Every night of the week, millions of Australians tuck in to some reality TV.
Lego Masters and Married at First Sight both average more than 1 million viewers per episode. Old classics like The Block, MasterChef, Farmer Wants A Wife and The Bachelor/ette are still going strong with three or four episodes a week. And those are just the free-to-air options.
Netflix Originals like Queer Eye and The Circle are regularly trending in Australia, and Stan has seen enough local love for Drag Race that it invested in an all-Aussie production.
The ratings don't lie. But it seems like people do: when the Australia Talks National Survey asked 60,000 people about their viewing habits in March 2021, reality TV fans were nowhere to be found…
What the stats say
Just 2 per cent of Australians say they watch reality TV more often than any other genre.
The genre they say they watch the most? News (15 per cent).
This was followed closely by documentary (13 per cent) and comedy/drama (13 per cent). Meanwhile, reality TV ranked less popular than action (5 per cent) and miniseries (4 per cent).
It's an odd result when you consider that four of the 10 top-rating shows of 2020 were reality TV. But Dr Lauren Rosewarne, an academic and author who specialises in pop culture, doesn't find it too surprising.
"If you say most of your viewing is reality TV, you know you'll be judged," she says. "Whereas if you say most of your viewing is 'news and documentaries', you're saying 'I'm primarily a well-educated person who just dabbles in reality TV'."
Even in anonymous surveys, she notes, people feel compelled to paint themselves in a 'good' light. It's a phenomenon that comes up a lot in social science research.
"People often internalise ideas of what's a 'good' person, what's an 'intelligent' person, and respond accordingly rather than be completely honest."
But, if that's the case, why have we internalised the idea that watching reality TV makes you 'bad' or 'dumb'? And why are we all obsessed with it anyway?
Guilty pleasures
"Reality TV is widely considered 'junk'," Dr Rosewarne says. "That idea comes from loads of things: low production values, gossipy content, high-level drama, fakeness, superficiality.
"There's no 'prestige' to it … But I think a big component of this links to gender.
"Reality TV is disproportionately consumed by women, and things that women like are usually culturally devalued."
It's a widely noted phenomenon — from pop music to romance novels.
Tahlia Pritchard, an editor and entertainment journalist who's covered reality TV for the past six years, is used to these kinds of judgments. And she agrees there's often a gendered element to the stigma.
"When I mention to people I cover reality TV, they're always ready to poke fun at it or make you feel small for that being your interest or your job," she says.
But it's an entirely different story when MAFS hits the air.
"When the episodes of the latest season were on, my Instagram DMs were blowing up. It was a lot of het[erosexual] men — friends, readers, old Tinder dates — messaging me and professing their love for it.
"I don't think these people go out in their usual social circles and admit to it. They're not going to a footy game and going 'did you catch MAFS last night?'"
In fact, a recent survey of 1,000 Australians found that many people keep their reality TV habits to themselves. The survey found that 66 per cent of people watch reality TV, and 34 per cent of that group lie about it to their partner, friends or family.
ABC Everyday put a callout in a few private Facebook groups dedicated to Australian reality shows, to see just how open people are about their viewing habits.
"I don't share it with anyone unless they mention it first," one MAFS fan replied. "People are so judgy."
A 55-year-old man later sent us an email raving about the show's addictive drama. "I certainly don't share [this] with my buddies, for obvious reasons," he added.
Owning your love for reality TV
So, what would it take for us to shake off this sense of shame?
After all, reality TV can be quite a wholesome thing. Dr Rosewarne points out that it's one of the very few opportunities we have to watch things collectively these days.
"There's the feeling that everyone's doing it at the same time and you can connect on social media," she says.
"Outside of sport, reality TV is pretty much the only genre that has this."
It can also be comforting in times of great stress. It's a low-stakes and predictable kind of entertainment that you can half-watch while cooking dinner or scrolling on your phone, she says.
"There's only so much Sopranos and Handmaid's Tale you can watch before you need something else."
Ms Pritchard notes that dating shows often get a lot more judgment — they're seen as vacuous or fake, not as 'worthwhile' as talent-based and vaguely educational content like MasterChef or The Block.
But what judgmental people miss is that viewers aren't watching The Bachelor and MAFS passively: dissecting the 'badness' is part of the fun.
"[Fan culture] is often about poking fun at the show, and the various tropes and storylines that are being fed to us," Ms Pritchard says.
And, after all these years covering reality TV, she no longer cares about anyone's judgements.
"We all just want to unwind at the end of the day. We're living in this chaotic world where we don't know what's coming at us next, and if the worst thing in the world is sitting back with a glass of wine and watching The Bachelor, then sue me."
The Australia Talks National Survey asked 60,000 Australians about their lives and what keeps them up at night. Use our interactive tool to see the results and how your answers compare.
On iview, watch the Australia Talks TV special, as hosts Annabel Crabb and Nazeem Hussain take you through the key findings and explore the survey with some of Australia's best-loved celebrities.
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