From riches to rags, a TV-is-not-always-bad post.
We like stories about the rich and the poor, remember our post Living like the 1 percent?
On a really slow day, with the resident philosopher busy pondering, our contributor ended up on YouTube, watching German videos.
After a few on "preppers", the German version of the doomsday hoarders, complete with the online shop addresses of some of the interviewees, we ended up watching the first installment of a TV reality show about a handful of successful business people who go homeless in Berlin, Germany, for nine days.
The comments by YouTube users ranged from unimpressed to devastatingly critical, from "ah, come on" to "insult to truly homeless people".
Of course, such an undertaking has its dangers, but we believe that the producers made a good faith effort, and we were impressed to see that the volunteers were not "cookie cutter" bleeding hearts but contributed in very specific ways, from the millionaire business man who starts a begging enterprise "for Berlin's homeless" but keeps all the proceeds to himself, to the designer who wants to fast, to the others who try to find a little bit of work for a few euros a day.
Again, you can argue that having a camera team in the vicinity changes things, but you'd be surprised to see that a few yards of distance from the camera let an often cold reality get hold of the candidates.
While the series does not redeem all of the bland fare of German public TV, we give them and the volunteers a lot of credit, although cynics might have less charitable names for the concept.
Gimme those guys any time instead of botoxed F list celebs in a jungle camp, eating pig anus.
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