If you're like me, you are partial to slowly rotting out your brain in the most enjoyable fashion yet: reality TV. You also enjoy eating batteries. Everyone does it and it's perfectly natural. However, isn't it just horrifying when you're watching your guilty-pleasure Reality show of choice, cheerfully judging the terrible people participating...then realise you can relate? Yea, totes the wost. In the interest of making lemon-flavoured napalm out of the terrible, terrible lemons I've just been handed, I present to you this post: the five most important lessons I've learnt in the course of my Sunday afternoon forays into the world of reality TV. Observe.
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1. If you're "Just Trying to Help", don't be a dick about it.
In this case, I'm referring to the dynamic between Kim Richards and her
sister Kyle Richards-Umanksy of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
If you do watch, you've seen the sisters struggle to rebuild their relationship, often ending in civil exchanges with enough icy undertones to give you frostbite at home. Granted, Kyle is kind of terrible and Kim is kind of waaaay damaged, but in a startling moment of clarity, I understand their deal.
Kim has had struggles with substance abuse and horrifying choices in spouses practically her entire life, which is incredibly unfortunate and I feel for her, I really do. Her younger sister Kyle, who was for the most part the second banana, now has a tight family unit, a husband who loves her (in spite of being a terrible person himself, or is it because?), and an overall kind of great life. Because she's "got her life figured out", Kyle often tries to guide Kim on straightening out her own existence, by way of advice and interventions and such, which on paper sounds great. The final expression, however? Condescension.
To put it in context, say, you were undergoing some romantic struggles that your friend is aware of. Please note that you have NOT asked for their advice, you're merely talking abut what's been going on in your life, just sharing. "That" friend then proceeds to point out how it's your fault the girl you like only dates people with blue hair and basically implies that you know nothing on the matter, hence you should hush and let them tell you how it's done, since they've done it this way and it's worked. What's that? Your opinion? IRRELEVANT. Shut. Up. And. Listen. I know better.
Yup, that, friends is how "trying to help" goes left in a hurry and ends in festering resentment that slowly dissolves the fabric of your friendship and ends with a closed-casket funeral for one of you, and a platinum lifetime membership to one of our fine correctional institutions for the other.
My point? Giving advice is a collaborative effort: you suggest your solution, seek my opinion on it and respect my choice if I decide it wouldn't work for me. HOW HARD CAN THAT BE, PEOPLE?
2. Omerta
Stop snitchin'.
3. Get your Hustle right
For this lesson, I invite you to join me on the set of Love and Hip Hop New York. Y'know, the one that had us wondering what people saw in Jim Jones and now has us looking for therapists for Joe Budden? Yea. Not the Atlanta one, although that has its own unique lessons.
Our instructor on this is one Miss Yandy Smith, currently engaged to an alleged heroin trafficking, ex and possible future con (#FreeMendeeceesHarris), all of which is to be ignored for the sake of getting this vital teaching down: ladies, Get. On. Your. Grind.
I find there is never really an excuse for being complacent with the concept of asking Daddy or your boyfriend for money, in my sanctimonious opinion. Where conventional employment is not an option, the onus is upon you to find your inner Miss Independent and get paid.
At this, Yandy is an absolute guru. From talent management, to a lifestyle brand, to contributing author for a huge to a jewellery line, Yandy Smith has her hand in a little bit of everything and it pays off big time: her house is fully paid for people!
I could sit here and wax poetic about the importance of finding a mentor in your lane as illustrated by Yandy and the value of having a cheery personality, but the next point urgently needs saying. Ready?
4. If you're going to go flying off a table to smack a bitch, look fabulous doing it.
This also applies to
throwing wine bottle WMDs and
rearranging former best-friends faces with your fabulous clutch purse during birthday dinners.
5. Keep Your Words Sweet, You May have to eat them.
As I learned from this fine lady, there are 265 days in a year and I spend all of them being thankful for Mrs Porsha Stewart. Well, soon to be ex Mrs Stewart.
Aside from being one of the most quotable characters on the Real Housewives of Atlanta, Porsha starts off the show being the girl with the civil rights background, a loving husband and never having worked a day in her life.
Enter one of the most entertainingly unbalanced characters on TV yet, Kenya Moore. Granted, Kenya gets her cheques and is to be applauded for that, but her personal life is just...I mean, good heavens. Porsha is the first of the ladies to put on her Regina George stilettos and tear Kenya asunder, focusing on her...advanced age and state of unmarriedness. Also, the fact that she's
kind of crazy.
Catty, right? Since karma is a thing, we slowly see cracks in Porsha's relationship (mainly that she's married to a talking thumb. I can say that, because Kordell is a jerk.) that culminate in a messy divorce that is playing out in the tabloids as we speak.
Yikes. My point? Porsha's "pichur purfek life" imploded in the most horrid way possible, leaving her to deal with the very issue she stigmatized Kenya for the entire season: being painfully single. Lesson? Unless you're an icecream-powered psychic, it is unwise to rib on other people, worst of all about a situation in life that's both beyond their control and veeery easy for you to slide into yourself. Be cool, man.
Got that, everyone? Good, goooooood. I hope we've all learned valuable lessons from these brave, terrible people who entertain us every week/whenever we get the complete season DVD.
And now, since I'm sure you could name all of the characters presenting our life lessons, I present you with your Reality TV Diploma:
Stay fabulous everyone, and have a rocking July. OR ELSE.
