North American TV programming is obnoxious

I have just returned to Japan after staying in Canada for a week to attend a good friend's wedding and doing some relaxing at home. While at home, I had plenty of spare time that I decided to watch some TV to see what kind of programs there are since I haven't seen much North American programming in a long time. What I did manage to see was rather disappointing.

The first thing about North American TV programming, after living in Japan without a TV for 4 years, was that the characters on most programs were obnoxious, petty and incredibly loud mouthed. I also think that compared to last the last time I was home, I also found that people in general tended to be far more loud mouthed. But first, I should illustrate this with a few examples.

Reality TV

I think Reality TV is probably one of the worst culprits when it comes to obnoxiousness, and this is a result of the design of TV program itself-- the program is based around the drama and conflict between characters, if there was none, there'd really be no content.

I saw a program called I want to work for Diddy while I was back; it was basically was a rip off of Donald Trumps "Apprentice," where the contestants were competing to be the main assistant to Puff Daddy, a rapper. Like the Apprentice, the show was about focusing on the conflict between the contestants, for example how they would argue against each other about who didn't do their job, who did their job the best and etc. But the things they would argue about were so incredibly petty, things such as who was working properly at some event, about how they didn't agree about the kind of food they would order and so on.

The whole show was like taking an ordinary uneventful grocery shopping event and turning it into a drama over 2 people arguing apples vs oranges and then having some kind meltdown occur because they couldn't agree. It's as ludicrous as that.

I could even talk about another show called Say yes to the Dress, which is a bridal TV reality show where brides bring their family and friends to help them out to pick a wedding dress. The portion of the episode I watched had a picky and somewhat demanding bride trying to choose a dress with the husband and and their respective families. The whole show would basically be a semi-drama about the bride trying to pick a dress that would appease herself and the family. The show would go on about where some people didn't like how bride's but stuck out in one dress or the bride not liking the amount of cleavage showing in another dress or whatever, but the thing that bothered me the most about this show was how they some how they turned the act of simply choosing a wedding dress into some drama.

Our society has become more obnoxious

As a result of the abundance of TV programs like these increasing over the years, I personally feel that our society is becoming more and more obnoxious and judgemental from the conversations I've overheard while being back home.

I'd be hearing conversations like how some person might not like Indian food and then make sweeping disapproval about "how could they like such spicy and pungent spices" or how something arbitrary sounding is better than some other arbitrary thing. A mode of thought like this breeds contention and conflict instead of acceptance and understanding.

Often I find myself with having a hard time relating to such people because I simply do not have an interest in participating in an intense, inconsequential discussion. Actually, when involved in such discussions, I usually have very little to say.

When is comes to an argument about the superiority of oranges versus apples, I would much rather say that I like apples and don't really mind at all which fruit you like best, because I would much rather be doing something enjoyable/important instead.