Schadenfreude is a German word that translates roughly as “harm joy”. It names the very human tendency, in some situations, to take a little pleasure in another person’s misfortune, failure or setback. An occasional flicker of it is ordinary; the trouble begins when entertainment systems turn that flicker into a steady diet.
This builds on why we feel schadenfreude, which explores how envy, rivalry and insecurity can underlie the feeling. It also echoes the pull of true crime stories that trade on fascination with harm. The difference with much reality television is how close the people on screen feel to everyday life.
Schadenfreude is not automatically unethical or malicious. It can be short-lived and understandable, rooted in rivalry, a sense of correction, or relief after someone has caused harm. It can even feel like vindication after trauma or grief. Still, finding pleasure in the macabre can sit awkwardly beside the values we say we hold, especially when platforms reward us for staying hooked.
Deserving as compassion rather than judgement
I have written before about how the idea of “deserving” can be wielded as a moral judgement on ourselves or others. A healthier frame treats compassion as something people are entitled to, especially towards themselves. When “deserving” becomes a test of whether someone is acceptable based on behaviour, values or circumstances, it hardens into conditional regard.
That mindset does not arrive only from politics. It is fed, day after day, by what comes through our phones and television sets. Shows framed as light-hearted or wholesome can still normalise animosity, idealised judgements and hostility towards the people we watch. Those attitudes do not always stay on the sofa. They can travel into how we treat one another offline.
When attention is baited for profit
Reality television and social media increasingly turn humiliation, disappointment, betrayal, deception and interpersonal harm into a game. Formats built around romance, high pressure and conflict often treat moments of emotional vulnerability as spectacle, while dangling money, fame or notoriety as the prize. Family entertainment branding can make it easy to miss what is being practised.
Reality television and social media prioritise holding attention long enough to monetise views. Health and wellness are not the product. News can grow more graphic in some ways and more evasive in others, and film and true crime have long portrayed horror and antisocial harm. We often meet those stories at a distance, as something outside ordinary life. Reality formats blur that distance because the participants usually start as ordinary people rather than seasoned celebrities, so it is easier to see ourselves in the scenes.
Why reality TV feels immersive and relatable
Media systems are built to set off strong emotional reactions that catch and hold attention. Words such as sensationalising, rage baiting, grief baiting, nostalgia baiting, hope baiting, romance baiting, urgency baiting, sympathy baiting and doom baiting name the likely impact on individual and collective psyches. The outcome is familiar: strong feelings in the moment that generate clicks and views.
Repeated exposure matters. Momentary feelings triggered by reality television and related media can, over time, influence how we experience ourselves, other people and the world. While we are entertained, we may stop asking whether the moral or psychological implications of what is on screen feel comfortable, or what the impact is on participants and on us.
What immersion can quietly change
Familiarity is only part of the story. Over time, our sense of what feels safe, comfortable, fun, or even right or wrong can shift, especially when harm is normalised as “only a game” or endorsed by prizes, fame and romance. Even when we know scenes are exaggerated, reductive or partly fabricated, we may still invest emotionally in the pantomime.
Whilst we indulge in the drama, we may not notice how quickly our moral judgements become black and white. Media often oversimplifies complex dilemmas, so it becomes easy to sort people into those who deserve sympathy and those who deserve derision. When we casually delight in someone’s misfortune, romance or win, we may ignore the deceptive, high-conflict or sensationalised process that produced it.
Boundaries of what feels ordinary and tolerable can shift. We can become so used to the dopamine payoff of schadenfreude, and to the contrasting hits of delight and sympathy, that we stop recognising the real-life impact on participants and on ourselves. Competition, spite, judgement, humour and Machiavellianism get packaged as fun and games.
An invitation to pause
It helps to think differently about the hidden messaging in entertainment mechanisms. Consider the potential impact on young, vulnerable or impressionable minds, and notice whether your own threshold for what feels aversive or unacceptable has risen. Recalibrating that threshold is not about puritanism. It is about keeping compassion available in a media economy that profits when we forget the people on screen are people.
