Why Do We Need 44 New Reality-TV Shows from VH1 This Season?

A few weeks ago, Paste HQ received a box set of the complete Daria series. The cartoon, which aired on MTV in the ‘90s, nailed teen ennui with just the right balance of eye-rolling and heart. Randomly selecting an episode, I wound up watching the bespectacled heroine try, ever so uncomfortably, to determine whether she was ready to lose her virginity. It was affecting, entertaining, and peppered with the absurd sidestories and clever social commentary (Sick Sad World, anyone?) that made Daria so fun to watch. It got me thinking, where can today’s teenagers find their generation’s Daria? The answer, apparently, is “Not on VH1.”

The cable network, which once serviced my nostalgia quite nicely with shows like I Love the 80s, announced this week that it was developing a whopping 44 new reality shows for the upcoming season. Geared toward an audience they’ve chosen to refer to as “Gen Mix” (i.e. viewers between the ages of 25 and 34), the new batch of shows are killing off trash-fests like the entire [Blank] of Love oeuvre. Clearly unaware of the irony in his own statement, VH1 president Tom Calderone said of network’s audience, “They want more authenticity in their reality, which isn’t to say that it can’t be comedic and light.”

In addition to revamping their Behind the Music series, VH1 is adding programs such as rock doc Let’s Spend the Night Together: Confessions of Rock’s Greatest Groupies (a slightly modified version of the same “I want to sleep with someone famous!” attitude that made Rock/Flavor/Shot of Love so successful) and You’re Cut Off!, a Simple Life copy-cat that sees plain old, unfamous spoiled young women go to “rehab” with a life coach.

It’s not that I think these shows shouldn’t exist at all. Clearly, there’s an audience for them. I got sucked into an episode of Hoarders just last night. But there’s something about the way these programs trade on their subjects’ misery and the audience’s willingness to judge and deride said miserable subjects that’s never sat well with me.

Ostensibly, programs like those picked up this season by VH1 serve as cautionary tales against poor life choices by showing the fallout of unprotected sex, substance abuse, obesity or whatever the social ill du jour is. But Daria’s cringing during a conversation with Tom, her becoming irrationally upset as she tries to explain her flip-flopping attitude toward having sex with him for the first time, speaks much more to my own experience of trying to navigate teen relationships than the histrionics and bed-hopping of my peers on The Real World or any other reality show I can name. I suppose we could all run out and buy the Daria box set when it drops May 11. Or maybe, since the genre is clearly here to stay, we should just start insisting on a little more authenticity in our reality.

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