Publicity at the cost of privacy

There is nothing wrong in aspiring for publicity and become popular. In fact, fame is one of the main driving force of human psyche. People adopt various ways and means to gain publicity and become famous. Popularity may come through positive or negative means. Becoming popular through good deeds and acts is what one should normally aspire for. There is a difference between becoming popular for wrong reasons and becoming notorious.  One may become popular by being the butt of a joke all the time or getting wrongly caught for things that the individual never did. But notoriety is negative popularity by being wicked or egregious. These days, thanks to the proliferation of visual media a totally different type of popularity is being attempted by poor and middle class whose thirst for fame and popularity is quenched by appearance in electronic media. Either they directly participate or force their wards to participate in the innumerable reality shows and competitions happening in every television channel. These channels compete with one another in outbeating the other through improvement in TRP rating which is essential to attract advertisements, that is their bread and butter. Surprisingly, the basic concepts and themes happen to be identical in all channels of all languages. There are shows with dance, singing and game competitions for various categories of people and ages. In some channels, because of their reputation, the competitions assume very serious dimensions. Often in shows involving kids, the parental and peer pressure is so high that kids go crazy. Some reality shows intrude too much into the privacy of people. The gullible public with the sole intention of getting popular by appearance on TV screens, do not mind exposing their personal information beyond reasonable levels and some pathetic people believe in solutions offered to them by unqualified anchors. In one show of a popular Tamil channel, topics used to be so chosen often on flimsy pedestrian grounds and two groups of opposite opinion are brought together and involved in a discussion that is often endless. The anchor used to put intrusive personal questions and the ignorant people would get exposed. Protected privacy seems reserved only for some who care. Popularity at the cost of privacy is the order of the day for majority of middle and lower echelons of society.