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.
