Top Lessons Learned From Reality TV

You don’t need to look further than Taylor Armstrong to see just how limiting money is in the grand scheme of things. She’s a girl from Oklahoma who struck it big with a venture capitalist. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough money to mask all her pain and unhappy marriage. At the end of the day, Taylor proves that you can’t be happy unless you’re happy with yourself.

Where do we start? Nene Leakes (ATL Housewives) , Vicki Gunvalson (OC Housewives), Tamra Barney (OC Housewives), The Salahis (DC Housewives), Camille Grammer (Beverly Hills Housewives), and the list of women who got divorced after reality fame goes on and on. So what’s the lesson here ladies? If you actually want to preserve your union, don’t put your ish on blast for the country to see. Fame and publicity brings out another element that can tear relationships apart.

There are two tales of sticking around that’s being played out on Love & Hip Hop. We all know that Chrissy finally got a ring from Jim Jones after sticking around for 7 years but her friend Emily is dealing with a whole different situation. She’s Fabulous’ ex and it’s obvious that Fab treats her like his at-home chick while he roams around the world with his side chicks. SMH. There’s no question that waiting for a man isn’t the best option but sometimes we get stuck because of that thing called love. The best thing to do is to read the signs early on, which will indicate loud and clear whether he plans on marrying you or if only plans on just keeping you around.

Have you noticed that Diddy only provides good luck for, um, Diddy. Although Making The Band made for a great show, it didn’t make for great careers for its graduates. I’m still wondering what happened to Babs and Dylan Dillinger and why Danity Kane couldn’t capitalize on their debut success.

Unless they’ve carefully constructed a whole life around the cameras (yes, we’re talking about the Kardashians here), many reality cast members aren’t prepared to navigate their new lives and handle the changes they see in people they once trusted. And many friendships created in front of the cameras quickly disintegrate. It doesn’t help that producers coax drama and paranoia amongst “friends” and castmates. Although we don’t know what caused the falling out between Evelyn and Jennifer on Basketball Wives as of late, we do know that they were good friends before the show started. I wonder, was it all worth losing such a close friend?

If you’ve noticed, not many reality shows fail. It seems like much of what is put on the air, flies, unless you’re Audrina Partridge’s family. So that’s good news right? We all have interesting enough personalities and people generally just like to peer into personal lives no matter who it is. Even Scott Disick is interesting…

So in a nutshell, reality shows tell us that everyone is special and unique. And as long as you have a camera peering at ya, you’re guaranteed fame and popularity. Yaye!!