The Biggest Loser

The series paints a magical world, a popular perspective in fairy-tales, the world where people ride on brooms, a shangri-la with a palace dimly loomed in the foggy veil of night, a newspaper contains moving pictures or a bizarre creature, all of these prospects were so real and vivid that audiences cannot determine those are actual in reality or 'molded' by special effects. Virtual reality also embodies in one of the most popular new media cultures nowadays: social networking sites (SNS) or weblogs (blog).

Social networking sites (SNS) or weblogs (blog)

SNSs capture the attention of users because of their free service and intuitive user interface, which offer them the freedom to edit, even make up, their information or to write anything they like. Regardless of the means to keep in touch with family, relatives and friends, to some degrees, the profiles such as MySpace or FaceBook are very ideal for a user to present himself with public, let people knows who he is, where he studies, what he likes.

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Thanks to those sites, he now can find anyone who has the same interests, studies at the same school or even his other-half.

However, the reverse of the medal is that people can exploit this freedom to metamorphose themselves into someone else whom 'they think they are', 'they wish to become' and 'they wish others to see' (Stern, cited in Lister et al, 2009, p. 268). Solely basing on the avatar, profile picture, people can't know for sure if it is the owner's or someone else's.

Psychologically, people tend to pay more attention to someone who is good looking, thus an average, attention-seeking teenage girl would be more likely to trick the public into seeing another better, much attracting version, whether it's hers or not.

Moreover, the virtual reality is also reflected in the content that users write in their weblogs. We can obviously observe that blog provides a free space for owners to express creativity or to open-mindedly show their opinions on various issues. Through blog, as a diary, everyday activities or events are possibly reported exaggeratedly, which can make readers surprising and doubt whether it is actual or not. Games also take part in new media culture in which youngsters are straining their eyes over computer screen.

Reality, reflex an actual event or reconstruct a history in the past

The world in game might be based on reality, reflex an actual event or reconstruct a history in the past. However, those facts they use only construct the very basic foundation for a much more imaginative, illusional plot, which is dense with many other fictional elements to make sure the entertainment factor is delivered. After all it's the goal of programmers and designers to attract players by highly visual graphics, diverse characters and many other options. Thus the game play brings reality further from us.

It draws to the virtual environment in the game, which create the boundaries between imaginative fiction and reality. Medium of intimacy desire is also taken into account of cyberculture's subset. Cybersex player finds sexual gratification thanks to partner's ability to interpret messages or convey images describing a sexual interaction. This sensual transmission is obviously unreal; the sexual satisfaction is merely accomplished by partner's fantasy, not by actual interaction.

Hence it pushes reality far away from the players, they merely find pleasant in the virtual environment which is just equipped by computer screen and a webcam. With the ubiquity of new media in our everyday practices, which has a strong impact on our current lifestyle, can we reckon things that we are accustomed to consume like reality TV, FaceBook profiles and online dating are realistic descriptions of our everyday lives? Scrutinize on the popularity of Reality TV, which is described by Lumby (2003), 'a hybrid of conventional information and entertainment program'.

Reality TV

The name 'Reality TV' explains itself: it captures scenes from reality, the 'actor', who is not professional actor, is doing something that they are 'scripted' to do in an unusual situation, a special environment or an actual event. In reality TV, the 'actor' can be set to reach some targets: an obese boy is instructed by expert to run a weight-loss strategy (The Biggest Loser), a teenage girl is tipped to improve her appearance (Extreme Makeover) or a dancer wants to become famous (So You Think You Can Dance?).

A very interesting thing about this kind of show, which answers why reality TV hooks the audiences, is that 'As soon as they get into an unreal situation, one could argue that it's scripted, because the situation is created by the producers. What makes it so compelling is that you never know what a real person's reaction to an unreal situation will be' (Thompson, 2009). Evidently, reality TV is not real, it is unscripted but bound by specific rules of the producers to assure the viewers' interest.

It may somewhat broadcast our everyday life but people in it are actually driven by many other forces rather than themselves: the writers, producers, and directors (O'Shaughnessy & Stadler, 2009), all for the sole purpose of entertaining the viewers. The intersection of imaginative fiction and reality raises a 'new' question about new media culture, what is really happening to 'reality'? Indeed, the 'reality' we are witnessing is somehow concerned with the so-called New media/Visual culture, which is formed by the very involvement of people into visual images with help of media technologies.