Which is tougher BB or FA?

[peachy]

I was idly contemplating while driving to the shops this morning, and I wondered which was the hardest reality Tv show? I was thinking particularely about my two favourites Big Brother and Fame Academy and wondering which was the hardest to get through. I suppose any other reality shows could be incuded too, but I couldn't think of any that have that peculiarly vicious combination of living with each other while voting to get them either evicted/or to stay in, that those two shows have.

Anyway, which is the hardest show? The boredom of BB as against the terror of a live show? The complete isolation of BB as against getting to go out to rehearse and take part in the show and seeing friends and family but not being allowed to speak to them? On FA you had your clothes washed, your beds made and your meals cooked but you had to perform to your very best each week and were criticised and put on probation live in front of millions.

I couldn't do either in a million years, especially as I have no vocal talent at all, as anyone who heard me on the kareoke at the convention will testify, but which do you think is the toughest?:xyxwave:

[Mairi]

I don't think cooking, cleaning and washing a few clothes by hand is particularly tough, Peachy, not when you all "muck in" together, so I feel that BB1 and BB2 had it quite easy.

The people who had to live on the poor side in BB3 had it much harder as they had to live in a small space, survive on a very boring diet and wash with cold water (how I hated those bars!!).

However, I really feel that the FA students had the toughest job for the reasons you've already stated, especially the ones "on probation". The FA students worked their little socks off (Kevin made sure there were no slackers) and I admire them all for that.

:hello:

[LEE]

I think that both groups had it quite tough but for completely different reasons.

Certainly on the face of it, it does seem that the FA lot were under a lot more pressure than any of the BB contestants as they were all constantly being tutored and having to perform and songwrite. They had a quite tough busy regime in there with nowhere as much free time as the BB contestants and a live show at the end of the week and a risk of being put up for probation the following week if they were not up to scratch.

The BB housemates were under a completely different kind of scrutiny, they may not have been performing in the traditional sense of the word as the FA students were, but their whole lives became a performance and they were still under the threat of eviction. This threat had a different nature though as they didn’t have the same future performance goals as David, Sinead and the rest. Yes many of them might have quite liked a media career to follow on from BB but that is a completely different matter to having worked and worked to become musicians.

I’m not saying life in the BB house was easy, I’ve talked to enough of the housemates since they have left the house to know that it definitely wasn’t. Being cooped up in the BB house for up to 9 weeks with completely strangers, being watched 24/7 by the nation and being completely isolated from your loved ones is far more traumatic than it may seem. In that sort of hot-house environment it is very easy to get stressed and magnify situations out of all proportions, I know I couldn’t have coped with it.

I also agree with Miriam that the rich/poor concept in BB3 added a whole different element and life on the poor side cannot have been very pleasant, especially for people like Kate who spent several weeks over there.

I personally don’t think I’d have coped very well in either situation. I think that the FA students probably do come out slightly worse off, though ironically I think I would probably have coped with the Academy better than the BB house and if I had to chose to do one or the other of them it would be FA.

:flower:

[James]

I'd say that Big Brother is probably the more challenging of the two although Fame Academy comes close.
The FA students had the pressure of having to sing on live television every week, but at least they escaped the ever-present cameras when they left the Academy. And when they are up on stage they are doing something which they say they love doing, and want to make a career out of.

The Big Brother housemates are under 24/7 scrutiny from the cameras. In addition they are being constantly judged by the outside world, and have no opportunity to react to those judgements. I'd say that aspect of the Big Brother experience would be much more difficult to handle than the boredom and the lack of everday comforts. And it's something that I think the contestants themselves overlook.

The Big Brother contestants definately get treated more harshly by the press than the Fame Academy students did. The press seems to think that talent shows like FA have a purpose unlike Big Brother. And if an FA student gets voted off, it's probably because his or her singing wasn't liked, not because the public thinks that person had character flaws.

Another bonus is the money that successful FA students make from selling records. It's a different show I know, but there was an earnings league published recently that said that Gareth Gates had made over 3 million pounds in the last year and Will Young had made over 2 million. We don't know yet how much the Fame Academy people will make, but that's much more than any ex-BB contestant has earned.

[peachy]

I think being in the BB house would have been amazingly difficult, and I know that several times when FA students had odd moments of boredom they commented to each other, 'how did the BB people ever do it' or words to that effect. They couldn't imagine anything worse than the boredom and the inability to escape from the spotlight even for a minute which the BB people had to endure. Although they were frequently extremely nervous about their performance they really looked forward to going as an escape from the pressure of constant cameras and would sometimes say on a Wednesday 'I'll tell you tomorrow', BB people didn't have that luxury. So I think that possibly BB was harder in some ways in that it was relentless pressure.:xyxwave: