History Main / RealityShowGenreBlindness

* The number of oblivious celebrities who go on ''Series/TheEricAndreShow'' thinking it’s a real talk show is downright staggering, almost disturbing at times. Generally speaking, the smarter/more self-aware guests usually either figure out what’s up and play along (like Music/TylerTheCreator and [[Series/TheTomGreenShow Tom Green]] did) or openly call Eric out on-camera (like Eric Balfour and Creator/LanceReddick). Everybody else is either terrified (or infuriated) into fleeing the stage or, even worse, will try to ignore the ElephantInTheRoom and keep the interview going “normally”, which usually just makes Eric and Hannibal act even crazier. The example is muddled a bit by the fact that the show goes out of its way to confuse, annoy, shock, or terrify guests, so even if they figure out what’s going on they’re often unprepared for just how nuts things get. That being said, if there’s one rule this show abides by, its that something weird ''will'' happen, it’s just a question of what. If you don’t realize that, you’re playing right into the their hands.

** Generally speaking when the partner takes you on a nice safe date, he/she actually cares about you. When the partner has you (ahem) swim with sharks or go bungee jumping, the TV station wants cheap ratings, and the partner isn't saying no. The risk does not make it worth it, and they usually get dumped after this. Also, the first to arrive always thinks they're the one the bachelor/bachelorette really loves, but in fact, they're the ones to get ditched (often for no good reason).

** When men get put in room with a "sexy decoy", they always cheat. ''Maury'' always has films on in the rooms and the decoys are obviously to bait the men, yet they take the bait.

** It's generally ''not'' a good idea to pick a fight with "Security Steve", the giant security guard who is standing just by the stage and won't hesitate to intervene, ''especially'' in case where a man tries to attack his girlfriend on-stage. Turns into an in-show case of SchmuckBait when the guests try to attack Kyle himself, who reminds them of what the show is called and dares them to try it again and see how Steve will react.

** According to Rob Corddry on an NPR interview, guests are told what to expect and frequently try to play along with the correspondents and be funny, only to be told off-camera "You're very funny, but this is all going to be edited out. Act like this is a real interview."

** Sometimes teams are given the chance of either taking a taxi or the metro. 9 times out of 10, it’s smarter to take the taxi because it’s a straight shot. The only time it’d make sense to take the train is if you’re traveling at rush hour on a weekday. In season 21, the teams got to Istanbul on a Sunday morning with no traffic on the road so most teams went with the taxi. Jaymes & James and Rob & Kelley decided to take the train to the last stop on the line. The guys got to talking to a guy on the train who pointed out that since they were there on a weekend morning that they should just get off and take a taxi. They listened but Rob & Kelley decided to stay because they “weren’t followers”. Anyone who watches the show should know that splitting off from the only team who you definitively know where they are is suicide. Rob & Kelley got to their destination in last place and couldn’t make up the time and got eliminated.

* Similarly, the home-redecorating program ''While You Were Out'' not only arranges for a family member to get out of the house while the team swoops in and helps the rest of the family redo the place, but invariably sends a camera crew along with him or her on some bogus pretense — such as a documentary. Only ''twice'' has the stooge figured out what was going on; the first found out because his favorite radio station reported the presence of the show's distinctive vehicle in his town, while the second was told by one of the staff at the hotel he was staying at.

* While many teams on ''Series/TheAmazingRace'' demonstrate that they've watched previous seasons, a couple of teams from time to time demonstrate a surprising lack of knowledge as to typical challenges on the race:
** Mika in Season 15, Leg 6 is a prime example — there's virtually '''always''' a physical-thrill task on the race. She stopped dead in her tracks upon facing a waterslide, refusing to do it ''even after the last place team arrived and threatened to pass them'', eventually quitting the task to come in last place.
** The multitude of contestants who never learned to swim or to drive stick-shift. (Even in season 17, when the contestants had to drive in the UK, at least one person said "Uh oh, Stick shift!")
*** The [[http://www.cbs.com/cbs_casting/amazing_race/Application_Form.pdf Season 17 contestant application form]] actually asked contestants "Can you drive a car with: (a) manual transmission; (b) automatic transmission (check all that apply)" and "What is your swimming ability? / Excellent / Medium / Poor / I can't swim." This means the producers are '''intentionally''' invoking this.
*** A team got put out in fourth place by a matter of minutes in season 27 (!) because one of the partners wasn't a good enough swimmer and spent several hours trying to do the task.

