You'll think I am a fake for writing this (specially after having written that I was going to bed but hey, second thoughts happen to anyone right!).

Big Brother UK 2008. It started tonight. I don't have a TV. I haven't had one in 9 years and feel pretty good about it. I am aware of what is going on in TV though and read anything related furthermore love to talk or write about it. S
till I haven't watched BB ever in the UK or elsewhere. I have heard about some of the very very outstanding participants (usually for bad bad bad reasons you all know as well whatever your involvment in it is) but I am still quite a virgin in that register.
This was just to set the plot and tell you more about who I am beforehand. But let's get personal!

Last night I watched the BB 2008 "entering the BB flat and introduction of participants" show at a friend's. It was on but we weren't really watching... For some reason I was the only one stuck in front of th screen absolutely gobsmacked! It was quite something... Let me detail and ask you for input - as per now I feel quite lost:

1. I cannot really inderstand how anyone would want to go there (I haven't watched it before but still know that nothing interesting, valuable or worth the experience is going to happen to the contestants). What are these persons' motivations??? Do they have any motivation in life?

2. Who is in age of getting there and able to leave work for many weeks or months? I( do not even know how long the whole thing lasts for but more than a 2 weeks holiday, right?): a person of private means, I'd guess. But, hey, as far as I know there was no one in that situation to ever participate in the UK version (please correct me if I am wrong). So anyone who participates is therefore someone who is potentially not liable or has fixed costs like rent and additional bills for the amount of time the whole thing could last for (are contestants being paid or do they get any kind of compensation for the time they are in? You tell me).
Who is that? Well if you ask me... You are not but if you're reading you're gonna get my opinion!
I believe that a BB contestant is a person who is not involved (yet or ever) whatsoever in real life and is therefore able to "disappear" (rather the contrary I'd say as they will be over-exposed) for a number of weeks/months. To me that means someone who is not part of society and someone who is not accountable. Let's call it: you must be some kind of looser with little options in life (in your early 20s!!!) to get in there. So young and so limited... How sad! This should be a very important reminder for our political representatives to create possibilities an opportunities for this category of people. I feel sick at the idea that every year a considerable number of twenty-something apply to appear in this show and consider that option as the best they could possibly have in life. This is wrong. Very wrong. Any mayor or MP should seriously consider the fact that a large population of the UK is so limited in their potential that they consider BB as a strong chance to improve their lifes... That or shagging some football/showbusiness/political "elite" and then sell the story to a tabloid an dmaking a few bucks, get slashed by the audience, buy a flat in some shihole in Spain, get a boob job and open to more opportunities in life as such as shagging another Z-list celebrity and have the story sold by either a "best" friend or even their mother.
Seriously we are in a developped country. One of the G7. The elite of the western world. Meaning basic requirements in terms of political stability and level of health and education are accessible to most. These criterias once met should guarantee that the generation in age to be starting or involved in the professional life should be given enough choices to be performing for themselves and the elders in that society. They should see rewards in progressing in their development and should be driven to make a living and at the same time have faith in the idea of being able to always get more out of their consistent efforts not only for themselves and family but also for the community and society they live into.
I don't think it is the case at the moment and feel deeply concerned about it. I see BB and he fact it is still going as a failure for the government of this country to offer mainstream good free education and real opportunities and to anyone. Furthermore the success of BB shows that there is an audience of disillusioned people not involved enough to have the time to watch a very uninteresting statement of their own failure and lost faith in anything worthwhile.
How sad...

3. I understood throught the comments that at least 2 of the contestants are parents of young children.
How shocking is this? How questionable? Questionable more for the people who choose the contestants than the contestants themselves!!! A young child that you are raising on your own (that is what I thought you could understand from the descriptions last night) and you leave them to get into over-exposition and great chances of being slagged off publicly for anything you will be dpoing during the show or whatever you did before and will be getting out of the trashcans of your past and dissected in the media and then out there for ever, that you marry a footballer a rockstar or that you have to go back to where you started but with such a diminished credidibility that your potential is reduced to ever be at lowest payroll you ever thought existed?! Come on! Child services should be on the case for god's sake! And mediatic ethical authorities should be involved in questioning the ethos of the producers of BB. Am I the only one shocked?! Please share your thoughts!

