The end of civilization as we know it

Yes, I am talking about Honey Boo Boo.
People have said that this show doesn't belong on TV. That these people are not worth watching. That these people are pathetic, worthy of mockery, but nothing else. But why?

Is it a problem that they seem to actually love each other? Is it a problem that they seem to have fun as a family, even when that fun involves bobbing for raw pig feet? What is it about Honey Boo Boo and her kinfolk that makes people feel so superior and so nasty?

Now, I don't have a problem with this family. I wouldn't want to live next door to them, or go to auctions to buy Oreo cookies or go dumpster diving with them, but I don't have a strong, hateful, 'better than' reaction to them, either.

They are poor. They struggle, like a lot of people do, they might not eat what you feel they should be eating, but what people ingest really isn't any of your business, and I am sure your pantry isn't full of 100% nutritious food either. They argue, they laugh, some of their habits are so completely foreign to me that I have a hard time even understanding what I am watching, but what I don't see when I watch them is any sort of pretense.

They are real. And they seem to be okay, even happy, with how they are in the world. Is that the problem people have with them? Do you only want to watch poor people on TV that strive for something 'better', that admit to the world what you think they should admit, that their lives couldn't possibly be worth living without 'hope', without reaching for something bigger? Is their happiness a threat to peoples ideas of what the truly poor should be like? Is the fact that they have so little but are content a threat somehow?

There are dozens of shows on the air that are far worse than this one, that teach young women all sorts of 'wonderful' messages, like how to fight with 20 strangers for a rose and to get screwed by some random guy that always ends up seeming like he is one step away from being arrested for domestic violence. Or there is that family that has made a career somehow out of the fact that a daughter made a sex tape that her mother, allegedly, leaked, so her daughter could get on TV. There is the Bravo channel that has half a dozen shows about 'housewives' that feature women getting into physical fights as well as boozing it up and generally acting like assholes.

Those shows don't feature family and love in the way most people think about it, or wish it could be. The Boo Boo Family does show love for their family members in a way that I suspect most people would like to have in their own lives, without judgment or conditions. But people can't get beyond the fact that they are poor. But guess what? There are millions of people this poor all across this country, and I am sorry if you don't want to know about it or believe it, but it's true. And for all of their faults, and they have many, they honestly love each other and they are okay with their lives.