As a self-appointed expert on trashy reality television, I bring you this list of good trashy television. You may be thinking that isn't at all possible and all reality television is trashy, but that is untrue. Trashy reality television is bad in the best way possible. When you need to turn your brain off and just veg, this is the list of shows to turn to. We all have problems that plague our lives so isn't it fun to watch people on TV in the most ridiculous situations make dumb decisions? That is technically the German principle of Schadenfreude, which fuels all trashy reality TV, but that's another article for another day.
The shows on this list were selected because they are perfect viewing for the "I'm too tired to think right now" headspace. The people on these shows have to make bonkers choices that many of us cannot even fathom, which is sometimes part of why reality TV is enjoyable; it makes us feel better about our own lives. So if you don't plan on going on a dating reality show or suddenly become a Real Housewife, then get ready to laugh at their chaos.
5 Temptation Island
Starting off with a trashy dating show, Temptation Island may have the trashiest concept of all the shows on this list, or one of the wildest. Couples in long-term relationships come to this island to test their relationship and see if they should get married. They are each split up and put with the other (now) singles in their gender and placed in a villa surrounded by the opposite sex; the "Boys Villa" has 12 female singles surrounding the male parts of the couples, and the "Girls Villa" has the opposite.
Each half of the couple is then encouraged to get to know the singles in their villa and has all communication cut off with their partners in the other villa. The only thing the couples see is a weekly clip of their partner's behavior (which is usually their most scandalous behavior). Lastly, at the end of the season the couples come back together and decide if they want to leave together, as singles, or with another single from the island. Pure chaos right? It is challenging for viewers to comprehend why anyone would want to go on this show, and it's undeniably trash and heteronormative, but boy is it entertaining in the Schadenfreude way.
4 Below Deck
This is one of those shows where you can see people with more money than seems possible to earn in a lifetime, either satisfying your envy or guaranteeing your contempt. Below Deck follows a crew of workers on a mega yacht as they go through the yachting season with new guests every week. The show has many spinoffs that occur in all different parts of the world, but they all feature the same structure.
Each season follows one ship crew made up of stewardesses, deckhands, a chef, and the captain. The crew is quite small, usually around 10 people. The show follows the crew as they interact with each other and the very rich guests that come on the ship each week. There's drama between the crew members, the chef slept with the deckhand, a deckhand slept with a guest, and so on; you never know what could happen. Then you add in the fact that this all happens on a boat that is often docked in some of the most beautiful places on the planet, and you have the recipe for a great reality show. This one isn't extremely trashy, but the people on this show can often be quite cringey and over-the-top, so that certainly ups the trash factor.
3 Married at First Sight
This may take the cake for deranged trash. Married at First Sight follows couples as they are, you guessed it, uncomfortably married at first sight. These couples are paired together by various marriage experts, and then see each other for the first time at the altar, so the show already starts off as bananas. Then the couples go on their honeymoon alongside the other couples going through this experiment. Usually there's not much interaction there, but sometimes the couples fight with each other, and some individual couples break up or even refuse to stay in the same room.
After the honeymoon, all the couples move into the same apartment complex and attempt to live together in some semblance of normalcy. All the couples go back to work and then come home to each other at night. There are fights about laundry, dinner not being on the table on time, and even why your new husband is unemployed. At the end of eight weeks, the couples decide if they want to stay married or get a divorce. This show is quite long and not for the faint of heart, but it's fun if you have a lot of time on your hands and a good choice if, ironically, you want to see people make terrible choices.
2 Catfish: The TV Show
This show is less trashy and more pure cringe. Many of us have been on the internet long enough to understand whether the person we're talking to is real or fake. Catfish: The TV Show shows us that maybe we actually don't know if the person we're speaking to is real or not. It is hard not to feel bad for the people that are being catfished on the show, but sometimes they just let a little too much slide. It also happens that the catfishers themselves are sometimes comic gold in their ridiculousness.
Whether they are actually someone the victim knows, or are a serial catfishers, it's hard to imagine the choices that led to being on this show. While the show seems sadder than it is comical sometimes and by description, it's actually quite hilarious a lot of the time. Nev and Kammie (the current co-host) lighten the mood at every chance they get. They keep the show light-hearted and funny, especially once they go and find the catfisher and often ream them out. It's never obvious who the catfish may be, which is just part of the fun that comes along with this show. It's a digital-era, postmodern reality show that sometimes transcends its own trashiness.
1 The Real Housewives
The pinnacle of trashy reality TV is the Real Housewives franchise, which began with The Real Housewives of Orange County. While any of them have the amount of trashiness and largely unintentional comedy that you may require, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills combines insane wealth with pure trash. Beverly Hills has former child actors, Denise Richards and her nutty boyfriend (for two seasons), John Cougar Mellencamp's daughter (again for a few seasons), and women with terrible fake accents (you can't say that accent is accurate, Dorit).
These women are flush with cash that has come from all locations (which isn't as important) but boy do they know how to spend it. They hold insane parties, drive cool cars, wear only designer, and sometimes even get arrested. Yes, arrested. There is currently a cast member whose elderly husband was arrested for defrauding orphans and widows of a major plane crash, and she is involved. Allegedly he gave her company the money that was supposed to go to the aforementioned orphans and widows.
The fact that Real Housewives has been on the air for so long (16 years), and is continuing with The Real Housewives of Dubai (much to the ire of anyone who cares about human rights), certainly says something about society, but if you are looking for some wonderfully trashy TV, catch it while it's still on.