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A Day of Katess

First Katie, now the news that Kate Plus 8 is down in the ratings. This seems to be a reflection of good taste and conscience, even if it’s not intentional. This is one show I’ve always worried about for different reasons than my standard past concerns about reality television. It says a mouthful about American society that a family with this many kids would feel that turning to reality television was the only way to provide them with what they’d decided was an appropriate standard of living. Is reality television really a mainstream enough career that it counts among semi-mainstream, slightly silly aspirations? Is working and fundraising towards things like scholarships really so hard? I don’t have much objection to folks who go on reality shows because they want to promote a charity, or themselves, but they’re qualitatively different from folks who go on shows like these because they need the money. There’s a big difference between wanting to promote and control your image, and selling yourself to survive. It seems like it would be a pretty good things for those kids if the show that’s funded their lives so far, and also made them and their parents tabloid objects and fueled their father’s terrible, immature behavior went away, and they all had to figure out a better way to get by.

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