Candid camera and reality shows

There’s this story about a newly married couple on their honeymoon night in a luxury resort hotel. The two of them decided to take a dip in the hotel pool. The wedding preparations were stressful and the couple must have lost some weight because their bathing suits were a little loose.

As they dived into the pool, the woman lost one of the items of her skimpy bikini. But because they had the pool to themselves, they just laughed and retrieved the pieces.

Later that day, the two of them went down to the hotel restaurant, sat in the lounge and ordered drinks. And what they saw on the wall, just a little bit above the bar, was a wonderful, huge and empty fish tank.

Curious, the husband asked, “Why is that beautiful fish tank empty?” The bartender just grinned from ear to ear and replied, “That’s not a fish tank. That is a swimming pool.”

Embarrassing to say the least!

A scene like this would easily become an episode of one of today’s reality programs that feature funny videos and bloopers. I’m sure many would have laughed at the situation. Just imagine the horror of being in the same predicament.

I gave it some thought.

Today, we are living in a live reality show. Social media has replaced traditional media. Every action, thought or word can be easily expressed whether true or not. Here’s a very stressful situation, being afraid of people knowing about some shameful thing you did.

It would be a good thing to behave as if others are constantly watching. The walls have ears and bad deed will always come back to haunt. The reason why certain people do unethical things is always based on the presumption that no one would know. But history has proven that things done in secret are proclaimed loudly in public.

Let me offer an imaginary scenario.

Someone has recorded your every move, both public and private. And the person who recorded everything has threatened to put it out for public viewing.

How would you feel then? Anxious? Determined to recover the material before the person could release it for public view?

In the early days of TV, a program called Candid Camera was popular. What the producers of the show did was set up humorous and slightly embarrassing situations to try and film reactions. The goal was to get the person to smile after discovering his actions were being observed.

These days, however, the exploits of Candid Camera would be far too tame. Look at talk shows, tabloids and Youtube, they all present sexually-charged pictures and videos of famous personalities.

Today, dirty laundry is being aired in public.

Now, discovery of someone with nothing to be ashamed of and embarrassed by is certainly rare.

But there is one problem. People who are clean will never grab the headlines. News about good people doing good things does not sell newspapers and tabloids. So, people who want to maintain popularity or want instant fame will have to do some forms of notoriety. They will have to misbehave and the people watching their every move will fly and flock to them.

And now the justification, “good or bad publicity, it is still publicity.” I really wonder if this is a good thing. Why not live a clean life and leave the good and clean legacy for our children? After all, our time is limited and the future belongs to the young.

Reputation is what people perceive about us, character is who we are even when we are alone.

Here is a very simple formula, work on our character and our reputation will take care of itself. Oh and one more thing, we are never really alone.

You can connect with Francis Kong through Facebook at www.facebook.com/franciskong2 or listen to his program called “Business Matters” from Monday to Friday at 8:00 am and 6:30 pm in 98.7 dzFE-FM ‘The Master’s Touch’, the classical music station.