FINNS IN THE HOOD

Since I haven’t mentioned it before, currently I am studying as an exchange student in Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK). One of the courses that I’m taking is Media Channels and Platforms. Realism was one of the subjects that we were discussing in class and one of the tasks was to think of a reality TV show idea, so below I will talk about it in detail.

Name of the show is “Finns in the Hood”.

Since finns are super introverted, shy people and they enjoy seeing other finns getting out of their comfort zone and other cultures reacting to finn mentality we thought that this could actually be a good reality TV show idea. There are finnish participants who can speak english (that's not a big problem, because almost everyone in Finland can) and according to their being and in what subculture they would fit in the best each of them are placed in the absolute opposite environment in the USA. They have to survive there for a week. In the beginning they get a list of tasks that need to be completed during that week. Tasks are the real challenge, because it means that the participant really has to get their hands dirty, for example, a person who don't do anything crazy, dress socially acceptable all the time and are really professional in a sense has to go help this guy to spread his message for a day. If the participants complete all the challenges they win a real, nice vacation in the USA.

This reality TV show is not only funny, emotional, intriguing and entertaining, but there's also an educational side to it. All the participants get to face their weaknesses and overcome their prejudices. Since each participant is in a different subculture show viewers can learn about different cultures and lifestyles. By seeing how participants get out of their bubble and overcome their insecurities viewers can expand their horizons.

I think that this is actually quite an original idea, because I haven't heard of anything like that, but on the other hand I'm not a big reality TV show fan and I don't know that much reality shows. I think the most unique part about the “Finns in the Hood” is the finns who are in the USA, because the most common principle in reality TV shows is that there are local participants from the same country where the show is made.

I think that if we want to involve other media platforms that one of the possible ways could be that participants need to go to a radio shows where they get interviewed, also each of them could get a phone from the show where they have an instagram profile, so they could document their week in USA for fans, hmnnn, what else… It’s hard to think of some accurate examples when all the tasks that they have to do have not thought out yet and there’s just the concept of the show. I guess maybe there could posters with images from some special moments of the show which can be signed by the participant if the fanbase gets big enough.

After writing this, one show came into my mind. In “My Name Is Earl” the main character starts to believe in karma so he makes a list with everything bad that he has done in his life and tries to make it right. Of course this is not a reality show, but seeing unusual tasks and even more unusual ways of doing them kept me hooked to that show. I think that it might work as good in our show.

So, yeah, I hope to see this show one day. Here’s the presentation that we made really fast in the class.