Source: news.independent.co.uk
The reality of television: how Big Brother ruined my life
As Endemol begins its annual trawl for fresh volunteers, John Walsh meets Dean O'Loughlin (the 'boring one' from BB2) and hears a cautionary tale of dumbing down, damaged relationships and disillusionment
07 February 2004
Roll up, roll up! Step this way for the chance to be incarcerated for nine weeks with a gang of sociopathic exhibitionists under the pitiless eyes of 24-hour closed-circuit TV cameras, filming your every furtive move, your filthy habits, your shocking temper and wayward mood swings, and your failure to interest any of the opposite sex in your pasty charms.
Yes, Big Brother is back. Endemol, the company behind the world's most famous reality TV show, are holding auditions to find the BB Class of 2004. In a break with previous years, when aspiring housemates were selected on the strength of videotaped CVs, the selection board is holding open auditions in Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, Cardiff, Birmingham, Belfast and London, beginning next Saturday. The streets will be crammed with thousands of strenuously exuberant, Type-A personalities and zany individualists. "Producers," say Endemol, "hope the new system will allow them to see more people, and a wider cross-section of the public, than ever before."
When the lucky 12 are chosen, though, just how lucky will they be? The evidence of several former housemates suggests that the two months of incarceration may not be a time of unalloyed bliss, and its aftermath may have damaging psychological effects.
We talked to Dean O'Loughlin, one of the stars of Big Brother 2, for ever lodged in the national memory as the handsome, mildly disgusted-looking chap who strummed a guitar and looked down on the less philosophically gifted of his co-prisoners. Mr O'Loughlin, 39, is from Halesowen in the West Midlands. He left school at 16 and started a band called Lost Cause. He has been involved in various business enterprises, marketing his inventions, and is married.
How did you feel in the days following your emergence from the 'Big Brother' house?
I came out on the same day as Brian [Dowling, the eventual winner] and Helen [Adams] but because I came third, I sort of slipped away fairly unnoticed. That was good for me because the whole instant fame did my head in. The shock of it was quite intense. Being recognised everywhere you go, not being able to have a drink without being bothered and asked questions and harassed generally, that, for me, was unusual and hard to deal with. My initial reaction was wanting to go away and live in New York, to get away from it all.
Everyone remembers you playing the guitar incessantly in the 'Big Brother' house. Did you get snapped up by a record company?
I didn't really think the TV show would launch my music career into the stratosphere but it surprised me to find it did the complete opposite. Suddenly I was seen as a bit of a joke, as a reality TV star trying to have a musical career. I mean, I've been in a band since I was 16, I had a deal with A&M records, we've had albums. I've been trying to have a musical career for 20 years! But Big Brother killed it stone dead. Yes, I had some strange approaches from record companies who basically wanted to ride the reality TV bandwagon. They wanted me to record some dreadful cover versions, cheesy stuff I was never going to do. So it more or less put an end to my career.
When you became a 'Big Brother' contestant, you were running an internet company. Was it easy to get back to ordinary business life afterwards?
No, to be honest, it wasn't. When you come out, you're presented with so many business opportunities that you have never considered before - D'you want to work in TV? D'you want to work in radio? These things bombard you until you lose your focus. The things you were aiming at, which seemed so straight and true before, suddenly become blurred.
You don't know where you're going, you're distracted, and your options seem negative - if you go back to your old job, you'll be thought a failure; if you try to pursue a career in the media, you're a wannabe. You really can't win.
Did you feel you'd become a natural TV performer? Did you feel like a TV star?
It's very strange. They film you for nine weeks, and you've been very "natural" in front of the camera? Why? Because, after a while, you don't realise the camera's there, and that's why you're so natural. When you come out, they thrust a camera in your face, you get a bit embarrassed and you feel, "Oh God, I'm being filmed", just like anyone would. It's disconcerting, and it's quite confusing for the people at home because they expect you to be able to drop instantly into this talking head they've been watching for nine weeks.
Remind us of how you fitted in among the contestants. You came across as a little solitary and detached ...
I was one of the few people in the house who could do joined-up thinking. It shocked me to find that it was very much a handicap to have any sort of intellect in there. It was actually frowned on to be clever or thoughtful or to know anything. There was a famous argument one day when I said I was pretty disgusted that only two people in the house knew who the first man to walk on the moon was. I was outraged, I said, "You people, what do you do with your lives?" The strange thing for me was the backlash I got from the tabloid press. They said things like, "Oh, he thinks he's clever", and "Dean, the self-appointed house intellectual". I was called a pseudo-intellectual because I knew who the first man to walk on the moon was. I thought, Jesus, what kind of country are we living in here?
Why does nobody ever seem to talk about culture or books or movies or football?
The reality is, we did have those type of conversations. But when it's edited down, the people who run the show don't want conversations about existentialism, because they know it isn't going to go down well with the audience members who buy The Sun and just want to know the size of so-and-so's tits. Everything gets pared down to a ghastly common denominator. You really are penalised for having any kind of intellectual conversation or having any intelligent format of discussion, it just doesn't work at all.
You married your girlfriend Vanessa a few months after leaving the house. Did your relationship suffer because of 'Big Brother'?
