Are reality shows just made up of actors?

Wannabe actors. Life is a big show.

Everything on TV is fake. It’s just TV for heaven’s sake.

From my talks with people in “the industry”, reality shows are not made up of professional actors. However, the shows are somewhat scripted: Typically the producers will create scenes and instruct the participants what they want them to say or do. The producers will however request the participants express the ideas “in their own words”.

A friend of mine was going to appear on Montel Williams, but they found someone equally crazy who lived closer to the show.

I suspect they are hired because of their actor quality, and probably have to join the Screen Actor’s Guild.

It could be potential actors or wanna-be actors.

As a Survivor fan, I’d like to know the answer to this too. My husband believes it’s all fake, staged, and unreal. I don’t think so, but I don’t know for sure. A guy from my community won the million dollars. Local papers told what he did with the money. This doesn’t sound fake to me, but I can be pretty naive. I’ll watch and see if there are any answers that are from actual experience and that sound reasonable.

You know, I can no longer decide… which is ridiculous, don’t you think?

An old co-worker of mine was on Maury once. She played the “upset daughter” or something.

I have an actor friend who tried out for Survivor. I would suspect that most people on those shows are either actors or would like to break into the business.

However, I have also spoken with a psychologist who helped pick and help “debrief” people who were on Survivor, so I can attest that it’s not all fake. Or, it wasn’t at that time (late 1990s). He had to deal with counseling people to avoid PTSD… and choosing them to ensure a good psychological mix of people. Those people may have been mostly actors (or not, I don’t know), but I think it indicates that the shows aren’t necessarily scripted.

Are you really suggesting that reality TV shows aren’t really real? That’s absurd!

I think 98% of them are idiots. BAH!

Jerry Springer said his show was all fake. He said it was a circus and he was the ringmaster. He also said if we paid attention we’d see the same actors going the rounds of certain talk shows. I say reality show are mostly fake, the kids exist from that stupid Jon and Kate thing.

Amazing Race is okay, (minus the ones who will “do anything to win”). But the rest…don’t even.