Social Animals: That's Us

Others might be having several reasons, some obvious and some not so obvious, to glue to TV sets for watching Bigg Boss. I developed interest in this show for 2 reasons. To begin with, there was nothing worth watching other than the same old dance reality shows or soap operas, which I avoid like a plague. But once I started watching it, I never failed to miss even a single episode (except our vacation where our policy is not watch to TV at all..don’t we, after all, go on vacation to clear up clutters in our lives, minds…). Second reason is difficult to admit because I never ever liked Shilpa Shetty but her stint with UK Big Boss gave this show a new lease of life and popularity.

So what it is that keeps me hooked? Is it celebrities? Oh! Please, give me a break…they are “NO” celebrities…they are neither nobodies nor celebrities…they are just “somebodies”, about whom we don’t bother to think. And if, frankly speaking, they were not kept in such unique conditions of being away from everyone in a camera-infested house with no life-supporting system such as TV, music, books, mobile, watch, we would not have given them a second glance.

So, is it watching personal lives of people…like what duo doing or not doing under the cover? Or is it squats or cuss words? Nah! Has anyone thought of it as a good case study of behavioral/social science? Perhaps yes or no. In fact, this is the very FOUNDATION of this show. Imagine yourself living among complete strangers where you can’t do anything (reading, watching, sleeping during the day…) but are forced to socialize with others. Forced because all life supporting systems have been snatched away and you are left with nothing to do…what will you do whole day??? What???

So, here begins the game. Keep a prize money and the tag of a winner…and empower insiders to throw out the person of their disliking and also, add the fact that they need to be TRP grabber. Voila! It’s a catch 22 situation now.

Socialize they must and manipulate behavior, situations and what not? So, you have an assortment of different behaviors, some loud, some shrewd, some confused, some quiet. To me, there’s nothing called "neutral"..it’s more of a choice that you want to exhibit yourself as neutral though you know very well which groups exist and choose not show your approval/denial for any of them. Groups are also bound to happen even if one does not chose to. So, if a group is formed comprising few members, it naturally forces the remaining members to stand against it. So counteracting force is formed, which may comprise all the remaining memebers or only some of them. There are bound to have people who would not like to get associated with any of groups…but this strategy also fails in longer run. Once the initial euphoria of settling scores with each other dies down and the groups start looking for strategizing little more, these people come under scanner…and they pay for that..being “neutral’. And then, they train their guns against those whom they consider potential threat whether internal or external because after all only one has to win, so the group that served their purpose also has to go away…So, this happens with realiginig of people in groups or dismantling of groups or division of groups in more smaller chunks…hmm, interesting and intriguing…and if twists and turns are given such as letting a person be out of the game for a while in a way so that he can see what all others are doing, thinking and saying without letting others know about it; and then sending him back to that house now…this makes the game all the more interesting…so you see, there’s more to this program than what usually meets the eye. This is my reason..what’s yours’?