meta reality

meta reality

FRIDAY, June 5th 2015

i'm a massive teen mom fan (all the seasons - despite the negative ramifications on my soul).  so you can imagine how fucking _elated_ i was to see that the original girls were coming back for another season.  another season, that unexpectedly & deeply satisfied my voyeur within in a whole new way.  the new season of teen mom og acknowledges what the show actually is -- NO i don't mean a trashy exploitative waste of my life -- I MEAN a reality show.  for the first time the cameras, camera people and producers are being incorporated on screen.  it's a new level of reality, it's meta reality.  the producers are my new favorite characters.  which leads me to...

is reality finally dying? do the masses (me and all the other 16 year old girls in america) finally want to know the truth? is the jig up? are we getting smarter?  WE ARE.  at least...i choose to believe we are and this new "meta reality" show proves it.   it's the genre's way of trying to save itself from obsoletion. bravo teen mom og.  bravo morgan j. freeman, dia sokol savage and lauren dolgen!  you aren't just names on hand drawn credits anymore. you are stars (sorta).  you strut your ability to herd and manipulate hormonal teen moms with all sorts of issues at all costs to make a great show!  or wait...no this is all horrible.

cut to: unreal.

following suit i just watched the pilot of lifetime's unreal and LOVED IT.  it's the best pilot i've seen in years.  the premise is: the life of a freelance reality producer (see dia sokol and lauren dolgen above) strutting her ability to herd and manipulate hormonal adult women with all sorts of issues at all costs to make a great dating competition show.  now, because this show IS scripted one of the pilot's themes is the negative ramifications on the soul of said manipulators, played by the shining star shiri appleby.   _thank god_ i follow the careers of all the roswell actors otherwise i would never have known anything about this show. go watch it.  and full circle, being majorly obsessed with a wb show as a teen DOES pay off...it distracts you from getting pregnant and starring in teen mom.  you're welcome parents.

treading water

treading water

July 10th, 2013

So, the other day, while I was being my extremely productive self, I watched six episodes of Teen Mom 2...in a row.  It was bad: not just the show, not just my general state of NOT MOVING for hours except to pee, and definitely not just the self hate that followed each episode.  The worst part was the moment I gave into the show – completely. 

As I lay curled up on my couch with my laptop warming my stomach I watched Leah -- age 20, mother of a set of 2 year-old twins, divorced, unemployed, uneducated (formally) -- get proposed to for a SECOND TIME in her life.  A SECOND TIME!  And then it happened.  I thought, “What is wrong with me? Why has no man ever proposed to me?” And then, it got worse, I thought, “I’ve missed my chance to be a teen mom.”  As you can imagine I had lost my sense of reality and it spiraled from there.

In that dark directionless spiral, a part of me (a very SMALL part) was envious of the girls who make mistakes/shit happens/whatever incredibly early because they don’t have to make the decisions later.  Later: when one is aware of and can obsess over all the ramifications of said decision.  *As I type this I realize how insane it all sounds. 

Most of my life I have been frozen by indecision.  The fear of making the wrong choice dominates my every thought – I can’t commit: to jobs, dogs, clothing, vacations, any kind of future plans etc.  Instead of moving forward I end up returning to zero, anxious, filled with regret, and stuck.  There are too many choices today, why did someone fill my head with the notion that I could be what I wanted to be?! Why am I plagued with fear of not becoming THAT person?  Why do I feel a huge obligation to my 16 year-old self and her dreams!?  Why am I afraid!? Long way round – why didn’t I just get pregnant at 16 and not have to think about myself anymore?! ….oh right, because I was a virgin until 22.

P.S. I wrote this AFTER Jeremy hit Leah in the face with a piece of bacon.  Ellie Jepperson - disappointing women everywhere all the time.