This is a ranty thing I wrote for our public speaking team, just after Christmas. This speech- and lovely Louise's lovely delivery of it- won us the regional cup of the Rotary Clubs annual public speaking event- and very proud we were too. There's also one on Harry Potter in my Harry Potter section if you fancy having a read.

Reality TV

It seems like a long time ago, that faithful summer I was fourteen, and had just done my SATs, wonderful days, those. The summer was hotter than they are these days, the air slightly fresher and the light, just that little bit lighter. This was the summer of 2000. But little did we all know, as June became July that a new craze was about to sweep the nation. More terrifying that even those tamagotchi cyber pets, this was reality TV.

Big Brother was, undoubtedly what started the reality TV craze, in this country. Ten people, and some chickens, in a house. Its a wonder that some of the frailer members of the country didnt drop down dead from the excitement when they heard. This house was pretty much like any other house, it had some settees, two bedrooms, a garden, and a lesbian ex-Nun in it. The exciting difference, however, was that it had about six hundred cameras in every single place imaginable, broadcasting un-cut footage of the house and its members, live over the Internet, 24/7, and with selected highlights on Channel Four every night. Even I have to admit, that does sound like it could be quite interesting to watch.

The thing was, it wasnt.

Reality TV has lost its innocence now- where once they could dress it up as something sociological, a sociological experiment was how they described the first Big Brother, it has been cheapened by the Jerry Springer culture, and now reality TV has become things like Temptation Island, a concept so highly immoral that to most decent-thinking people its nothing more than a meat market.

But the fact that it is immoral isnt the worst thing about it, the worst thing about it is the fact that we all watch it. It preys on the worst parts of us, the voyeur, the fact that we all want to remove the fourth wall and just have a look. Well always watch this dross, and there will always be ten people willing to sell their souls to the devil for fifteen minutes of fame, and the chance to make a dancercise video, no matter how many times we watch it all go wrong.

HearSay are probably the biggest example of having the Reality TV dream and loosing it. With the help of Simon Cowell, they were TVs baby- a real life, singing, dancing pop group that we watched being conceived and then born, to promptly release the fastest selling debut single of all time, Pure and Simple.  But then it all started going wrong, mainly because they were rubbish. Soon, less than two years after they were born, HearSay was dead. Long live Liberty X.

But the worst of it was, lets admit this, we were all really happy. Theyd had the dream and lost it! Ha ha ha. Soon Virgin Radio was calling it a triumph for real music and Sky One had made a documentary: HearSay, When the Music Stopped.

So then, it must have been nothing more than blood-lust that induced the ITV executives to commission Pop Idol, the schedule-filler that produced Will Shoeface Young, Gareth Gates, who I cant take seriously because hes only actually eleven and the lost member of the SClub Juniors, and Darius Danesh, who looks like he should be working in a kebab shop. We watched dozens of Barbie and Kens be turned away by the talentless Neil Foxy Fox, in the most demorolising manner, as though he was suddenly John Lennon.

Now forgive me, but Ive forgotten, what exactly is Doctor Neil Foxs selling point again? Is being a grinning, balding, middle-aged freak, suddenly enough to make you an expert on music? And why on earth does he call himself Doctor? Last time I checked with the careers officer you dont actually need a PhD to become a C-list celebrity. Whats his doctorate even in? Funk? Or perhaps Keepin it real gained at the University of Life?

He, along with other talented celebrities, such as Geri Halliwell, Pete Waterman and ex-Boyzone manager, Louis Walsh, suddenly became Hitler-esque, brutally telling fat people they were fat, ugly people that they were ugly and tone-deaf people that the windows had just broken, and yes, they were going to charge them for the new glazing, now get out.

At the end of the day Reality TV is nasty. Its brutal, its cheap to make (although someone out there is earning an absolute fortune from all those phone calls) and its exploitative, of both the people that watch it, and the people that take part in it. It destroys lives (a friend of a friend went on Vets in Practice and became an alcoholic because he couldnt handle the fame) and it is, in short, a craze that should be taken back where it came from. Fast.