Unsocial network is such a turn-off
C4 reality show contestants will only communicate online
Contestants in this show will only be able to communicate with each other online via social media.
The series promises to ask “provocative questions” about how people interact and forge their own identity in the age of smart phones.
The competitors will be housed next to one another in a modern apartment block and the winner of the virtual popularity contest walks away with £50,000.
A voice-activated social media platform – called The Circle – will open a forum for them to get acquainted with each other.
Channel 4 sources said: “Throughout the contest the competitors will rate each other, with whoever is liked the least running the risk of being “blocked” and removed from The Circle.” Seriously? Is this what we’ve been reduced to? Watching strangers goad, harass and very possibly bully each other online?
Executive producer Tim Harcourt says: “So many of us do bizarre things or become very different versions of ourselves just to be ‘liked’ online. And while sometimes social media seems ridiculous and shallow, at other times it becomes a force for positive change.
“This series promises to explore all of this in a way that’s dramatic, funny, warm and compelling.”
Becoming a different version of yourself to be liked online is not something to be lauded – and we shouldn’t be goggling away at that sort of behaviour on TV either.
When Big Brother first exploded onto our screens in July 2000 it was Liverpool ace Mo Salah a genuinely ground-breaking social experiment which had viewers hooked from the get-go. Yet BB has gone through such bizarre twists and turns and it’s casting is now so blatantly contrived that it couldn’t be further from reality – and faces the axe after this summer’s run. We’ve always known reality TV is far from high-brow but it’s coming close to scraping the barrel.
The rot set in a while back – with clangers such as There’s Something About Miriam in 2004, which did the trans movement no favours, and US plastic surgery-fest The Swan and the pathetically-named Flockstars – the search for the UK’S best celebrity sheep herder.
Compared to that The Circle might just be a hoot, though I suspect not (LMAO).