4. As I explained I haven't been watching BB so far but I have read and heard about what has happened before in it. It is usually not anything anything anyone would be proud to be told about them...
Anytime BB is mentioned it is rather about scandalous and or embarrassing facts. I would imagine that anyone applying to get in there has more information that me and has been watching the programme more than me. I would think that they are also very much aware of what happend to any of the previous contestants. You have more chances to be ridiculed than to ever make anything out of it. Why would you ever take that risk? Then how would they want to be involved?! I don't get it!

5. Who watches BB? Seriously? Who could possibly be interested in watching a buch of loosers (see point number 2) every day and minute for weeks? I do not comprehend this... The few bits I have seen before were moments of strong boredom and stupidity that weren't even funny oir entertaining... Rather ugly and pathetic. Mostly the image of anything you would never want to be any close!
But someone must be watching or the programme wouldn't be on anymore, right? But who then? complete enigma to me. Please help here and give me some info about the audience and if you are watching explain why. I might be completely off the case and unable to get the point and would love to get some valuable input.

6. Who the f**k are the BB contestants? Oh my god! Nothing like anyone I know and god knows my entourage is quite varied... But these persons are just like caricatures! They don't seem real to me. Are they? do they qualify in any way as a truthful sample of the UK? Again please help!

7. "Big Brother" originally is a figure of an overly-controlling-surveilling and -heavyly- repressional system in Orwell's "1984". Nothing attractive about it, all the contrary.
Though the idea of a TV show showcasing the experiment of putting together a sample of the society of the country in which it is broadcasted and watch their living together, organising themselves in a somehow different evironment to which they are used to would be interesting to me. An experiment of this kind, if carried in a scientific way (will get there in a second), would be, according to me, very interesting to watch and could even lead to raise people's awareness, on top of the entertaining potential. Let me now explain what I mean about scientific and how the same concept could become less questionable to me and even become potentially a source of learning. Here would be my criteria for a watchable BB:
a) a real sample of the population. We are talking mixed gender, sexual preferences and age, we are talking diverse socio-professional classes, we are talking diversity in terms of ethnicity, alternative values, religions, political preferences and perspectives.
b) this sample of population would have to face real life situations (not silly challenges) and would have enough freedom to act to actually decide themselves for their own ways of survival. It would be really interesting to see a sample of society being offered the possibility to create a different society than the one they experience in "real" life and organise themselves in order to go through the experiment of seclusion and limited access to the outside.
c) I would want to watch a programme that would be showing debates about anything we are facing as a community/society by people who can use their own experience to discuss those topics and bring some light on what could be very diverse perspectives and therefore offer what most of us - in the audience - might not be exposed to.
These debates would be interesting even more if they could be followed up (as they would be genuine and representative of the population in the UK) by mayors or PMs or anyone in charge politically. These debates could be the base for either clarifying and or raising more interest in many of the the topics at stake at the moment in the country.

8. I actually don't have a point 8. Just wanted to reming you that I was into those sections to express my amazement at the new series of BB starting, again... before I got to my conclusion. Conclusion just here below! You've got so far? You should carry on because there is not much til the end (I promise!).

I won't be watching BB 2008. Shouldn't be a surprise to you if you read he whole thing til here (bless you). If you are in shock at this point, really you should be checking into any kind of rehab facility or get a job in the next "Cuckoo's nest" musical (and if you really thought there was such musical around you should call NOW for an ambulance). If not so carry on reading (still doesn't mean that that you are mentally fit - let's admit that you reading me til this word is definitely not getting you points in a sanity test...).
So, let's get it together again: I won't be watching BB2008. Easy for me as I don't have a TV you would say. Still even so. I am appalled by the way the concept is being used and also by the contestants that have been selected in the previous versions but specially those I have seen getting "inside" last night.

Come on! Yes they might be components of the UK. yes they might be real and truthful to what they are or have been so far... But to me they are a special sample of what is not really what I am experiencing every day or what surrounds me. I agreee that we al live in microcosms that give an image of what is very much like ourserves only. I might only be socialising with people in my age and professional register, similar education level and earning but I am living in this world, namely London and I meet therefore many different people and also get to socialise with people who are not exactly like me. Still I don't think that anyone around me would include in their social circle the whole cast of BB 2008. That is why I call it a fake, stupid, meaningless programme.
Still I would be happy to change my mind of I was to be hearing about anyone being able to prove that the BB sample is actually somethong he or she believes to be, not the "girl next door" but, the "environment next door".

I am really and sincerely waiting for you to prove me wrong. If not I will keep on thinking that I am right about it all ankd that I know it all.
This is your opportunity, please don't miss it or I might get into politics.......