• ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Same with with Storage Wars. Producers bought storage lockers and filled them with expensive antiques and then had fake bidding competitions on their own lockers.

      • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Really? That sounds really shifty. It’s one thing to only show the big hits and not the 100 lockers it took to find a big hit, but to just straight up fake it goes beyond reality TV. At that point it’s just a fake sitcom, not reality TV.

        • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Thats always been their method. The “Real world” would intentionally cast the most insane people to live together, then goad them to fight or fuck.

          Literally been rigging the “reality” since day 1.

          • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Right, but that’s still capturing the responses of insane people who have been goaded. It would quite different for the director to walk into a room of calm people and say “Johnny, punch Jose in the face!”.

            • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              When the prompt is “Johny, dont you want to punch Jose in the face?!” from the director, there isn’t really a difference.

              “Won’t anyone rid me of this meddlesome priest” is just “someone kill this guy” with extra steps.

        • meseek #2982@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          I mean think about it. You could probably do 3 lockers a week for a year and not find anything valuable. Most people don’t keep Jackson Pollock paintings in some rundown storage locker.

          • SokathHisEyesOpen@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Idk, it seems plausible to me. Why would anyone pay hundreds of dollars per month to store junk? Then they die, or end up in jail, or whatever, and next of kin doesn’t know about the locker, and bammo! You just bought a dirt bike for $300! I think it probably was an okay way to spend a weekend before the shows led to everyone going to the auctions and driving the prices of a locker up. But you really do need an eBay store, or a physical thrift store, because it’s not easy to sell 20 old toaster ovens, and a used suit.

            • Spellinbee@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Some people are just really weird, I used to work for a real estate company that has really big storage buildings for rent, they’re designed for like storing rvs in the off season. Rent was something like 1000 bucks a month. One guy rented 3 of those lockers year round literally just to store Santas. Like life size Santa statutes and shit. Dude paid 3k a month for that.

          • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Had a falling out with a roommate and he decided to dump my stuff in a storage locker. Time I had hunted it down it had already been raided. The storage locker people told me all those shows changed everything for them.

        • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Problem is that the “big hit” lockers are months to years apart in reality. That makes for difficult tv show production when it’s a bunch of just barely profitable lockers and then a hit once a year for good money. That doesn’t make exciting television

      • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        They used to have real biddings and just throw in fake items for excitement (like antique shows) but people were starting to recognize the characters

        Or that’s how the story goes

      • Tyfud@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        Agreed with one exception: Alone.

        That’s a great show, even if it’s a reality TV show. Can’t script that shit.

      • TAG@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        My wife and I enjoy shows like House Hunters occasionally. We like watching house tours plus they discussed the pros and cons of each home and how they would renovate or remodel the home. Plus, you get to see one of the houses redecorated (even if it was just staging).

        Sure, the buyers and agent might be actors, but the houses are almost certainly real (it seems much cheaper to just rent and stage a couple of houses to film in than to build multiple rooms just to get 10 minutes of footage).

        Also, reality shows have inspired some amazing progress in documentary editing. I don’t think shows like Last Chance U and Drive to Survive would have been half as good without it (even if they are not educational or totally accurate).