Reality has nothing to do with it

I still have not figured out why they call it "reality" television; there's nothing "real" about any of those shows. The shows are staged so they excite people. Media consumers today live to see other people be humiliated, cheated, hurt, and broken-hearted. For all of those "reality" T.V. watchers, that's what excites you. If it doesn't have those aspects on the show then forget it; you might as well be better off walking the dog, or doing your homework.
Fear Factor has people eating, walking, and breathing disgusting concoctions that nobody has ever heard of, or even thought about before. American Idol, people are competing to show that they possess they best talent. In the end, it is up to Simon Cowell to humiliate the contestant and send them on their long journey back home. It's even better if that conestant makes a huge fit after his or her audition crying, yelling, they might even go as far as to ask random people on the street if they think he or she should have been the American Idol. That is when the show gets really funny, the contestant is literally willing to humiliate themselves no matter what the circumstance. What about the shows where there is a group of complete strangers put into a house and they have to live there together for a certain amount of time. The goal is to compete for what ever it is they are on the show for( a husband, wife, or the ultimate: money). The word "Compete", in a standard dictionary, means to strive against another or others to attain a goal, such as advantage or victory. The contestants demonstrate this definition to the extreme by doing all of the above. Does this sound familiar? Well, it is the plot of about 10 different "reality" T.V. shows: Flavor Flav, Big Brother 1, 2,3... Bachelor/Bachelorette, Survivor, Amazing Race, The Real World, The Vault, Celebrity Fit Club. The list is endless but they all have the same exact "reality" about them. I took this oppurtunity to look up the definition of reality. Everything I saw contained words like "fact, actual, independent". This brings me to the next question: "What is reality?"