1984 Is Here

I have a confession.

I watch Big Brother.

Yes, I know it's a show about screaming, deceiving, people with IQ's of 30. I tell myself it's like I'm a sociologist watching how people behave when you put a bunch of strangers together in a house without any privacy, family, or freedom.

I know it takes away brain cells. I know there are better things to do. I know that being a voyeur waiting for someone to finally get a knife and kill someone is not healthy. I just can't help myself.

I figure it's good research on how people behave that I can use in my writing.

Now, first off, this part will shock you, I don't see anything wrong with lying or breaking promises when you play this game. I think it's like Balderdash. Anyone ever play that? You have to make up meanings for words and convince people you're telling the truth, or if you have the real meaning, you have to make it sound like you don't. It's a lying game. You can't play if you don't lie. Well, Big Brother is like that. It's a lying game.

Sure there have been some who have gone in claiming they will never lie and never sacrifice their integrity, forgetting that this is not personal and it's just a game.

And those who are in the house will accuse others of lying and get all upset about people lying, while they lie and scheme themselves. And they get upset when people try to win instead of letting them win.

It's bizarre is what it is. Here's the thought process of almost everyone who goes into that house: "I am going to win. I will do whatever I have to do to win. If i have to lie, I will. If I have to break promises, I will, or scheme behind other people's backs, I will. It's just a game. But...no one should ever lie to me or break promises with me or scheme behind my back or do anything that prevents me from winning. Those people are there to help me win and do what I say."

I know it sounds unreasonable, but I've been watching this show every season since it began in 2000 and that is the way it goes. Yes, there was the odd player who didn't think this way. Will from season 3 for instance, told everyone he was lying to them, expected everyone to lie to him, and had a great time while he was there. He also won. I liked Will. He was so honest about his lying, and he was funny too.

But most of them go on crying jags, and screaming matches and threats of revenge when people don't do what they want them to do. "It's not fair" they wail while they plot and lie and scheme to get them voted off the island...I mean out of the house.

This last bunch of melt down cases includes a 75 year old Marine who drools over the young women (while his sick wife watches at home), calls people names, participates wholeheartedly in the screaming matches and has labeled one young man "Judas" because he's Catholic and didn't vote the way he was told to. Does that mean that the Jerry the Marine thinks he's Jesus? I guess it does because he's already judged that Dan the Catholic is going to hell and I think only Heavenly Father and Jesus can do that.

Then there's Michelle, who's furious because in one of the competition games a mother got a trip to Hawaii while Michelle got stuck wearing the red unitard. She doesn't think mothers should be on the show. Frankly I would have rather seen Jerry the Marine have to wear the unitard, it would have been funnier and make him look as ridiculous as he sounds.

One of the people who I thought had a screw loose in the beginning of the game, is now looking like the sanest person there.

And thankfully the guy with muscles who walked around talking like he was doing commercials for Charles Atlas (if you work out like I do you can have big strong muscles and a teeny tiny head like me) is gone. Voted out. Which caused everyone who wanted to keep him to turn on one guy who they blame for booting him out, as if he had the sole vote. Which he didn't. There were several others who voted too.

The scary thing isn't really what's happening with these people. The scary thing is that I enjoy watching this. What does that say about me.