The paranoid generation

A year or so ago, I caught this program on TV- I think it was called Las Vegas Beauty Queens/ True Beauty. Anyway the premise was that all these girls were applying to this show thinking they were competing on hair, makeup and bikini bodies but actually they were being secretly judged on morality. So the show would give them little tests such as whether they would open the door for a random grandma or whether they would accept a bribe.

Anyway, if they passed these tests, they automatically preceded to the next round and if they didn't, they would discover that they were an ethically challenged individual and booted unceremoniously from the show, all the while protesting meekly that they meant to save the puppy from the burning building but didn't see him. (Fun sidenote: I caught this on the second season so frankly I judge these girls for being idiots who are unable to even vaguely research what TV show they are due to appear on)


Which precedes onto that terrible 20/20 segment called ( rather originally) What Would You Do?
And of course, a plethora of homeless people, battered wives and racist rednecks are served up in situations to see .. ahem.. what would you do? (Besides you know, feeling smug that you would never do what those people did!)


Which leads me to .. this one that everyone is talking about.
I like the guy with the fire hydrant. That was smart thinking. Even though I'm pretty sure no one remembered to fill in that section of the worker's comp form. Anyway I am sure there are a trillion more examples of this morally-superior infotainment that we could go through. But alas no time.

Here's the thing, this stuff is becoming more and more regular, even if we don't presume we're going to end up punked on a tv show (and judged by everybody in the world), we are more than ever hyper aware that whatever we do will quite possibly end up on the internet via mobile (Thanks YouTube!) or on some sort of cctv camera. Our bad behaviour despite our best efforts to keep it underground, is going viral. You lest be vigilant that your drunken rant doesn't end up with a million views or that your bullying ways doesn't land you on the nightly news. Here a camera, there a camera, everywhere a camera.

Which is good for exposing asses (and once again, the smug thing) but bad for the rest of us who are relentlessly paranoid about not doing the right thing.