When I sought out to define a decade by its contribution to TV history, I was under the impression the nineties blitzed our homes with reality show after reality show.  I could’ve sworn it was when the dam broke, but turns out my memory is faulty.

Before I get to all that, for you sticklers out there, I am going to say that the idea of the “nineties” is a cultural convention and does not actually define a true decade.  Your birthday celebrates the completion of a year, not the start.   So while we say “the nineties,” what I’ll be referring to here is the period between 1991-2000.

With that math out of the way, let’s get to the brass tacks.

 The proverbial dam mentioned above shattered in the “‘oughts” we currently reside.  You can’t skip more than a couple channels without passing by a reality program.  But we had to start somewhere and that point of departure is planted firmly in the so-called “nineties.”

The date was May 21st, 1992.  Young people everywhere turned to MTV to see what all these ads were for, ads about a bunch of of their peers living in a house in New York and one of them says something about a pager.  Remember those?  The ads, not pagers.

I’m talking about The Real World, a multi camera/hidden camera undertaking that rolled 24 hours a day on a group of twenty-somethings, strangers, living together in a specially designed loft in New York City.  That original crew has spawned 22 more seasons with no sign of slowing and remains the benchmark to which all of the bazillion reality shows now available to us are held.  If reality TV has a grandfather, it is this “true story.”

It is such a simple premise, so why did it take so long for someone to think of just filming everyday folks for a show?  Well, ideas are only as good as their execution and the nineties brought about new technology that made voyeurism a viable programming option.  In particular, I’m talking about non-linear editing (via computer), primarily Avid, and the reduction in price of both equipment and tape for video cameras.  Believe it or not kiddos, the existence of something like iMovie on our home computer is kind of miraculous and decent cameras used to be thousands of dollars.  It made no sense then to waste expensive film on 24 hour coverage of some dude eating cereal hoping for an argument to break out.  But, with cheap tape and the ability to edit it in virtually no time at all, the idea of reality based shows became, well…. a reality!

The actual birth of reality television could be hotly debated.  Certainly COPS is a candidate as a show that filmed everyday people and edited the footage to create something dramatic.  Many include game shows as an early form.  While true, only the modern day competition shows like Survivor etc. fit our current format model of “real” people in an unscripted situation.

Survivor might be the most successful show financially in the history of the genre.  It got its start at the edge of the decade, premiering in May of 2000.  Since then, Survivor has spawned 19 seasons and become a gigantic component of our cultural landscape.

But before that, The Real World spun off a competition show of its own with Road Rules.  Also airing on MTV, Road Rules tossed young twentysomethings into a Winnebago and threw challenges at them.  Once you add a game like element though, the concept of strangers living together becomes a little less real and more planned.  Road Rules owes a little to the Mark Burnett produced Eco-Challenge as well.  Both shows debuted in 1995, but where Rules was a cast, Eco was a real world competition.  Part documentary, part game show, the contestants signed up for a race, not a TV program.  The precursor to The Amazing Race (2001), Eco-Challenge garnered a lot of respect and laid the groundwork for Burnett to create his reality empire.

Another notable reality show to come out in the nineties was the Disney Channel’s Bug Juice. Sort of Real World, this show followed a large group of kids as they attended summer camp.  Very pure in the sense that no trips were arranged or challenges manufactured, Bug Juice was a fantastic look inside the joy and pain of adolescence and the first foray into reality based shows for children.

And then 2000 hit and the waters of the dam started spilling over the top. Survivor was an instant hit and CBS quickly brought Big Brother on later that year.  Trading Spaces adapted a British show (as many U.S. reality shows have done since) about neighbors fixing up each other’s homes.  This opened a floodgate on home improvement shows driven by everyday people as opposed to “how to” videos by professionals.  Today, reality is everywhere.  Only in TV could I make a statement that absurd!

The initial seasons of The Real World were pretty interesting.  Since then, the show seems to repeat itself over and over which is either a great example of how society has crumbled or evidence of some shenanigans.  Most would agree with the latter and as someone who is part of a reality show, I can tell you it is definitely the latter.  Very little about reality TV is real.  Producers feed participants lines, things are re-shot for the camera, events are often staged etc.  The truth of reality is that it is a cheap way to make product for consumption.  You’re not paying writers (producers do that job), you’re not paying actors, you’re just filming regular people in a very irregular way.

Even through all the thinly veiled “un-reality” of the genre, reality television has become big business.  Aggregate sites like Reality TV World even report daily on the shows.  Fox started a channel based entirely on reality programs, although they are ceasing operations soon.  Is the end near?  Not quite.  Reality shows are cheap, quick, and most importantly to the small production houses that assemble them, non-union.  Anyone with a modest bank roll can pitch and sell a reality show and in a town of hungry film students in a country of voyeurs, that spells decades to come for the genre.