JohnnyBB
07-06-2010, 03:49 AM
WHEN THE Big Brother contestants are unveiled this week for the last ever series of the Channel Four reality TV show, I'll be sitting at home thinking, "That shoulda been me..."
For the last four months I have been on the rollercoaster ride to whittle down 10,000 applicants to the show, to just 40. I was one of those 40 and the likelihood is that I would have been spending my World Cup summer being scrutinised and you would have known every nuance of my life. You would have been able to see me make a fool of myself and even crack up under the pressure of not seeing my beautiful daughters for weeks.
Some of you would have gotten a kick out of watching me conduct my morning absolutions and try to maintain my celibacy. But alas, it is not to be. I made the call a short while ago to tell them that I have decided not to take part, that I was turning my back on the fame, the glory, the abuse, the interview with Davina after being kicked out, and whatever else would await me.
It wasn't an easy call to make, because I have thought of little else but the possibility of being on the show. The programme makers are so clever that they suck you in until you end up referring to them as ‘Big Brother’. They become your confidante, your mentor and your taskmaster all rolled into one. And that is just for starters.
It all started at Wembley Arena several months ago. There were literally thousands of wannabees applying to be on this final series. From madmen to strippers to cross-dressers. It was a right old carry-on camping. More than once I asked myself, "Dotun, what the hell are you doing here?"
What I was doing was satisfying my ego, which had been tweaked by one of the show's producers, who thought that I might make a good housemate.
She said it didn't matter that I'm not a teenage wannabe reality star. And she was right, because she got me all the way to the final cut. But it took a sista in the right place to know that there is a plethora of black talent out there that never gets a shout on the box. Not just me but MTV comedian Kojo was there too.
After answering what seemed like a thousand questions on their forms they throw you into a makeshift dark room – which is supposed to replicate the diary room on the show – and the Big Brother voice of doom booms out of a set of hidden speakers.
"So Dotun, you stopped someone committing murder. Tell Big Brother more about it."
That question really scared me. It was then that I realised how clever these people are. They go through hundreds of questions that you answered flippantly and select the one that will put the fear of God into you.
Amazingly, I got through the next round, which is when the cloak and dagger side of Big Brother started to take shape. I got a message on the phone to invite me to meet a man in a red coat with a red umbrella outside Hammersmith tube station, "The password is Harold..."
At the next session we were told that we were the lucky 200. And we were put into groups of 20. There were several airheads, lads and ladettes, and one cocky git who wanted everyone to know that he had an IQ of 160. To be fair he was the one who realised that the huge mirror in the room was a two-way mirror. We were being watched.
Then I was in the last 50 and it was time to see the two psychiatrists in a London hotel who try their damnedest to tell you that you don't want to be on Big Brother - you're wasting your time.
The problem for me is that I did want to be on Big Brother. I wanted to go right to the end. The only issue was how I was going to afford it. You see the difference between me and the rest of the Big Brother wannabees is that I've already ‘made it’.
I'm not famous enough to have been invited on Celebrity Big Brother, where they pay you lost wages to come on. But I am too well established and earning too much to be lumped with those who are the rank and file of your bog standard Big Brother housemates.
The show is just going to pay you £40 a day whilst you're in the Big Brother house. Now, I don’t know about you, but my family cannot live on £50 a day. If I was there to the end I could lose up to £100,000. And for that they would pay me £50 a day? I'm sure you'll agree that that can't work.
So you don't get to see me making a fool of myself. The nation misses out on seeing a real person who doesn't need to be a reality star on the programme. And what would have been the best ever Big Brother with me in the mix can now only possibly be second best.
http://www.voice-online.co.uk/content.php?show=17669
For the last four months I have been on the rollercoaster ride to whittle down 10,000 applicants to the show, to just 40. I was one of those 40 and the likelihood is that I would have been spending my World Cup summer being scrutinised and you would have known every nuance of my life. You would have been able to see me make a fool of myself and even crack up under the pressure of not seeing my beautiful daughters for weeks.
Some of you would have gotten a kick out of watching me conduct my morning absolutions and try to maintain my celibacy. But alas, it is not to be. I made the call a short while ago to tell them that I have decided not to take part, that I was turning my back on the fame, the glory, the abuse, the interview with Davina after being kicked out, and whatever else would await me.
It wasn't an easy call to make, because I have thought of little else but the possibility of being on the show. The programme makers are so clever that they suck you in until you end up referring to them as ‘Big Brother’. They become your confidante, your mentor and your taskmaster all rolled into one. And that is just for starters.
It all started at Wembley Arena several months ago. There were literally thousands of wannabees applying to be on this final series. From madmen to strippers to cross-dressers. It was a right old carry-on camping. More than once I asked myself, "Dotun, what the hell are you doing here?"
What I was doing was satisfying my ego, which had been tweaked by one of the show's producers, who thought that I might make a good housemate.
She said it didn't matter that I'm not a teenage wannabe reality star. And she was right, because she got me all the way to the final cut. But it took a sista in the right place to know that there is a plethora of black talent out there that never gets a shout on the box. Not just me but MTV comedian Kojo was there too.
After answering what seemed like a thousand questions on their forms they throw you into a makeshift dark room – which is supposed to replicate the diary room on the show – and the Big Brother voice of doom booms out of a set of hidden speakers.
"So Dotun, you stopped someone committing murder. Tell Big Brother more about it."
That question really scared me. It was then that I realised how clever these people are. They go through hundreds of questions that you answered flippantly and select the one that will put the fear of God into you.
Amazingly, I got through the next round, which is when the cloak and dagger side of Big Brother started to take shape. I got a message on the phone to invite me to meet a man in a red coat with a red umbrella outside Hammersmith tube station, "The password is Harold..."
At the next session we were told that we were the lucky 200. And we were put into groups of 20. There were several airheads, lads and ladettes, and one cocky git who wanted everyone to know that he had an IQ of 160. To be fair he was the one who realised that the huge mirror in the room was a two-way mirror. We were being watched.
Then I was in the last 50 and it was time to see the two psychiatrists in a London hotel who try their damnedest to tell you that you don't want to be on Big Brother - you're wasting your time.
The problem for me is that I did want to be on Big Brother. I wanted to go right to the end. The only issue was how I was going to afford it. You see the difference between me and the rest of the Big Brother wannabees is that I've already ‘made it’.
I'm not famous enough to have been invited on Celebrity Big Brother, where they pay you lost wages to come on. But I am too well established and earning too much to be lumped with those who are the rank and file of your bog standard Big Brother housemates.
The show is just going to pay you £40 a day whilst you're in the Big Brother house. Now, I don’t know about you, but my family cannot live on £50 a day. If I was there to the end I could lose up to £100,000. And for that they would pay me £50 a day? I'm sure you'll agree that that can't work.
So you don't get to see me making a fool of myself. The nation misses out on seeing a real person who doesn't need to be a reality star on the programme. And what would have been the best ever Big Brother with me in the mix can now only possibly be second best.
http://www.voice-online.co.uk/content.php?show=17669