Why do we like trash TV (even if we don't admit it)?

For a long time there has been a strong complaint about the content and formats of a part of what television offers.

The concept of trash TV refers to those morbid contents, normally focused on exaggeration., who seek to entertain by exhibiting situations that are supposedly not fictitious and that are painful or humiliating. Programs that do not reflect positive values, quite the contrary.

However, and even if it seems strange, trash TV likes it, and a lot. Many television channels program this type of content in prime time slots because they want to capture the largest possible number of viewers with them.

That is to say, we know that trash TV is not something desirable, but nevertheless our actions are not consistent with these thoughts. Why is this happening? Why do you like trash TV? I will present possible answers below.

Trash TV: offering prohibited content

If we had to single out one defining feature of trash TV, this would be it. probably, that of using morbid content that from certain moral parameters we should not be watching.

Trash TV offers us the forbidden in the comfort of our own home, and we can enjoy it alone or surrounded by trusted people.

This means that, compared to other entertainment, it competes with an advantage, sacrificing good image and journalistic ethics in favor of the possibility of offering what no one else offers.

The promise that with each show we will see something that will surprise us makes us think about it even during the time we spend away from the screen, and the narratives Parallels about what is going to happen that we are inventing in our imagination make us want to see the real development of the story, for which we must return to the program.

Spectators addicted to morbid

The content of trash TV may be bad and it may be evident that it is largely fictional, but that does not stop it from surprising us and attracting our attention. And it is our attention, always in search of new stimuli that can take us to a state of high activation, that makes us return to these programs, as if it were a kind of drug dependency.

What we become addicted to with trash TV, however, is not a drug, but certain substances that our own body secretes every every time a narrative line is worked out just the way we wanted it to and every time we see something that amuses us, like a celebrity getting hung up on ridiculous.

The more we associate this state of well-being produced by these substances with watching trash TV, the more interest we have in continuing to watch these programs. This is an impulse that goes beyond reason: although we believe that the program does not deserve our attention because its characteristics fit with those of junk TV (and neither junk TV nor people who regularly watch junk TV usually enjoy good image), the fact is that the body asks us to turn on the television.

false sense of sociability

One of the characteristics of many trash TV programs is that in their development there are people recurring who express their opinions and beliefs in a completely direct way and, apparently, without filters. It is this supposedly honest attitude that brings about the conflict and the spectacle that is so sought after..

However, another of the consequences of this kind of format is that it is very similar to a gathering of friends. The jokes and little moral filter make the show easily comparable to what happens at a potluck dinner where jokes are told and rumors spread.

In this way, when watching certain trash TV programs, it is possible to deceive the brain so that he behaves as he would in a real social context, even though he is really just watching TV. This can satisfy the need to interact with real people without exposing yourself to annoying situations that can arise when leaving home to interact with real people.

The improvement of self-esteem

Paradoxically, trash TV could make us feel better about ourselves. Because? Because it makes us believe that our imperfections are something very normal and that most people have more to hide.

This idea is based on what is known as the Cultivation Theory, according to which exposure to television (or other similar means) makes us believe that reality resembles what can be seen in those channels. Trash TV normalizes lurid events and ridiculous displays, and comparing yourself with the people who appear there and who are also either playing a role or just showing their most tragic, lurid or comic side, is comfortable. Something that makes us feel comfortable and that makes us repeat.