Internet I Still Think About: House Hunters
I've been reading the internet for more than a decade now, and most of it has washed over me like Tagore's wings. So I'm writing some reviews of pieces that stuck with me.
Elizabeth Newcamp
Like me, you may have long assumed that reality TV shows were not exact descriptions of reality. Still, I thought this was just at the level of selective editing and choice of focus.
In fact, reality TV is not just faker than I imagined, it's faker than I could imagine. As two-time House Hunters participant Elizabeth Newcamp writes:
The first thing you need to know is that in neither episode of House Hunters were Jeff and I actually … house hunting. One time we’d already closed on the house we “chose” in the episode; the other time we’d already lived in our house for a year.
That is, the whole show was filmed as if the couple were looking at options of houses to move into, but they were already living in one of the houses, so (obviously) everything else in the show was unbelievably fake. For example:
- "One day we would film seeing the town of Delft “for the first time,” and the next day we were all moved into our house as though we had lived there for a few months. Keeping up with where we were in the story (and what verb tense to use) was a constant battle."
- Since the family were already fully living in the home, but needed to look like they weren't, the production company hired movers "to essentially move us out of our own house.... The truck was then driven around for a few hours while we shot the segments in which we toured the house."
- "The houses we toured for the show were not for sale. Our small city of Delft had very little housing turnover. As a result, we visited two properties that were listed for rent on Airbnb."
- The producers paid a random friend-and-neighbour of the writer's to go on screen as a "relocation expert" (which, notably, is a credential-less title). In a fun wink to themselves, "Michael mentioned that he lived near a house we were looking at. “Oh, so we could be neighbors,” I exclaimed, while biking to tour our actual house, down the street from his … where my children were playing with his daughter, under the supervision of his wife."
The part that really matters, though, is that the interpersonal elements are also, equally fake. "These shows are looking for conflict, so it’s important to be ready to fight a little with your spouse." The producers and participants collaborate on a "storyline", in this case about the wife's overwhelming need for a bathtub. "At the producers’ urging... I hopped into available tubs to try them out and lamented through entire house tours about how I would live, with three kids no less, without a bathtub."
Remember, they already have a home, that they're living in, with a bathtub.
This, of course, has actual consequences. Of course her husband got excoriated on Twitter for "not letting his pregnant wife have the house she wanted;" meanwhile, the writer "was once recognized by a lovely American couple in an airport in Budapest as the “Crazy Bathtub Lady”"
House Hunters itself maybe doesn't matter per se, but reality TV seems to significantly shape our culture, influence how people think about human relationships, and launch certain characters to superstardom. So I think it matters that it's not, in fact, real.
Whenever I see reality TV now, and feel how intensely I feel love/hate/annoyance at certain characters, I try to remember that everything I'm watching is being manipulated far beyond any degree I would have thought acceptable. This makes me kinda sad, and mad, because these people will come back to the real world and be accosted by strangers over stuff they didn't really do.