“Reality” TV

September 11, 2014

Is something I’ve never been into. I find very little “real” about it.

And I don’t mean to keep on picking on Brandon Steiner (see here and here), but I accidentally came on his eponymous SNY show, The Hookup with Brandon Steiner, last night. I say “accidentally” because my on-air TV guide said it was supposed to be the Yankees-Rays game. But even when I saw what it was, I could not look away.

Having never seen The Hookup before, and not wanting to do any, you know, research, my impression was that this is supposed to be a feel-good program where someone writes in with a sad situation and the memorabilia mogul “hooks them up” by setting up a meeting a sports celebrity or bestowing gifts, etc. In yesterday’s show, one of the scenarios was a kid with ADHD who was, duh, a big Yankees fan. So Steiner and company went to the lad’s home and redid his room with an all-Yankee/Derek Jeter theme as a surprise, with the bonus that the kid go to spend a day at the Stadium that included a meet-and-greet with his hero (show only in still photos, not videotape for some reason).

In theory, this all seems like a wonderful idea, but in the hands of Steiner, to my opinionated mind, it just comes across as self-congratulatory. At the end of that segment, Steiner (did I mention he hosts the show?) chats with former Yankee David Cone, asking him “Was that a great hook up or what?” That strikes me as falling outside Maimonides’ Eight Levels of Charity.

Since it’s Steiner’s show — I’m guessing he pays for everything, not the Yankees’ network (again, no research) — he can do what he wants, including running numerous commercials for his memorabilia empire. Even when he’s on the show encouraging viewers to send in their inquires regarding hook-ups, he directs them to his company’s general website, necessitating navigating through all the sales stuff. More frequently, websites with special themes like have created a subcategory with a unique URL, as in “nameofsite.com/specific-idea.” (In fact, I did some research here; you have to scroll down the entire page until you find the Hookup business and there’s no stand-alone contact to submit questions/suggestions for the show.)

Here’s the first show. I have not watched it so so I don’t know if it includes the commercials.

Maybe it’s a damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don’t situation for Steiner. As an aside, I happened to be at a baseball event recently with some people who were familiar with Steiner and all agreed that this recent Jeter stuff was just too much for good taste.

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