pongza - yeah - I suppose both in TV and in gaming it's a way of getting attention (advertising oneself). In the school of thought where "All publicity is good publicity as long as they spell your name right." w-bird - the "reality television" craze is incredibly based on cruelty and, ironically, nothing like reality. With a few notable exceptions it seems that what people really want is to watch people suffer. Cokie - that's a really interesting point. I remember in an online gaming environment a long time ago there was a guy who started ripping on some other player - just insulting. they other player eventually left and the attacker gloated to what seemed like the cheers of his friends. Two minutes later a similar named character came back and the guy started saying "What are you doing insulting my 8 year old brother? He's 8 years old!" Of course, the attacker was defensive, but I thought it was probably a good paradigm shift for the more reasonable minded of the pack. And I do think it's pack mentality. RenRen - kids being cruel - most learned behavior I think depending on the age. Kids are almost always pure sounding boards of their environment. iggypuffygirl - As a pacifist, I used to be absolutely against violence in media. Over time I've come to see it IF WELL DONE in a more metaphorical sense. Our stories have monsters and beasts and adventures. I think usually its done with no artistry though and is just a rip off of other instances. The insulting... I don't see the metaphor. Yes_Tom - I have seen historical shows and the insults have been there for a longtime - it's just in new media it seemed REQUIRED. YOU MUST BE OFFENSIVE if you want to get your show "noticed." And you're probably right - the success of any instance of it will spawn imitators. But for television even if you watch shows from the 70's you'll notice that many of the jokes are laughing at someone's character types. For that matter, watch a vegas comedy routine from the 50's - same stuff. Not quite as incessant - but in some ways it's almost more spooky.

What you are describing reminds me of "reality TV' in an instance..it thrives off emotional cruelty...packs everyone in a small tight space and see what the happens....i always wonder why people go for that type of show .. over and over again to abuse each other. It's addictive for many to watch.. people are always curious about the other side, about going over the edge, the risk of doing certain things - to watch ..because you yourself might not take the same risk..yet you want to see.... feel like this has been going on for years and it isn't creative.. but it is an easy way to provoke emotion - you do remember anger...or humor more than watching other types of genres. honestly part of the reason why i stopped watching TV was because there is so much mindless stuff on it...it's more interesting to watch real life.