How do young people form their collective identity through reality TV?

“We need to interact in order to form our identity”- Richard Jenkins, therefore it can be argued that partaking in an event (in reality or virtually) with people with whom we feel affinity helps us to form our collective identity.

How would this relate to reality TV shows though, well looking at the perspective of interaction, we as youths interact with television more than face to face interaction. As highlighted in sociology the world has become a global village, which explains that due new technologies referring to mass media has made the world smaller and easier to interact.

Therefore us watching reality TV shows doesn’t make it any different from us being in the midst of those “stars” in a real life situation.

Take for example, many youths today have been watching the programme “Made in Chelsea”, which follows the lives of rich socialites youths whom have no sense of direction, partying constantly and partaking in immoral actions. Here’s a quote from the show’s opening scene from one of its characters Caggie Dunlop “You may have heard rumours that Chelsea is an exclusive world of royals, aristocrats and playboys. Where the gossip is as startling as the prices. Well it's all true, and I'd know. I'm Caggie Dunlop and this is my world. You might say that we've got it all, but having whatever you want can make choosing that much more tricky. In Chelsea the truth is more fabulous than fiction. This is our life.”

This quote leads to what Marxist would believe to be a false conscience; false conscience means that there is an illusion instilled into the working class (teenagers) that the capitalist system is fair for everyone in society. Therefore you would find many teenagers following blindly what they see in reality TV shows because they form their collective identity from there. Marxist and neo Marxist would say that this is what media does it portrays an ideological tool where people believe what they see relates to them and therefore they should interact with it.

But David Gauntlet says- ‘Identity is complicated, everybody thinks they have one’ because due to teenagers all having different taste in things, they all interact to different things in this global village.

The lifestyle in made in Chelsea has formed a collective identity for youth’ living in London is that through materialism and value and total disregard for their actions they will be able to get recognized from their peers.

Another way young people form their collective identity is through what Merleau Ponty said that we have an embodied experience and anything in which we use our bodies to create new things our identity. This can simply be done but imitating our favorite reality TV shows.

Another reality TV show that seems to have a collective identity is Geordie shore. This show focuses on the lives of 9 housemates living in Newcastle, who are working and primarily partying most of the time. The show has formed it own collective identity in that the “stars” have a constant appearance on the show wearing raunchy dresses that reveal perhaps a  bit too much, their crude and obnoxious personality demonstrate that they are in fact low middle class youths compared to the youths we see in Made in Chelsea.

The stars themselves have come to terms that they will not change and they have come to terms with identity Note what a member from Geordie shore had to say about Made in Chelsea Charlotte told the metro: “No one wants to watch fur coats, diamonds and pearls and stuck up posh people talking about Chanel and Gucci. People want to watch a group of lads and lasses.....”

Here she directly lets us know that people want to relate with someone in order to interact with them and form a collective identity from them.

Michel Foucault therefore was correct believing that it can be limiting for youths to create an identity as it is actually developed into a collective identity with a stereotypical group and people will then automatically make assumptions to that specific identity. So basically nothing that youths do it will always be viewed in a stereotypical way and thus collective identity is born.