Here Comes Honey Boo Boo is a show based on the adventures of a sassy child beauty pageant competitor whose parents (“Sugar Bear” and “Mamma June”) have nicknamed her Honey Boo Boo Child.

The program widely regarded as the first reality show was called An American Family, and it premiered in 1973, in a 12-hour documentary series on PBS. It followed the dramatic lives of the seven-member Loud family as they challenged the picture of the nuclear family perpetuated by many popular sitcoms of the era, even featuring a son who was gay, according to The New York Times.

The program went on to inspire MTV’s similarly groundbreaking show, The Real World, which in turn paved the way for much of the reality television we see today, according to Fox News. This was the first time anyone simply allowed a camera to enter their front door and begin shooting. Coming from a reality show generation, it’s hard to look back and imagine a time when people didn’t willingly reveal every detail of their lives on the screen, exploiting their problems and quirks for a shot at fame and fortune.

Today, we have a show called Whisker Wars, which, in its second season, follows the lives of men who competitively grow and style their facial hair. Today, we have Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, a show based on the adventures of a sassy child beauty pageant competitor whose parents (“Sugar Bear” and “Mamma June”) have nicknamed her Honey Boo Boo Child and branded her a child star.

It can be hard to see where this all turned around and a jaw-dropping tale of the true American lifestyle devolved into scenes of a 7-year-old dropping cute redneck catchphrases and jiggling her belly. But both really serve to do the same thing — they tell a truer tale of American life than what we see on completely fictional programs, and they serve to expand our horizons well beyond our back door.

I certainly never knew there was a market for men with well-preserved facial hair, as seen on Whisker Wars. I didn’t fathom people could make a living bidding on and reselling the forgotten items in old storage units, as seen on Storage Wars. I couldn’t have conceived how a family with multiple wives and armies of children could function, a la Sister Wives or 19 Kids and Counting. These are things I learned from watching reality television. Other shows, ones that take people out of their natural situations and put them in constant contact and direct competition, can show human nature at its best – and worst — and these can be the most interesting.

Today’s reality shows give tiny glimpses into the ignored pockets of American life. They go beyond the typical – the usual family drama and personal turmoil — and provide context. They give voices to the unheard. They may be scripted and directed; they may be edited just right and painted with a rosy frame, but viewers need to remember while watching that it’s less about the specific scenes and more about the people, environment and daily routines of American life.

It’s time we gave reality TV its due credit. Critics will always complain of its inauthenticity, but they’re missing the point. Programs will always discredit the programs that glamorize bad habits and dangerous lifestyles — Jersey Shore or anything from VH1’s Celebreality come to mind — but these should not spoil the whole bunch. Real stories are being told, and real people’s lives are being shown (people who have received financial help by becoming mini-celebrities), and it’s time we celebrate that.

–Kelsey

If you’re not a full-time celebrity, then you’re not doing it right — if you go by the 21st century book of American ethics. It’s become admirable to be a relentless self-promoter in today’s culture of reality television, where heinous personalities such as Honey Boo Boo, Kate Gosselin and Donald Trump stomp through our cable boxes and feast on every pocket of airtime they can get their claws on.

The worst part, though, is that we parade around these fat, ugly spirits in the material world, choosing to watch them either because we find them funny and disgusting or — and I grit my teeth while writing this — are genuinely interested in their stories.

But by proving this vested interest, we are admitting that we care more about celebrity culture — which hardly mirrors real life — than our own culture. And this only further fuels the antics of these reality stars, erasing all hope they’ll eventually contribute to the artistic community that, because of them, is floundering.

Even worse is that reality television has begun to blur all entertainment lines. In the past, at least the crass and the crap were properly segregated from the expressive and the informative. Now, we have people like Piers Morgan, whose entire job was once being perched at a table in front of amateur performers on America’s Got Talent, where he’d fold his arms in misanthropy and scowl like Simon Cowell’s less-successful half-cousin.

But, for some bizarre reason, he was liked enough to finagle his way into a talk show with CNN, during which he reports on major news topics and gets to interview people with stories and backgrounds way more important than his. I’ll always refer back to his recent interview with BuzzFeed writer Michael Hastings, in which the two clashed over the significance of the David Petraeus affair, sending the bumbling Morgan into a stuttering fit because he was unable to keep up. The best he could do was fold his arms and pretend he was critiquing a woman juggling fire or a little boy doing a hip-hop routine because, at his core, it’s all he knows.

It’s not as if we weren’t warned, though. Ray Bradbury spoke of an immersed entertainment experience in his novel Fahrenheit 451, where people can participate in television programs they’re watching through giant parlor walls a la American Idol. Even in 1953, when he penned the book, a future of vapid visual stimulation seemed inevitable. Now, we’re realizing life today is much worse than his prediction. Vapid visual stimulation isn’t a nook in an otherwise spotless society — it’s everything to us now.

What’s frightening is there is no going back because the earth would stop spinning if reality TV ceased to exist. What would news outlets, reputable or not, write about? Who would we satirize? What would we, as average Americans, do with our free time? What would all of those people who aspire to strut around Hollywood from paparazzi to paparazzi do with their lives? I guess we’ll never know.

–Dean