In chapter two of Convergence Culture, Jenkins talks about how we are being bought into reality tv such as American Idol, and this is pretty true. Most of the people I know not only watch reality tv, but get involved such as sending texts to cast a vote, or watch episodes over and over again and even buy merchandise associated with their preferred reality show. I myself only watched maybe the first two weeks of American Idol and never voted for contestants or anything, but when it comes to America’s Next Top Model, I think I’ve probably seen every episode hundreds of times. Jenkins is right in how reality tv attracts people because of things like talent, or even lack of talent (aka William Hung), humor, audience participation, and blunt critiques. Survivor was also popular because we are attracted to competition and for some reason, watching people suffer, possibly because we are thankful we are not in their position. I thought it was clever of advertisers to come up with ads based on the young male’s attention span, “You have 3 seconds. Interest me” because if you can get a young male to pay attention, then you virtually have everyone’s attention.
