Andrew Bullock on Big Brother: who’s watching who?

There’s two types of people in the world: those who watch Big Brother, and those who watch Celebrity Big Brother

A few weeks ago I was in the Latest office chatting to Leslie from Latest Homes about my plans for that evening. I can’t remember what she said she was doing, but no doubt it was something glamorous. I was going to go home and bunker down with a take-out Thai and watch the launch night of Big Brother. “I don’t watch that,” said Lesley. “I watch the celebrity version, not the regular people version.” This does seem to be the popular consensus when it comes to this programme. There are various categories of person when it comes to separating the public into Big Brother viewing castes.

You have the BB Die Hard, who has been obsessed since the get-go when it started in 2000, only had 10 people in it, had chickens in the garden and was still more of social experiment than a platform for glamour model fame. These people even remember season 4 when everyone in it just slept all day. These Die Hards have most likely also dabbled in BB USA and probably a bit of BB Norway.

“… when it was still more of a social experiment than a platform for glamour model fame”

You then have the people who came late to the party – the BB Tardies. They became obsessed when they realised that there was no escaping the show and they may as well watch it.

You have the Channel 5 snobs, who mourned the end of the BB era when Channel 4 stopped airing it 4 years ago. Rather than rejoice when Channel 5 took ownership, they instead criticised and won’t watch any of the newer seasons. These people are weird. If Mr Kipling stopped making country slices but someone else produced them with the exact same recipe, I would still buy them.

Then you’ve got the Leslies, who probably were never bothered by the show at all, but have, over time, been enticed by the hype surrounding the celebrity series and are now chomping at the bit whenever a new season of CBB hits our screens. I do understand this; in comparison, CBB is better. This relates to my column last week, about why we love to watch celebrities embarrass themselves on TV more so than average Joes. But, I am a BB Die Hard and I need to vouch for the civilian series. Some have been awful (namely 4, 9, 11 and 12) but due to the outrageousness we have seen in recent CBBs, I suspect the producers are regurgitating it into the ‘normal’ show. The current season has so far given us the vilest two women I have ever watched on TV, and a load of people that either hate them, are terrified of them, or want to sleep with them. Who wouldn’t want to see what happens in THAT house?

Andrew’s blog can be read at drewjbullock.wordpress.com

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