* Series/TheCrystalMaze, good god the Crystal Maze! It was a common thing for viewers to start yelling at their TV screens when stupid contestants couldn't spot the obvious solutions to puzzles, or just started doing stuff not even related to the puzzle. Now granted it's harder when you're on a time limit, you have five other people trying to give you advice and a BaldOfAwesome chap playing the harmonica. But sometimes it really did get ridiculous. Take a look at [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U68PUwXUoQ this set of outtakes from the show.]] Note how even the production team starts insulting and laughing at them!

-->'''Sara M''', ''Website/TelevisionWithoutPity'' recap of ''Series/{{Survivor}}: Gabon''.

** Another example is the sewing challenges. The '''first and last challenge of every season''' involve creating a outfits from scratch using themed materials. This has been a ''Drag Race'' staple since day one. And yet, queens still complain because they don't know how to sew. Even worse are the queens who will explain that they can't sew and expect sympathy from the judges when they are called out on their awful outfit. As Ross Matthews said, "You don't make your first dress when you're on Drag Race. You make your first dress when you find out you're going to be on Drag Race."

** A rather specific example happens with Season 11's Silky Nutmeg Ganache, who made it clear in the season premier that she was gunning for a SpinOff, and would showboat for attention and shout her catchphrase ("ATTITUDE CHECK!"[[note]]The expected response is "FUCK YOU, FAT BITCH!", but after the third time (that we saw), Silky was just met with annoyed silence[[/note]]) every five minutes. This has only succeeded in making her overbearing and obnoxious, to the other queens ''and'' viewers. What makes this genre blindness is that this exact scenario happened in Season 6 with Laganja Estranga, who also tried to invoke herself as a FountainOfMemes by spouting would-be catchphrases and acting in a loud bombastic manner, which simply made her come off as fake and annoying.

** A rather specific example happens with Season 11's Silky Nutmeg Ganache, who made it clear from the start that she was gunning for a SpinOff, and would showboat for attention and shout her catchphrase ("ATTITUDE CHECK!") every five minutes. This has only succeeded in making her overbearing and obnoxious, to the other queens ''and'' viewers. What makes this genre blindness is that this exact scenario happened in Season 6 with Laganja Estranga, who also tried to invoke herself as a FountainOfMemes by spouting would-be catchphrases and acting in a loud bombastic manner, which simply made her come off as fake and annoying.

* On ''Series/RuPaulsDragRace'', contestants are often unprepared for events that happen at least once every season, such as the Snatch Game (a ''Series/MatchGame'' parody where they impersonate their favorite female celebrities). By this point, any queen who gets on the show and says they "don't do impersonations" is likely to be torn down (with just cause) by her fellow contestants.

*** Wearing what is essentially the exact same outfit week after week without changing up their style at all. Every season a queen will be asked to show the judges versatility (though Season 6 winner Bianca was infamously able to get away with wearing a boatneck gown every week).

** In short, the four pillars of ''Drag Race'' are designing, acting, singing, and comedy. A queen must have solid skill in at least three out of four if she wants to get far in the competition. Yet you still get a queen who'll whine about a challenge not being her style even though it's clear by this point what [=RuPaul=] is looking for. Stated point blank by season 6 winner Bianca Del Rio in the commentary for Season 7's premiere episode that if they cannot do any of the four ''in some way'', they had zero business being there in the first place.

* Contestants on ''Series/{{Survivor}}'' seem to suffer from this a lot, such as the "car curse", in which a late-game car giveaway contestant has never won the end prize.
** In ''Fiji'', ironically, the car-curse became self-fulfilling. A contestant won the car and traded it in exchange for a promise. The contestant who received the car broke the promise, resulting in the original winner's elimination and his progression to the final round...where his actions had so disgusted the rest of the players that he was immediately on the wrong side of the first unanimous victory in the history of the series.
*** Earlier, on ''Guatemala'', a contestant wins the car, but Jeff then points out the curse and gives her the chance to give the car back. In exchange, the other four contestants still in the game at that point would all receive cars. She kept her car, taking it off the table for the rest of the tribe, and the car-curse became self-fulfilling when they ganged up on her and voted her out at the next Tribal Council.

** This trope is invoked by 'Boston' Rob Mariano during an episode of ''Heroes vs. Villains'', when he points out that people who come into ''Survivor'' should watch who sleeps together at night, [[GenreSavvy correctly stating]] that people who don't like each other aren't going to cuddle up beside one another for warmth. He then proceeds to point out ''all'' of the alliances on his team, and mentions how powerful (and dangerous) an alliance based on romance is, referring back to his courtship of Amber Brkich on the ''All-Stars'' season.

** Year after year after year, contestants are caught off-guard and wholly unprepared when the two teams are merged midway through the season.

