feedback for "Dispatch: Reality Bites"

1. I loved this article and think you really hit the nail on the head. After the season opener I also said I would never watch again... but damned if I could stay away from the "announcement" episode (you're stronger than I am, Katie!). I was recently talking to a friend about why I couldn't stay away. My friend is incredibly practical and has never been itnerested in celebrity gossip. Yet she confessed that she bought a US Weekly to read about Jon and Kate. I confessed that I was having a hard time avoiding the show, too, and we wondered aloud about why that could be.
   
   As we were talking I remembered a time about a year and a half ago. I was about 7 months pregnant and she was about 4 months pregnant. I went over to her house and she was watching an old episode of Jon and Kate. We talked about how "real" the show was and how it gave us hope... if she could do it with 8 kids, surely we would be able to handle one each, right? Right? 
   
   My friend and I realized that now we realize they actually CAN'T do it... that 8 kids and a reality show and a marriage all turned out to be too much. Which makes us look at our lives and think about whether or not we can do it. I feel like I scrutinize what went wrong for them so that I can avoid it... as if learning from their mistakes will help me avoid them in the same way that seeing how she potty-trained 6 kids would help me with my one. 
   
   I know it's ridiculous... but it doesn't make it less true.

   posted by : wendy617 on 7/6/2009 at 8:41 AM Flag For Abuse

2. the best piece I have read about this phenomena.  bravo.

   posted by : itd556 on 7/6/2009 at 10:39 AM Flag For Abuse

3. Thanks for at least explaining this phenomenon to those of us who Just. Don't. Get. It. As opposed to a couple of months ago, I do actually know who Jon and Kate are, now that they are unavoidably splashed everywhere you look, but I can't even imagine watching someone exploit their family in the way that they have. I just keep thinking "These are children's real lives". It is sad and pathetic and one only has to look at the lessons of exposed children like Michael Jackson and the lives they've led to know how wrong, wrong, wrong it is.
   
   The sad thing: the viewers are 100% complicit in the hell that these children will go through for the rest of their lives. The only way to stop the madness and prevent such future madness: turn it off.

   posted by : Robin19 on 7/6/2009 at 12:23 PM Flag For Abuse

4. I think this is a very insightful assessment. I got sucked in to J&K because of how sane it made my own life feel by comparrison (one toddler, joint custody). I have always felt a lot of empathy for Kate, even if she is sort of shrill. I think I would be a lot like that if I lived with 8 kids too.  I am no erethral duggar mother, that is for sure.
   
   Having watched my own marriage implode in what seemed at the time to be an instant, I can't imagine what it must be like to go through it on the newstand and with a running cable commentary. It was bad enough in a smallish town. I think divorce and joint custody are tough for everyone ad have been sort of shocked by the constant barrage of internet vitrol...espicially considering that HALF the parents in this country are divorced and have Been There. 
   
   Ah, celebrity. Sigh.

   posted by : NotCarol on 7/6/2009 at 4:17 PM Flag For Abuse

5. Well written, Katie.I tuned in in the beginning because it seemed so preposterous (six newborns!) -b ut also because as a mom to a large brood, it was familiar and i thought i could pick up some tips...but as they got wealthier and less "real", i tuned out.This latest chapter makes me not want to watch.I watched because it was real, it was about the kids.Now it's about infidelity and lies, and if i want that, i at least want Tolstoy :)...It's kind of sordid and sad, and children are involved, and it's not fun anymore.So...i'm done.i hope J&K are too - or at least that they can pull themselves off the air for a bit to heal and *ideally* grow back together, stronger, and better... and a real family instead of a corporation...

   posted by : mamazee73 on 7/6/2009 at 4:55 PM Flag For Abuse

6. I have read a lot of your work and do consider myself a fan of your writing, however, I think you toss around the term "child abuse" a bit too freely. Like doing ANYTHING that might later affect a child in life counts as abuse. (?) I was brought up in a home where being beaten with sticks until we bled, getting spit on, being told we were stupid, fat, worthless and thrown up against walls was the norm. I'm sorry, but I would trade that childhood for being "abused" by being on TV and living in a mansion any day of the week. What have we come to as a society when a televised childhood/divorce counts as "abuse"? Give me a break!
   

   posted by : yeahright on 7/6/2009 at 11:05 PM Flag For Abuse

7. I liked it when they were real, then got pissed off when they started getting lots of free stuff ( I only have one child because it's all I can afford). Now I refuse to watch it.

   posted by : kiwi mum on 7/8/2009 at 9:59 PM Flag For Abuse

8. Don't be so quick to judge those at Gosselins Without Pity.  The primary concern there is, was, and always will be the eight innocent children who have been mercilessly exploited by their two opportunistic "parents."
   I myself am responsible for some of that vitriol at the site.  My reason for it is simple: I loathe Kate Gosselin.  She, to me, is everything that is morally reprehensible and repugnant in a human being.  What she has done to her children is already coming back to her in a karmic sense, and will continue to do so...in spades.

   posted by : Laura Linger on 7/9/2009 at 1:47 AM Flag For Abuse

9. I think that the Jon and Kate story still reflects what could happen to a lot of people who are put into their circumstances, so it is the story of typical people.  Even with this sad and destructive turn of events. There seems to be a lot of frailty in human nature when confronted with a lot of the temptations that celebrity provides.  I think most of us think that we would rise above it and not be tempted.  That may be true for those who wouldn't even consider doing the reality show in the first place, but I don't know.  It seems easy for people to just watch and get sucked into the drama.  I would imagine actually being a part of the drama would be far more intense. 
   
   I've never watched the show, but I am certainly aware of it from the forums and blogs that I visit.  The show itself interests me far less than the fact that people get so into it ... and the other host of shows that are very similar.   People love to find things to diss about.  This show has always been that way, although the whole marriage falling apart has exponentially increased the dissing.  That I think is such a reflection of our culture...and is very intriguing.  I agree so much with Robin19.  I wish it could be turned off because the people watching it are a hugely influencial part of the reality of reality TV.

   posted by : peoplearestrange on 8/6/2009 at 2:05 PM Flag For Abuse