Houseapedia, TV 2.0
I’m not one to watch much TV. My modest flat screen has abandonment issues. And lots of dust. But I did once have a wickedly awesome and dorky idea for a reality TV show. No, it wasn’t dorky because it leveraged audience participation over the Internet. Everyone’s doing that now. It was dorky because it used a wiki. You know, like Wikipedia. Anyone can edit it at any time. (Unless you’re timorously Marked for Speedy Deletion Because We’re Insecure and Afraid No One Will Take Us Seriously).
The show would go like this. A group of random strangers would be thrown in a house to live together. (Obviously nothing new, but since when has the idea really mattered on network television?) The fun part comes in with the wiki. Viewers continually change the house rules, which the contestants are bound to live by. They might have to sleep on the roof. Maybe they can’t use words to communicate; they can only draw pictograms on the walls with hot glue guns. Or eat beats for every meal. Move around the house using monkey bars attached to the ceiling.
Clearly the possibilities are endless. And clearly it’s a good idea. Clearly.