It was a lot harder for her than it was for me. In retrospect, if I'd known how bad it would be for her, I wouldn't have done it. Absolutely not. You can quite happily put yourself through misery but you'd never put wife or your loved ones through it. You just don't realise it's much more difficult for partners, who sit at home and watch the country having opinions about their loved ones, and can't do anything about it.
She found the newspapers hurtful? Or the response of the general public?
She said: "How would you feel if I was on TV, and articles were coming out in the paper saying I was really boring?" I said, "I'd be on the train to Euston trying to find the guy who wrote it, to give him a slap." But it would hurt me a lot. I was given the "boring" tag and that was fine, I was OK about it. But for her to have to put up with standing in a supermarket queue, listening to people saying "Oh, Dean's this" and "Oh, Dean's that ..." She went through a lot.
When you were reunited, was there friction between you?
The first 10 minutes were a bit odd. But we're a very tight couple and once we were back in the hotel room, and could touch base, everything was OK again. There was lot of resentment about what I'd put her through. And, when we're out together, she still has to deal with it. People recognise me and suddenly I'm someone and she's less than no one, just this person on my arm. No one's talking to her. No one's shaking her hand. It really upsets the balance of your relationship, when you're no longer equal parts - in other people's eyes, that is. It means that every time you go out to a restaurant or for a drink, you're faced with the possibility of this thing rearing its head.
What was the reaction from your family and friends?
I'm from a part of Birmingham that had a mining industry. It was great for me, going back there, because immediately your feet are nailed back to the soil, and you're constantly having the mickey ripped out of you. There's just no way you can be too big for your boots back in Halesowen. It was very, very refreshing. I did some work on local radio, which was great for me because I felt I'd been misconstrued in the house. Brummies are quite miserable - Tony Hancock was a Brummie - we're miserable but we celebrate our miserableness, and joke about it all the time. But on Big Brother, that was perceived as genuine grumpiness. So, on local radio, I could be myself and do my black humour and people could see where I was coming from. It was very much a homecoming for me.
How soon were you able to start working again and having a relatively normal life after you left the 'Big Brother' house?
What's weird is that you spend all the time in the house looking forward to getting back to your normal life - only to discover that your normal life isn't there any more. Once I'd been through the Big Brother house, that old life - Dean's life - had gone. There's a completely different life you have to adapt to, and make your new "normal life". You're still being recognised in the street. People will come up and chat when you're in the restaurant and that's "new" normal. You adapt to it.
The reality of television: how Big Brother ruined my life
As Endemol begins its annual trawl for fresh volunteers, John Walsh meets Dean O'Loughlin (the 'boring one' from BB2) and hears a cautionary tale of dumbing down, damaged relationships and disillusionment
07 February 2004
Roll up, roll up! Step this way for the chance to be incarcerated for nine weeks with a gang of sociopathic exhibitionists under the pitiless eyes of 24-hour closed-circuit TV cameras, filming your every furtive move, your filthy habits, your shocking temper and wayward mood swings, and your failure to interest any of the opposite sex in your pasty charms.
Yes, Big Brother is back. Endemol, the company behind the world's most famous reality TV show, are holding auditions to find the BB Class of 2004. In a break with previous years, when aspiring housemates were selected on the strength of videotaped CVs, the selection board is holding open auditions in Glasgow, Manchester, Newcastle, Cardiff, Birmingham, Belfast and London, beginning next Saturday. The streets will be crammed with thousands of strenuously exuberant, Type-A personalities and zany individualists. "Producers," say Endemol, "hope the new system will allow them to see more people, and a wider cross-section of the public, than ever before."
When the lucky 12 are chosen, though, just how lucky will they be? The evidence of several former housemates suggests that the two months of incarceration may not be a time of unalloyed bliss, and its aftermath may have damaging psychological effects.
We talked to Dean O'Loughlin, one of the stars of Big Brother 2, for ever lodged in the national memory as the handsome, mildly disgusted-looking chap who strummed a guitar and looked down on the less philosophically gifted of his co-prisoners. Mr O'Loughlin, 39, is from Halesowen in the West Midlands. He left school at 16 and started a band called Lost Cause. He has been involved in various business enterprises, marketing his inventions, and is married.
How did you feel in the days following your emergence from the 'Big Brother' house?
I came out on the same day as Brian [Dowling, the eventual winner] and Helen [Adams] but because I came third, I sort of slipped away fairly unnoticed. That was good for me because the whole instant fame did my head in. The shock of it was quite intense. Being recognised everywhere you go, not being able to have a drink without being bothered and asked questions and harassed generally, that, for me, was unusual and hard to deal with. My initial reaction was wanting to go away and live in New York, to get away from it all.
Everyone remembers you playing the guitar incessantly in the 'Big Brother' house. Did you get snapped up by a record company?
I didn't really think the TV show would launch my music career into the stratosphere but it surprised me to find it did the complete opposite. Suddenly I was seen as a bit of a joke, as a reality TV star trying to have a musical career. I mean, I've been in a band since I was 16, I had a deal with A&M records, we've had albums. I've been trying to have a musical career for 20 years! But Big Brother killed it stone dead. Yes, I had some strange approaches from record companies who basically wanted to ride the reality TV bandwagon. They wanted me to record some dreadful cover versions, cheesy stuff I was never going to do. So it more or less put an end to my career.
