While I may not have followed the advice of The Man Himself to the letter, my creativity has been firing in all directions lately. That’s okay because my brain isn’t like yours and hence his one-size-fits-most advice can be taken with a grain of salt. The other day, ideas for reality TV shows hit me out of nowhere, and they were too good not to flesh out. So those who love obscurity and rule by cloak-and-dagger should start sharpening your pitchforks now.
“Well Dan, I thought that you were all about practical ideas that benefit society. Why are you pitching reality TV show ideas?” a reader will ask as they sharpen their pitchfork. While most of my ideas do benefit society, I’m also a pragmatic capitalist. The fact of the matter is that reality TV is produced so frequently now because they are cheaper to make than normal dramas; Average Joe’s are cheaper than professional actors. Thus, let’s accept reality and work within it’s confines instead.
Ask anybody on the internet for a list of the most heavily censored websites and there’s no doubt that Reddit (eww… Reddit) will appear. The censorship giant removes over 130 million posts each year and their moderators (or “mods” for short) are known to be judge, jury and executioner. Not only are posts removed with little to no explanation, but Redditor’s accounts will often be banned, and often entire communities as well. Suffice it to say Reddit mods have a lot of power, and they are certainly not afraid to use it. This has led to many on the internet to take to other platforms and complain non-stop. A frequent point of contention is that there is no incentive for the moderator to be fair, thus abuse of power is rampant.
Well, one idea for a reality TV show is to set-up an appeal process in which a banned subreddit or redditor can file an appeal with a twist; the redditor (or in the case of a subreddit, a chosen representative) can challenge the mod who banned them to a winner-take-all mixed martial arts (MMA) match. This is because the legendary philosopher said it best, and this would be a great way to introduce a consequence. If a reddit mod knows they’ll run the risk of being challenged to an MMA match, in which failure to accept the challenge constitutes an immediate reversal of the ban, then they’ll start becoming far more selective in what they’ll choose to censor. However, I’m a big believer in proper incentives, thus there needs to be an entry fee for challenging the mod; we cannot have every Tom, Dick and Harry throwing down the gauntlet. This fee may either be monetary and/or permanent deletion of their account and confiscation of their electronic devices. Again, this will make the challenger weigh the cost versus the benefits of what is worth fighting for. Additionally, the televised fight would be entertaining; after all who doesn’t like seeing a redditor get punched in the face?
A spin-off of this series can feature fights between YouTube employees who oversee content removal and demonetization against disgruntled YouTubers; the same incentives and restrictions apply. Both series can feature a sit-down interview with both sides airing their grievances to the audience. This has an added benefit of the viewers getting a behind the scenes look at the thought process, or lack thereof, of the low-level lackeys (yay alliteration!) and the Silicon Valley elite who dictate what is/isn’t acceptable for the rest of society to view. It can have a Meet Your Overlord vibe. This format could indirectly contribute to the censorship (eww… censorship) issues being greatly reduced; after all sunlight is the best disinfectant. The second-best disinfectant is, of course, being needlessly punched in the face. The YouTuber spin-off show will have a built-in audience, as subscribers of the YouTuber’s will inevitably tune-in to watch the episode.
Another variation of this idea involves Wikipedia. Wikipedia will not have the institution versus users that have been wronged angle, rather the two participants will both be internal employees. This is because Wikipedia has a lot of infighting among their editors and the process is grindingly slow and yields a ton of unresolved cases. My suggestion is if at the end of this appeal’s process the editors still cannot come to an understanding, then it’ll be on like Donkey Kong. Not only will this discourage disputes from escalating that far in the first place (again, punches to the face discourage unnecessary risk) but both editors will have the chance to air their side of the argument to the viewers at home. Much like the other series’ I’ve presented, an additional benefit is exposing the bias within the Wikipedia editor community. This will bring the bias to the surface for the world to see; Wikipedia is not as neutral as it proclaims to be. Notice how I said bring the bias to light and not eliminate the bias entirely; the former is necessary while the latter is a fool’s errand. Looks like I have a call; Reed Hastings is on line 1…
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