My Utopia POV

Welcome to my Utopia, where it's all about my POV (as in point-of-view).

I've been blogging about BB since season 7. I've always referred to it as my "jobby" - part job, part hobby. I'm not getting paid or anything, but it's still work, and I do feel a certain "obligation" to do it, however the main motivation has always been that it's something I enjoy. I love to ramble on about my thoughts, and I'm a mad screencapper. It was always my philosophy that if the obligation started to outweigh the fun, I'd stop. During BB15 I started to reach that point and decided to scale back for BB16. Even posting only a few times a week became a chore, though I'm still not sure if that was because it was a dud of a season or if I'm just burned out. Or both. In any case, when I first heard about Utopia, I thought "hell no! I'm not getting invested in a livefeed show that's a YEAR LONG!" I already count on getting my life back in September. I live on the East Coast, and believe it or not, I do have a full time job. The sleep schedule that I fall into during BB is crazy. But on the day the Utopia feeds started up, I was so over BB that I decided to give Utopia a try. After all the feeds were free, and if there was any kind of action on them, they'd give me a diversion while waiting for the BB HGs to have a comp to report on, or decide to drag their asses out of bed and perhaps do something mildly interesting.

Within hours I was hooked on Utopia. I happily plunked down my $4.99 for the premium feeds and just had to hope that the Utopians would go to bed at a reasonable hour. A lot of BB livefeeders seemed to feel the same way. And the show was promoting that mentality. Without ever mentioning BB they drew in the fans, talking about no production interference, no feed outages, etc. At first there was a lot of excitement from the BB crossovers, but over the now almost month of Utopia, a lot of die-hard BB fans are starting to say they're giving up on Utopia. But not me. I'm still loving it.

The truth is that other than the fact that they're both shows with livefeeds, Utopia and BB are more different than they are alike. There are the obvious differences: Utopia is not a competition; there is no prize at the end. BB is about removing people one by one until there are only 3 of them left hanging out in the house, Utopia brings in new people to replace those that leave either by choice or through the structure of the show. And that's another key difference - a Utopian can choose to leave and there's no judgment. Instead of it being against the spirit of the concept, it's a part of it. If you're not happy - if this is not your Utopia - the gates are open.

Then there are the more subtle differences. Despite all the fights and drama, Utopia really is about building a community and trying to get along with each other. In BB, it can be helpful to be everyone's friend, but you're doing it with the hope and intent that you'll eventually stab them all in the back, or at least remain standing when everyone else is gone.

Dishonesty is excused, accepted, or even encouraged in BB. Pretending to be someone you're not is considered a perfectly valid strategy. But Utopia is about being who you are, or even more precisely who you want to be. Someone who lies, cheats or steals in Utopia can't be said to be "just playing the game." Instead they are tacitly stating that a liar, cheat or thief is their ideal version of themselves. Or at least that's how I see it. Some of the Utopians, and viewers, might well disagree. In fact when Aaron misappropriated funds, he pretty much said it wasn't because he wanted to be a thief, it was because he was experimenting with anarchy. I'd argue that anarchy doesn't mean you have to break the laws of traditional society just that you can if you feel they're not for you. And while I'd grant Aaron that maybe he didn't want to be a thief per se, he certainly wanted that pizza and he didn't really care if hurt someone else to get it.

Utopia is a true social experiment. It's about bringing people with diverse views together and having them figure out how to function. It raises questions of government, religion, morality and ethics, responsibility and much more. Big Brother is a game. It is certainly possible to be a fan of both - I sure am. But I would argue that just because you enjoy BB it doesn't necessarily follow that you would enjoy Utopia. It think this is particularly true for the air show. The aspects of BB that are more like Utopia, the pure human interaction, tend to play out more on the livefeeds than show. The TVOVs (TV-only viewers if you're new to my shorthand) who tune in for comps on BB might well find Utopia, with all its meetings and debating a little boring.

Determining if a BB fan would crossover to Utopia depends a lot on why that person likes BB. If it's all about the competition and strategy, you're maybe better off with Survivor. But if you really enjoy the voyeuristic aspects (whether in the traditional sense or in the observing human behavior sense), you would probably really like Utopia. And there are probably a lot of viewers who find BB too superficial who would really be engaged in Utopia.

I really hope Utopia sticks around for awhile. And I hope everyone, both the viewers and the UTs, can get past the drunken fights, trips to" pound town" (© Hex), and other general craziness and really get into the deeper issues. That's not to say the drunken fights and general craziness aren't fun. That's a part of life too. If everyone is Utopia was completely kumbaya we wouldn't analyze the deeper issues.

So that's my first Utopia POV. I already have quite a few other topics in mind, some related directly to the show as a show, others just issues Utopia has got me thinking about. I'm not sure how often I'll manage to post, but right now my enthusiasm is high. This most definitely won't be an update site. I never thought of my BB site as an update site, but it often sort of devolved into that. But there's no way I could keep up with everything the Utopians do on a daily basis. And again, I don't know that it really matters. It's not so much about the day to day, as it is about the broader results.