Happy Challengoliday! America’s fifth major sport, MTV’s The Challenge, returns to your television this evening, and we’ve decided to roll out a special GRTFL post just to get you prepared for this glorious event. I urge you to right now get a Challenge fantasy league together with your friends and hold a draft before this evening's premiere. There is little more enjoyable in life than yelling, “C'mon, TJ, give her a, 'You killed it!' TJ. GIVE HER A 'YOU KILLED IT!'” at your television. OK, there are actually a gabillion things more enjoyable in life than yelling at your TV about a reality show, but it's pretty far up the list, so email your buddies, set the stakes and divvy up the alcopsychoholics. You won’t regret it.
I hear this all the time: “I don’t watch those shows, so I don’t read the Reality TV column.” Of course you don’t watch those shows, that’s the point. You shouldn’t watch those shows — that would cut into your philanthropy/Paris Review-reading/hot yoga schedule. You shouldn’t know that we are in the midst of a Survivor sex scandal, you shouldn’t know that there is an attractive young woman on the Real World dating a dude that makes Screech look like Warren Beatty, and you certainly shouldn’t be following the Basketball Wife coup d'état like it is the Egyptian revolution. That would be weird. That is why this column exists, so you can read it and have something to talk about with your super-hot, super-dumb date, your sister-in-law that the family hasn't truly embraced, or the person next to you in the Twilight line. Consider the following your “Guide to Thanksgiving Conversations With Dumb People.” You’re welcome.
