CBS debuted its latest television show, “Big Brother” Wednesday night, adding another reality-based show to the growing list.

Fox and ABC are also getting in on the ratings bandwagon, preparing similar shows for the public to consume like rabid wolverines.

Ten strangers placed in a house without any contact to the outside world. Each competing for a grand prize of $500,000.

Another show selling the unpredictability of real life. In all reality, these shows represent nothing even closely resembling real life.

For example, seven strangers picked to live in an outrageously expensive house, given extravagant vacations and unbelievable jobs isn’t very real.

Or how about, 16 strangers from all walks of life picked to live on a deserted island and perform ridiculous tasks in order to stay on the primitive island and win $1 million?Who is voted off of the island is talked about more than who will be our next president.

Real life is not this interesting or cushy. These shows resonate with all the truth of a shabbily made, college-independent film.

They represent the farthest thing from real life: pre-selected strangers who go through rigorous try-outs in order to find out who is destined to conflict.

Everything from the selection process to the cohabitation is used to make a buck. Now there’s even a “Real World” CD.

Where have the days of creative, original TV gone?

It seems the end of “Seinfeld” not only marked the death of the sitcom, but the end of all creative efforts on the parts of the networks.

Still, we eat it up.

The question must be asked, are our lives so dull that we must watch other people living to be entertained?

Everyone is striving to earn his or her 15 minutes of fame no matter what the cost. How many people achieved that through “COPS” or “Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?”

Not only was a bride auctioned off with our sense of right and wrong, but any notion of what entertainment is as well.

These shows are like car accidents: We don’t really want to look, but we do.

Viewers of these shows are lured in with the promise of unpredictability, that is the appeal of voyeurism after all.

But nothing ever happens and, if it does, it only happens for the camera and is, therefore, not real.

We’re all guilty of watching these shows; however, our time could be better spent having lives of our own.

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Iowa State Daily Editorial Board: Kate Kompas,Greg Jerrett, Heidi Jolivette, Justin Kendall and Tara Payne.