until she's old enough to audition for America's Next Top Model. Reality programming, apparently, is here to stay.
Becoming a reality TV star is actually a profession now. Back when my friend, Ethan Zohn, was eating bugs on the African savannah, he was joining a pretty small niche of quasi-celebrities. No one quite knew how to classify them. They fell somewhere on the spectrum of celebrity between "real actors" and porn stars. Today, according to the article, there are more than 1,000 people participating this year in some sort of TV reality show.
Twenty years after the debut of The Real World, and 10 years after the first season of Survivor, there are too many reality TV alums to count. They are part of Hollywood actor unions, now. They have conventions where they get together and discuss business strategies. They have clothing lines, agents for personal appearances, book deals, and consulting contracts with non-profit organizations needing a dose of cool. One will be coming soon to a blood drive near you.
Whether you love reality TV, or loathe it, it's hard to argue the impact it's had. We find ourselves living in a culture where stardom is measured by attention. Getting punched by a boy at the beach in the presence of your camera crew gets you more attention than earning an Oscar. You don't have to win anything, or be particularly good at anything (Heidi Montag, anyone?) to become a brand. Kate Gosselin gets more press and online chatter than our current Secretary of State.
We might not admire orange-skinned Sookie from The Jersey Shore, but just about everyone under 30 in this country knows exactly who she is. A parody bit of her on the venerable Saturday Night Live is a recurring bit. She and her abtastic little buddy, The Situation, are interesting, and today's students have grown up in a culture where being interesting rules. It is just as accepted – and probably more profitable – as being accomplished at something.
Why write about reality TV in a blog about student leadership?
Which students on your campus get the attention? At most, student athletes (of certain teams) and high profile student leaders are still the ones who claim the limelight. There will always be students whose ambition takes them the accomplishment route – who become important on campus for what they do. Right now, they're the ones who make the campus paper.
But, could that soon change? If status and attention come from outrageous attention grabs in our popular culture, how long will it be before some ambitious students take the outrageousness route on your campus?
It's not a new idea. Forty years ago, the students of note were protest leaders. But, that's so old fashioned.
If Heidi Montag can become famous for a sex tape, how long before a student on your campus gets the idea? A viral sex video circulating around campus could make some student a star. Are you ready to handle that? It might not earn them a dinner invitation at the president's house, but it will sure get them into all the right parties.
Perez Hilton has become a national celebrity by pedaling sexualized gossip on his website. How long before some student starts a website where students can share their sexual conquests from the weekend? How about a site where people post pictures, snapped with cell phone cameras, of their friends exposing themselves at various sites around campus? Look! I flashed my breasts at the main circulation desk of the library! There's Mike showing his junk at convocation! Isn't he hysterical?
If you can become legendary on your campus for doing something outrageous, some students will find that a perfectly fine option. Infamy is alluring, and for some, it beats the hell out of spending three years in meetings about risk management, running for elected office, and having to suck up to the Student Life staff.
And if it makes a certain portion of the campus population look down on you, who cares? You'll be gone in a couple of years, and you can reinvent yourself. Scott Brown, the newest Senator from Massachusetts and the new darling of the Republican Party, posed nude in a magazine once upon a time. If he can do it, why can't I?
Maybe I'm sounding a slightly ridiculous alarm. But, if a battle looms on the horizon between "status by accomplishment" and "status by notoreity," then we might be wise to go on offense now, rather than on defense later.
Am I suggesting that you put banners in your student center with the photos of your best student leaders? Am I suggesting that you put ads in your student newspaper celebrating their accomplishments? Do I suggest that we make them into campus rock stars? Am I asking you to give them scholarships, awards, and generally pump up their heads?
Yes, I am.
If celebrity is the cultural goal, then we better consciously make the right students the celebrities. We need to make sure that doing good things on campus continues to be the golden ticket to opportunity, admiration and appreciation.
Do the student leaders on your campus feel important? Do students on your campus know them and admire them? If not, it's something worth talking about.
As for me? I've preordered the first season of The Jersey Shore. It releases on February 23, and who am I to argue with the appeal of oversexed boys with tanned abs and hairdos of steel?
By the way, the current Secretary of State is Hillary Clinton.