** One of the more amusing examples of "never saw the show before" was Joanna from ''Amazon'', who was a devout Christian and flipped out over the fact that it was called an "Immunity Idol," going so far as to blame the massive rainstorms the tribe was getting (in the ''middle of the Amazon'') on its presence in the camp.

* Defied in ''WebVideo/StripSearch'',[[note]]About ''comic'' strips. Get your minds out of the gutter.[[/note]] where the contestants focused on winning by ''being the best artist'' rather than any reality-show politicking. The only one who tried to use an ounce of strategy was Amy, and even she gave it up due to stress after a ShockingElimination sent two contestants home and the judges reinstated an eliminated contestant in their place on the grounds that she was a much better artist than the two that had been up for elimination. Tavis even pointed out to Amy as she was struggling to cope with this development that the show's real benefit to the artists is making professional contacts with each other and the crew and gaming the system to win the prize could get in the way of that.

* Series/TheUltimateFighter has had numerous fighters show up in poor conditioning or unable to "make weight" (weigh in at the proper weight for their weight class). A lot of fighters also got in trouble for bad behavior. TUF is a LongRunner and many contestants from the show became UFC superstars, contenders, and even champions, so every fighter worth his or her shorts should know what will be required of them. Earlier seasons had their fair share of bad behavior, failures to make weight, or athletes in poor shape, but even as late as Season 18, two fighters failed to make weight and were summarily bounced from the competition.
* Each episode of Series/PropertyBrothers begins with the hosts showing the couple a house that is hundreds of thousands of dollars above their price range. The couple always falls in love with the house and is shocked that it's so unaffordable. The Scotts then leverage that shock into acceptance of their plan to renovate a much cheaper house instead.
* In ''[[Series/CanadasWorstDriver Canada's Worst Driver,]]'' the water tank challenge is included in every single season. Only three people (not counting Andrew) have ever thought to bring a change of clothes to the set: Eric in Season 2, and Michael and Yolanda in ''Ever.'' And every person in ''Ever'' was a ''returning participant!''

* In ''{{Series/Jachtseizoen}}'', nearly every contestant who has tried to take the train was caught immediately afterwards. Taking the train is a death sentence, because StukTV can just look up the routes and timetables online, drive ahead, and catch you at the next station, and there is no way to escape while on a train. Even if this weren't immediately obvious, you would think that contestants would watch the previous episodes and realize that taking the train almost never works.

* In ''{{Series/Jachtseizoen}}'', taking the train virtually guarantees losing, because StukTV can just look up the routes and timetables online, drive ahead, and catch you at the next station, and there is no way to escape while on a train. Even if this weren't immediately obvious, you would think that contestants would watch the previous episodes and realize that every single contestant who has tried to take the train was immediately caught.

* In ''{{Series/Jachtseizoen}}, taking the train virtually guarantees losing, because StukTV can just look up the routes and timetables online, drive ahead, and catch you at the next station, and there is no way to escape while on a train. Even if this weren't immediately obvious, you would think that contestants would watch the previous episodes and realize that every single contestant who has tried to take the train was immediately caught.

* In ''[[Series/CanadasWorstDriver Canada's Worst Driver,]]'' the water tank challenge is included in every single season. Only three people (not counting Andrew) have ever thought to bring a change of clothes to the set: Eric in Season 2, and Michael and Yolanda in ''Ever.'' And every person in ''Ever'' was a ''returning participant!''[[/folder]]

*** One episode had a competitor lose their 'second chance' to enter the competition for serving undercooked vegetables. All three judges take raw food seriously, so contestants who don't check to ensure their dishes are cooked properly will eventually fall victim to this trope.

* The families on ''Series/ExtremeMakeoverHomeEdition'' seem to suffer from this. You'd think they'd be expecting a house that impressive by now, wouldn't you? After being on for ''five years'', wouldn't there be at least ''one'' family that didn't include someone crying or jumping up and down like an idiot when they saw their new house? Then again, many of the families were living in glorified trailers before the house was rebuilt.
** And yes, there ''have'' been incidents where the family didn't jump for joy. Several "home renovation" shows have released [=DVDs=] focusing specifically on families that ''hated'' their new digs. (There was an episode of ''Trading Spaces'' where [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4pVZlRbwtw one of the people saw their new room]], was speechless, and then left the room and you could hear her crying.)
** Potentially justified in that there is a difference between seeing somebody else receiving a beautiful new house on TV, versus seeing a new house in real life and being told it's ''yours''.
** Hard to say if blame falls squarely on the families, but several families have had to sell the renovated homes because of increased taxes and utility bills. Because nobody thinks a new grand house with awesome new gadgets will be outside of a struggling family's budget.