Why Germany (secretly) loves trash TV

There are two types of Germans: the ones who admit to watching reality TV, and the ones who don’t admit it but watch it anyway. After all, while only 11% of Germans confess to watching reality TV shows, audience figures tell another story entirely. Take “Bauer sucht Frau” (“The farmer wants a wife”), for example. It pulls in millions to watch a rustic farmer in wellies ask for his beloved’s hand in marriage, accompanied by approving oinks from a herd of pigs. “Dschungelcamp” (Germany’s equivalent of “I’m a celebrity ... get me out of here!”) and the TV talent show “Deutschland sucht den Superstar” have passionate fan bases. From the plumber to the professor, trash TV unites everyone across cultural divides.

It's like Goethe on speed, because it's all about the really big themes - love, betrayal, revenge and cockroaches. The “Bachelor” delivers pure romance, where scantily-clad lasses court the favour of a handsome lad with the intellectual depth of a pressed slim-fit shirt. “Dschungelcamp” (literally, “Jungle Camp”) redefines the concept of celebrity by bringing home how triumph and disaster are never far apart. Like the time a former celeb desperately tried to fish a star out of a bucket full of innards after completing his mealworm snack.

There are even academics who specialise in reality TV. Some claim that consuming these shows makes everyone dumber. That’s nonsense. This is really a study in social psychology to find out how far people will go to gain attention, money and followers on Instagram. Spoiler alert, they’ll go pretty far.

It’s clear that reality TV is as real as your enthusiasm when you open the Christmas present from your gran (hand-knitted socks again!). So the “dramatic scenes” are scripted and the dialogue is as convincing as a school play. 

So why do we love watching these German symphonies of cringe? Maybe it’s just because we tune in to switch off. We need these flashy spectacles because they draw us into a world which is even crazier than our own.