Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Entertainment

I watched a prime time game show for the first time in a long time. I used to love watching game shows. My favorites as a child growing up were Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, and The Price is Right. Later on, I discovered the old classic game shows from before I was born: Let's Make a Deal, Concentration, Password, and Match Game. Who knows which one Alex Trebek hosted before he hosted Jeopardy? 

This game show was sadly a long shot from these other game shows I've watched and enjoyed. Maybe you watched the very same show and even perhaps saw the very same episode I watched. The whole time as I watched, I just kept thinking to myself, this could be very bias, and nobody would ever know. 

It's hosted by two hosts. We'll call them Host 1 and Host 2. There are two teams of four players competing for money. Host 1 is with one team, Host 2 is with another. They play a series of games with the hosts to try to win a chance to play the final game for the lump sum. I saw many issues of why I would not ever want to be on this game show because there is so much room for bias. 

Game shows typically consist of two different factors: luck and knowledge. Let's Make a Deal is almost pure luck and mind games. Jeopardy is almost completely based on head knowledge/trivia (and reflexes). Shows like The Price is Right use a little bit of both, although the knowledge is heavily consumer knowledge and not any trivia. 

This particular game show had too much room for bias because each of the hosts participates in the games with the two teams and influences their score as well as how much money they earn. In the first game I watched, the host gave word clues to try and help the team member guess the secret word, much like Password. In the second game I watched, the host was guessing celebrities who were being described by the team member. That's a lot of trust to have in these two hosts to know they're not purposely taking longer to give an answer just to run the clock. Or when they impulsively give a response which may not have been the best clue to use. 

Why is the host playing such crucial roles in determining how successful these teams are in their scoring? 

Entertainment.

Game shows used to be about watching someone sit in a hot seat contemplating multiple choice questions for an excruciatingly long time to try and win a million dollars. Game shows used to be about watching someone spin the big wheel and hope they get lucky and land on the $1.00 space to go to the showcase showdown. Game shows used to be about watching someone guess a number from 1-3 and sigh in disappointment with them as their curtain revealed a real live billy goat. 

This game show has shifted the key interest to the hosts themselves rather than the contestants because they are the ones with the crucial roles in each of the games. I purposely have not mentioned any specific names of the hosts or the game show itself to leave out any influencer bias. But there's a chance you may have figured it out on your own. 

The majority of people watching don't even know it. Unless you're someone like me who has thought these things through in the process I did, you didn't even notice. Because you simply saw that this show was hosted by Host 1 and Host 2, and nothing else mattered.

And that's exactly what they wanted.


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