Celebrity Reality TV represented the first significant move towards a media environment where 'ordinary' people could become celebrities. With shows like Suniivor, launched in the US in 1992, the global franchise of the Dutch show Big Brother, which started in 1999, and American Idol, which first broadcast in 2002 and The Great British Bake Off in 2010, the phenomenon of members of the viewing public becoming the stars of primetime shows became a major part of Celebrity Culture, As the name suggests, Reality TV has its origins in the television genre of factual programming.
These kinds of programmes historically had never attracted significantly large audiences and primetime slots.
With the emergence of Big Brother, and shows like it, everything changed.' fundamental to the popularity of these programmes was the opportunity that they gave for individuals from the general public to be present on TV in unscripted situations.
The format featured people who were not performers or stars. Ordinary voices were celebrated in primetime television, and through this media exposure these people were given the potential to become household names.
Reality TV was, therefore, a means to transform individuals, from quite humble or unlikely backgrounds, into celebrities.
Chris Rojek refers to these kinds of celebrities as 'celetoids,' Celetoid is defined as 'compressed, concentrated, attributed celebrity.' The individual is famous solely through media-generated processes. The celetoid rises to public consciousness very quickly, but then is forgotten within a very short space of time.
13 The attractiveness to the media industry of the ordinary person who is transformed into a celebrity by television, conies from the ready availability and accessibility of these people.
Stars have agents and managers, and they employ publicity companies, and these all seek to control the narrative, and limit the availability of their clients. in the person made famous by Reality TV, the media guaranteed a steady flow of famous people who relied on exposure to maintain their fame.
With the promise of celebrity status, individuals could then become the subject, not simply of the television show, but of any number of spin-off stories concerning their personal lives and loves.
Graeme Turner argues that Reality TV reflects the ongoing concern of the media industry to seek to control the process whereby people achieve fame.
Rather than being just an end user of celebrity, television companies and executives seek to manufacture their own home-grown stars.' Celebrities can therefore be produced in ways that bypass the requirement to be a skilled actor or performer.
There is no need for any kind of lengthy or demanding apprenticeship in a craft or training in an artistic discipline.
As Turner puts it, 'Those who participate do not want to be singers, or actors, or dancers necessarily: they just want to be on television.' Reality TV has transformed the relationship between broadcasters and audience, bringing about what Henry Jenkins refers to as 'convergence.'
The emergence of the new formats, that have become known as Reality TV, did not just change who and how celebrities were made, it also brought about a new relationship with audiences.
Reality TV enabled a shift from the viewer, as a passive audience, to a new kind of interactivity. In 2003, the U5 reality music show, American idol, was receiving more than 20 million phone messages or texts per episode.17 These levels of interaction show how the celebrity shaping formats were a significant draw for audiences who wanted to share in making their own idols.
Reality TV is a vehicle to generate viewers and advertising income, and it has the added spin-off of allowing television companies the possibility to manufacture celebrity, in ways that suit their economic interests. These dynamics, however, are built upon the interest that is generated among audiences by the spectacle of ordinary people being placed centre stage.
The appeal of these programmes rests on the 'self' revealed, exposed and challenged through the particular format of the show. in shows that more traditional celebrities fail to achieve.
Quite simply, audiences can believe that a particular individual could be them, because that is actually the case. This close association, and the detail and nature of the revelation that Reality TV generates, means that fans are able to process their sense of themselves, in relation to the selves that are placed on show and put up for comparison by the media.
Reality TV is therefore the most raw, basic and affectively dynamic form that brings about the rnecliatisation of the individual and it is a key ingredient in Celebrity Worship.