When you became a 'Big Brother' contestant, you were running an internet company. Was it easy to get back to ordinary business life afterwards?
No, to be honest, it wasn't. When you come out, you're presented with so many business opportunities that you have never considered before - D'you want to work in TV? D'you want to work in radio? These things bombard you until you lose your focus. The things you were aiming at, which seemed so straight and true before, suddenly become blurred.
You don't know where you're going, you're distracted, and your options seem negative - if you go back to your old job, you'll be thought a failure; if you try to pursue a career in the media, you're a wannabe. You really can't win.
Did you feel you'd become a natural TV performer? Did you feel like a TV star?
It's very strange. They film you for nine weeks, and you've been very "natural" in front of the camera? Why? Because, after a while, you don't realise the camera's there, and that's why you're so natural. When you come out, they thrust a camera in your face, you get a bit embarrassed and you feel, "Oh God, I'm being filmed", just like anyone would. It's disconcerting, and it's quite confusing for the people at home because they expect you to be able to drop instantly into this talking head they've been watching for nine weeks.
Remind us of how you fitted in among the contestants. You came across as a little solitary and detached ...
I was one of the few people in the house who could do joined-up thinking. It shocked me to find that it was very much a handicap to have any sort of intellect in there. It was actually frowned on to be clever or thoughtful or to know anything. There was a famous argument one day when I said I was pretty disgusted that only two people in the house knew who the first man to walk on the moon was. I was outraged, I said, "You people, what do you do with your lives?" The strange thing for me was the backlash I got from the tabloid press. They said things like, "Oh, he thinks he's clever", and "Dean, the self-appointed house intellectual". I was called a pseudo-intellectual because I knew who the first man to walk on the moon was. I thought, Jesus, what kind of country are we living in here?
Why does nobody ever seem to talk about culture or books or movies or football?
The reality is, we did have those type of conversations. But when it's edited down, the people who run the show don't want conversations about existentialism, because they know it isn't going to go down well with the audience members who buy The Sun and just want to know the size of so-and-so's tits. Everything gets pared down to a ghastly common denominator. You really are penalised for having any kind of intellectual conversation or having any intelligent format of discussion, it just doesn't work at all.
You married your girlfriend Vanessa a few months after leaving the house. Did your relationship suffer because of 'Big Brother'?
It was a lot harder for her than it was for me. In retrospect, if I'd known how bad it would be for her, I wouldn't have done it. Absolutely not. You can quite happily put yourself through misery but you'd never put wife or your loved ones through it. You just don't realise it's much more difficult for partners, who sit at home and watch the country having opinions about their loved ones, and can't do anything about it.
She found the newspapers hurtful? Or the response of the general public?
She said: "How would you feel if I was on TV, and articles were coming out in the paper saying I was really boring?" I said, "I'd be on the train to Euston trying to find the guy who wrote it, to give him a slap." But it would hurt me a lot. I was given the "boring" tag and that was fine, I was OK about it. But for her to have to put up with standing in a supermarket queue, listening to people saying "Oh, Dean's this" and "Oh, Dean's that ..." She went through a lot.
When you were reunited, was there friction between you?
The first 10 minutes were a bit odd. But we're a very tight couple and once we were back in the hotel room, and could touch base, everything was OK again. There was lot of resentment about what I'd put her through. And, when we're out together, she still has to deal with it. People recognise me and suddenly I'm someone and she's less than no one, just this person on my arm. No one's talking to her. No one's shaking her hand. It really upsets the balance of your relationship, when you're no longer equal parts - in other people's eyes, that is. It means that every time you go out to a restaurant or for a drink, you're faced with the possibility of this thing rearing its head.
What was the reaction from your family and friends?
I'm from a part of Birmingham that had a mining industry. It was great for me, going back there, because immediately your feet are nailed back to the soil, and you're constantly having the mickey ripped out of you. There's just no way you can be too big for your boots back in Halesowen. It was very, very refreshing. I did some work on local radio, which was great for me because I felt I'd been misconstrued in the house. Brummies are quite miserable - Tony Hancock was a Brummie - we're miserable but we celebrate our miserableness, and joke about it all the time. But on Big Brother, that was perceived as genuine grumpiness. So, on local radio, I could be myself and do my black humour and people could see where I was coming from. It was very much a homecoming for me.
How soon were you able to start working again and having a relatively normal life after you left the 'Big Brother' house?
What's weird is that you spend all the time in the house looking forward to getting back to your normal life - only to discover that your normal life isn't there any more. Once I'd been through the Big Brother house, that old life - Dean's life - had gone. There's a completely different life you have to adapt to, and make your new "normal life". You're still being recognised in the street. People will come up and chat when you're in the restaurant and that's "new" normal. You adapt to it.
But Jon still made the cut for BB4, so there is hope. I'll be really, really happy if they can get someone this year with just a modicum of being a normal person.
Ah well, not too long to wait now.
