WTF TLC

My reaction to new TLC programming.

I was recently shocked to find that TLC, (I think they had to stop calling themselves the learning channel just like KFC had to stop saying it served chicken) has found the floor of reality show programming. The very, very bottom.  I mean, I knew they were out there searching for it every day, but I am here today to tell you that they have achieved the practically unattainable. They got closer with Toddlers and Tiara's, and with Hoarder's: Buried Alive, but now I think they have finally scraped the very bottom of the reality TV barrel. 

But Jen, you say, what do you have against bad reality television? And my answer to you is nothing. Absolutely nothing. I love bad reality TV.  I really do. Especially mean-spirited reality television. Why would you watch someone giving out roses on the Bachelor when you can watch someone giving out herpes on the Jersey Shore? Have you really gone your whole life without watching a grown man cry on television because he’s afraid of a puppy? You are missing a lot. 

You might say that my love of horrible reality programming started with the show Joe Millionaire. What a concept. They took all these women and convinced them that this guy was a millionaire. It was like the Bachelor with lies. Or, maybe like the Bachelor with lots more lies. 

And let us not forget Blind Date and 5th wheel. Why guess what your date is thinking when a thought bubble can do the work for you. And Blind Date did a lot for society. For instance, my middle school students asked me at the time if all dates involved hot tubs. No sweetie, not all dates. Only if you are really, really lucky. 

And don't get me started on Flavor of Love. Fantastic. Who wants to watch regular people try to make out with each other when you can watch crazy people go at it.  And then hit each other. And then go at it some more. And of course Rock of Love provided equity in skankified formatting. 

Man Who Is Addicted to Having Sex with His Car

And yet, here I am with my willingness to love even the worst episode of Dance Mom or Toddlers & Tiaras, and I am faced with the unwatchable. What now TLC? What now. I mean, it was bad enough when you were showing how creepy people are in their houses filled with dead cats. Now you have introduced My Strange Addiction. And the promos make my skin crawl.http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/tv/my-strange-addiction

I don’t want to watch people eating cat food and nail polish and rocks. I don’t want to know that someone carries around their husband’s earn and sometimes eats the ashes. My god. And now. Now there’s a guy who is addicted to having sex with his car. Now I have to watch which include video of this man making sweet love to his car? Oh just quit it. I throw up my white flag. I give up. We have gone too far as a society. Let’s go back to the nice and normal days when people had to go to the internet to find out things they could never unlearn.