2. Reality TV

   "And as in reality, so on "reality TV." How long until the first TV death? How long until the second? By the end of Orwell's great novel 1984, Winston Smith has been brainwashed. "He loved Big Brother." As, now, do we. We are the Winstons now."  (Rushdie S, Reality TV: a dearth of talent and the death of morality, 2001)

In 9th grade, I read 1984 in Turkish just for myself. I liked it a lot but when I was in 11th grade I read it again for the English lesson in English and it was totally different. The parts I liked, the parts that I underlined and the parts that made me think of were different. In 9th grade the only thing I remember is; I was sorry for Winston and Julia and for the end (the part that Winston says that "I love Big Brother"). But in 11th I started to think of some other things like freedom and rebellion. 

Why do we obey the rules of the society? The simple answer is we have to. But why really? Don't we have the chance to rebel? The answer is controversial. Sometimes we have the chance to say no. For example when Sonja give us some homework we can choose not to do. But then we have to bear the consequences. 

My father says that "itaat et rahat et" (obey and be comfortable). I believe this is the simple rule for everything. It works in school, at work, with your friends, with your family and with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Unfortunately the system does not give us the chance to be ourselves or we can't choose what we want to do at the moment. I mean why do I have to go to every lecture or lesson in school, take notes, do homework and then get a job, maybe get married, have kids, have grandchildren and live happily after rather then spending our days just doing nothing in way or doing everything meaningful?

Why do we have to have labels like engineer, economist or social scientist? We don't learn anything because we want to learn. The system force us to memorize some of the information and then after the exam the same system force us to forget those information to replace them with the new forgettable information. We are all systemkids and it is very hard to change this truth.

If Winston did not rebel he wouldn't suffer for anything. He would still be eating those terrible food, living in a terrible house and also he would still be ugly. But because he rebelled, they tortured him, they intimidated him. As a result "Under the spreading chestnut tree I sold you and you sold me….”(1984/George Orwell) 

As a result, we can see the systemkids on TV especially in Reality Shows and only the systemkids are watching those shows.