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They can't swear: six reasons why Americans make shit reality telly

TELEVISUALLY, Americans are better than us in every way except they can’t do reality. These are their cardinal errors: 

They can’t swear

Banned from swearing, Americans find out their brother’s knobbing their husband and shriek ‘Gosh darn!’ When Gordon Ramsey was over here he swore so long and so hard it toasted bread.

It’s contrived

British reality TV deals with eternal truths like ‘what if we get a load of vapid people together, let them get bored shitless and then get them pissed?’ America’s so busy pulling off big fake twists to have big fake reactions to it forgets to show real shit like a middle-aged man urinating in a kitchen bin at 2am.

Eternal ad breaks and recaps

The freakishly long and frequent US ad breaks mean that any episode consists of previewing the dramatic thing then endlessly replaying the dramatic thing. The same clip of a woman throwing a drink is viewed 60 times in an hour-long episode.

Everyone’s already hot

Even on Love Island where everyone’s got veneers and tans, there’s still a few whose bold lifelong attempts to be hot are ruined by their faces. In the US with its population of 332 million only the truly gorgeous make it. There’s no tension. All these people are too sexy to ever be hurt.

Nobody knows how to fight

Security had to be sent into the Big Brother house several times a series. Over the Atlantic it’s all posturing and ‘hold me back bro’, which after you’ve seen an X-Factor auditionee grab their mate by the hair for f**king up harmonies just can’t measure up.

The big reveals are dull

Everyone’s on a journey. The perfect emotional-reveal-with-a-single-tear moment is rehearsed. They lose out on $300,000 and they’re so humbled and grateful. Not one of their confessionals matches the lies, bickering and loathing that come out in a suburban kitchen over a Come Dine With Me dessert.

Dear Internet, no I haven't changed my mind about cookies in the last 72 hours

REMEMBER on Friday when I said I didn’t want any cookies? Well I remember, and guess what?  

I know you were holding out hope that in the intervening 72 hours I’m suddenly in favour of being spied on, tracked, monitored and my data sold to the highest bidder, but I have some bad news for you. You may want to sit down.

Perhaps you think you’ll wear me down. Perhaps you’re right, but after clicking reject on every website I’ve been to for the past five years, you must be seeing a pattern.

Perhaps you think I’ll let my guard down and accidentally click accept. No. I’m eternally vigilant, like an ancient warrior monk faithfully guarding a mountain citadel. Except when I come in from the pub and watch porn when I’m in incognito.

Have I spent 872 hours of my life, on aggregate, scrolling down a list of cookie options and deselecting boxes? Was that time I could have spent making precious memories? Yes. Some call it stubborn; I call it principled.

I’ve demonstrated my principles on 134,000 website visits so far. The nagging suspicion that whether I click accept or reject you add whatever cookies you want remains but that’s not the point.

Deep down we both know I’ll outlast you. Imminent societal collapse means your days are numbered. And as I survive by scavenging from hedges and eating roadkill, I’ll be cackling that I clicked reject on the very last website I saw at before the power went out for good.

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