The fall of America, the rise of “Honey Boo Boo”

Up until a week ago, I’d never heard of the  show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (on TLC).  I saw a friend’s Facebook status mentioning Honey Boo Boo but not knowing what she’s talking about, I overlooked it.  Coincidently, about an hour later, I saw previews for Honey Boo Boo and decided to watch it.  To say the least, I was shocked.  I didn’t even realize that the toddler girl was Honey Boo Boo.  I thought the show was about her mom: a white trash, redneck, mother of four who got pregnant with her oldest daughter as a teenager.  This woman doesn’t have much tact, and she definitely does not look her age (which is my age actually).  At first I thought the show was a joke, and then I realized the premise is actually based on beauty pageants for kids (spinoff from Toddler’s in Tiara’s).  I have to admit, when that little chubby, funny girl gets all glammed up, she looks really cute.  But that’s besides the point, and not to mention, I’m not a big fan of beauty pageants for young children anyways.

All that being said, I couldn’t take my eyes off the show.  In fact, the following night I tuned in again and realized that there was a marathon of the show running all night.  I’ll admit, I stayed up and watched two of the episodes.  Here’s a few things I kept thinking as the show progressed.

1. Why isn’t Child Services taking these kids away?

2. They must be making enough $ from the show to move somewhere better.  Or at least, away from the train tracks that are IN their backyard.

3. Why someone would want a pig as a pet inside their house is beyond me.  But then again, none of their other decisions really made sense to me.

4. Why would someone in the low-income bracket spend all of their $ on beauty pageants.

5. Is the saying “that’s a hot mess” going to be the newest popular tagline like Paris Hilton’s tagline “That’s hot!”?

6. This show is a mash-up of various reality shows including: Toddler’s in Tiara’s, Extreme couponing, and swamp people.

I think one of my favourite parts was having them talk about “dieting” (the 12-year-old daughter weighs more than me) as they were all sitting on the couch, snacking on what was probably a bag full of heart attacks waiting to happen. Another classic favourite was when they went to their local department shop to search for “deals”.  Their local department store turned out to be the local dump.  This family really took it to the next level, including rolling one of their daughters in an old, scummy, used-up mattress (gross anyone?). I also think it’s pretty funny that they have to write out what they’re saying as part of the show (not close captioning) because of their “accents”.

I wasn’t surprised by some of the twitter feeds going around a few weeks ago including “America is in trouble when more people tuned in to watch Honey Boo Boo than the Republican national convention” and “Obama recently claimed he’s never been more optimistic for the future of America. Clearly, he hasn’t seen ‘Here comes Honey Boo Boo'”

The problem is, I can’t stop watching this show.  What is it about this show? I guess I am a reality TV junkie… Does anyone else out there feel the same way??