The headline reads "I'm a Celebrity 2025 has kicked off, here's all you need to know": The crop of celebrity shows - Dancing on Ice, Strictly, I’m a Celebrity, Traitors, and the rest - regularly roll across the TV screens like long caravans of chatter, noise and light. Who are these people? Are they special or interesting in some incredible way? Perhaps we'll all discover something new during another marathon watch. Meanwhile those mostly unheard of C and D listers come into the event the way tired factory workers might walk into a bar at the end of a tough day in the 1960s - looking for something to keep them going.
They dance, hunt the traitor, or eat strange things while the crowds watch from the other side of the reality looking glass. The tasks or trials are staged and planned out but essentially small, often foolish, but that is the point. Small tasks are easier to endure. They do not break people. They only mess up their hair or muddy their boots a little in the mediocrity of some group achivement. PPE will be provided and a personal sound bite in which you can explain yourself.
The producers build these worlds so nothing truly dangerous can happen (understandable enough). It may look hard, but it is not the kind of hard that leaves a scar or a mark. A celebrity can get wet, cry in a jungle, or wander lost through some invented ordeal, and still come out clean. At worst, they may look silly. At best, they can look brave and clever. None of it costs them more than a few days of discomfort, and discomfort is something a person can fake if the cameras and final edits are kind. That's entertainment these days.
In these shows everyone behaves well. They smile even when they don’t mean it. They speak softly. They praise one another for small things, normal and often banal things. It is the habit of people who know their fortunes can shift like winds over water. No one wants to be the weak link. No one wants to be the one the public turns away from. So they choose courtesy or humour. They avoid petulance and hard truth. They choose the safe road, because the safe road keeps them visible. It's all good PR in a fragile and fickle business.
And that is why they come. Not for the dance, or the trial, enlightenment or the journey, but for the light of exposure that shines on them while they do it. They need that light. Without it, the world forgets them and to be forgotten is the worse kind of death for a celeb. So they step forward, smile, and do the absurd activity set before them. The audience laughs. The show hits a groove and goes on. A favoured charity gets a cash boost and some names and curated images will hit the headlines. There will be celebrity chat of course and more back slapping as they all reflect. Then, for the next season, that caravan moves on down the road again with some new and over excited passengers.
Of course it can be fun but the real news is ... elsewhere.
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