Media Essay - How do young people form their collective identity through reality TV?

‘Identity is complicated, everybody thinks they have one’ – David Gauntlett. Youths today have been convinced they have been able to form their own identity either through the way they dress, speak or act around their peers, family or workmates. However though theorists have proved that youths have been able to form a collective identity through the use of the media, by watching TV shows based on reality, but how?

Many youths in the UK have recently been tuning their television sets to e4 to watch the long awaited show ‘Made in Chelsea’ which is set in wealthy Chelsea in the district of London. The show follows the lives of rich and spontaneous socialite youths whom have no sense of direction into want they want to do when they are older. At the moment the show seems to focus on their extravagant lifestyle, of moving from one party/club to the other. Here is a quote from the shows opening scene from one of its characters Caggie Dunlop “You may have heard rumours that Chelsea is an exclusive world of royals, aristocrats and playboys. Where the gossip is as startling as the prices. Well it's all true, and I'd know. I'm Caggie Dunlop and this is my world. You might say that we've got it all, but having whatever you want can make choosing that much more tricky. In Chelsea the truth is more fabulous than fiction. This is our life.”

‘This is our life’! This statement has been able to manipulate adults and kids into thinking that all youths live a life that is short-lived with fun and partying all the time. The lifestyle that this show has portrayed has been able to create a collective identity for youths living in London, that through materialism and value you will become popular and recognized among your peers. This has therefore manipulated youths to act the same way in its settings such as at school, college, or even in a recreational environment, to go on living somewhat a pleasurable lifestyle, amplifying that capitalism makes you beautiful.

Another example of a reality TV show that seems to have a collective identity is Geordie Shore. This show follows the lives of 9 housemates living in Newcastle, working and primarily parting most of the time. Considering their age and their personality on the show, this show has been able to create for itself a collective identity, through their constant appearance on the show wearing raunchy dresses that reveal perhaps a bit too much, their crude and obnoxious personality demonstrate that they are in fact low middle class youths compared to the youths we see in Made in Chelsea. Therefore the cast in Geordie shore are social extremes rather than socialites.

However the social extremes that we see on this reality TV show seem to come to terms that the way the live their lives is what they are and they will not change for anyone, that rather the lifestyle they live is the life most people would want to watch as it is more funny and real. Note what a member from Geordie shore had to say about Made in Chelsea Charlotte told the metro: “No one wants to watch fur coats, diamonds and pearls and stuck up posh people talking about Chanel and Gucci. People want to watch a group of lads and lasses.....”

Even her poor language, constructs to us the identity that she and the others on the show are sharing. That rather being elegant and posh, they are in fact low middle class, party loving people whom live a provocative and immoral lifestyle.

The theorist Michel Foucault therefore was correct in believing that it can be limiting for youths to create an identity as it is actually developed into a collective identity with a stereotypical group and people will then automatically make assumptions to that specific identity. Therefore this is the case for youths in reality TV shows as Geordie Shore and Made in Chelsea as they all come together forming this one collective identity whom both want to be able to move outside of a fixed boundary but instead find themselves settling into one which is then stereotypical to the audience watching the programme.