I'm a hopeful masochist. I keep hoping they'll have more of the 'people just being people' element and less of the bear-baiting/roman coliseum stuff and yet I know rationally this isn't going to happen.

The show does challenge me though. It challenges me to observe my thoughts and question my judgement. I've learned a lot about myself watching Big Brother over the years.

I actually find the forum more depressing than the show itself tbh, especially if it's an indicator of what many humans are like deep down, under the cover of anonymity. That said, there are many many posters who don't behave like rabid hatemongers and whose thoughts or personalities I enjoy, even if I don't agree with them.

The frequency, timing and satiation threshold of your sexual preferences is tmi, dear planets.

There's always someone that has to bring the tone of the forum down Eva.......

I'd go one further and say the producers now deliberately toy with viewers too. I don't know if they hold viewers in contempt (although they might), but they do seem to be choosing more and more decisions that they KNOW will cause uproar.

We've known for years they stay on top of twitter and forum feedback, because a lot of the footage or tasks will play to whatever the prevailing opinion is on HM X. So by the same token, they will surely know what pisses their audiences off....things like HMs arbitrarily chosen for secret rooms, passes to the final, eviction immunity for the most controversial HM, too much external feedback given to HMs, rescinded immunity for another favourite HM, etc.

Everything they do is contrived for maximum controversy. And I don't think they'll pull back until something goes horribly wrong and they're found liable. Since race-gate, they over-react to the slightest whisper of a 'race issue'. So they're quite prepared to be tough when there's a risk to THEM. But it'll take something like an actual fight with proper violence and not just some shouting, spitting or throwing tables around before they stop trying to wind the HMs up. And I'm sure it will happen eventually.

i have to agree with everything you say here Scarlet, especially the final paragraph.

For HMs ? - if yes, then is there a part of us which enjoys watching others in pain?

I know that consciously I hate seeing pain in others. So now wonder is there a subconscious primal need still needing to be fulfilled which C/ BB fulfills in me?

*dances round thread in hot pants and feather boa eating fudge*

I mentioned a few distinct groups earlier, if you are not in the "gets off on aggression and being mean" group did either of the others ring a bell?
or
if it isn't filling our need to visit a modern day coliseum is it the modern day paying to watch the inmates at bedlam?

Ohh err Nice one Eva. Now I am on the hook.

I think because rejection is part of life. It happens to most of us at some level on a daily basis. It need not be having a loved one show you the door and can be as inconsequential as not being heard when trying to make a point in a meeting. Many things in daily life cause us pain and are in a sense rejections and mostly we handle them. Perhaps it is how we handle them that is the interesting part.

And of course along side rejection is also acceptance and in theory the BB game in theory more of that than rejection.

I do have a funny feeling that at some point in this thread I am going to have to stand up and say "Hi my name is An and I am a sadist"

I think with every form of cultural 'spectatorship', there's an element of working stuff through at a deep, even unconscious psychological level. Why do I enjoy horror films when they make me feel afraid? Why do I enjoy sad films when they make me cry and can stay with me for hours afterwards?

Maybe it's simply that we need to feel? That we need to identify or 'disidentify' with others. That it makes us feel reassured or better about ourselves or just human?

in my case I think it's a deep seated need to be proved right about good people overcoming deception and deceitful people. I really hate getting sucked into the drama but once I'm in there's no holding back.

Told ya!......

I am digging through my mental files (having blown off two decades of dust) looking for an anthropological explanation to this.

I can't think of any evolutionary advantage to witnessing and enjoying pain per se. The only thing I can come up with is that it might perform some beneficial effect in terms of learning.

I wonder if it simply that pain is simply an inevitable consequences of other activities that do have evolutionary advantage and therefore as a species we learn to tolerate them

Catharsis? A half baked thought for now but I am wondering where this fits in, if indeed it does.

what about tribal instinct?
every single series cbb/bb descends into two (sometimes more there's usually some outcasts the main groups don't want) distinct tribes and every series the forum members picks which of the tribes they want to join.
Let battle commence.
every single series.

Catharsis, yep that's the word I was reaching for.

In theories of spectatorship, apparently what we do is find a person/s to identify with (usually the lead), live vicariously through their story and experience catharsis. And it doesn't even need to be someone 'like us'...young males, for example, were surveyed for one spectatorship study and had no problem 'becoming' Ripley in Aliens.

And maybe there's also an element of reassurance for BB viewers. We get to look down our nose at HMs and say "thank god I'M not like that", which is why I said I find BB challenging...because often when I have that thought, I then have the sobering realisation that "actually, I AM like that, or I probably would be in that house".

Many BB fans are (seems to be prominent in the reality show I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here)...baying for blood, relishing watching someone suffering.

Not me...I'm all about the fun and watching how interactions develop.

It's a given, i.e. obvious but Perez has observed that BB viewers are 'sadistic mother****ers'

Really good point, yes. I totally agree.

I didn't feel any kind of tribalism before I posted on DS back when I was just watching the show, but I definitely feel the 'pull' of it when things get really hairy on here.

What you've said gets to the core of human nature: the need to 'in group' and 'out group' as a way of defining who we are and our place in the world, our 'people'.

You only need to read the threads on here the night after an eviction to know there's some sadistic satisfaction in viewers. It's like watching sharks thrashing over a piece of bait.

And then the next morning...calmer waters with some gentle waves (mostly).

See you can be quite sensible when you try

Yes indeed we do tend to see tribes. In theory that should be about competing for resources. So now I am asking myself what are the resources in BB terms, air time? votes? Not attracting noms so the absence of votes which I guess being part of a tribe can engineer?

I would just like to say that I am impressed by the level of debate on this thread. Many of the posts are thought provoking and above the crass standard of so many threads here. Well done!

Staying focused on your choice to watch CBB as an antidote to your highly focused work. Why does CBB fulfill this need as opposed to other shows that are on the TV at that moment in time?

What aspects of your highly focused work state are being neutralised by what aspects of CBB ?

Btw. Re football - I've always linked that with the primal need to be in the strongest hunting tribe. Yep, the football being the metaphorical dinosaur !

In psychological rather than evolutionary/anthropological terms, tribalism is more about the 'self' as well as the social self. We're social animals and our self-concept is defined mostly in relation to others, e.g. there can be no 'fat' without a thin, no 'friendly' without an 'unfriendly'.

Edit: and no 'me' without a 'you'.

Oh God me too. And alarmingly I often see a lot of myself in the characters this audience (DS BB) despise. This time I see much of Nadia in myself.