Sometimes you watch too much fantasy, and you just want to sit down and watch something real. From game shows to finding love, you can tune into a slice of life any day of the week.

Yet channel surfers wonder why reality TV is so popular, and if it’s real at all?

“Candid Camera” was one of the first reality TV shows and one of the most recognizable shows in the history of television. The show centered on around playing pranks on unsuspecting victims.

Many years later shows like “Scare Tactics” and Ashton Kutcher’s “Punk’d” start popping up.

Copying the format of “Candid Camera”, these shows were more aggressive in hilarity, showing a strange sense of humor of new generations.

An all-time favorite genre of reality TV is the ones were love is the main subject, such as “Flavor of Love”.

Hip Hop icon Flavor Flav gets to keep and send home 20 women, until one is left. The idea is that the one left would be his new girlfriend.

Two seasons have passed and the retired rapper has yet to find a love from the either season.

Viewers are expecting a third season.

Many people from “Flavor of Love” became reality TV stars.

This is true of Tiffany “New York” Pollard, who was in the final two of each season, and lost. She got her own show on VH1, called “I Love New York”; it had the same format as “Flavor of Love”.

Two seasons of the show have been aired, and a third will not be aired. On the last season New York finally found love in contestant George “Tailor Made” Weisgerber.

Since “Flavor of Love”, and “I Love New York” many more shows with the same format have showed up. Two popular ones are Bret Michael’s “Rock of Love”, and Tila Tequila’s “Shot at Love”. Both shows are running their second season soon on VH1.

Talent shows are also mega part of the reality TV genre.

American Idol is one show that everyone knows about. It has broken record after record with the numbers of people voting for their favorite contestant every year.

American Idol gave birth to many more talent shows, such as “American’s Got Talent”, “So You Think You Can Dance”, and “Dancing with the Stars”, all shows have gotten millions of hits.

With reality TV are the scandals that come with it.

Many viewers believe that shows they are watch are scripted. In many cases that is true.

Shows like the “Simple Life”, and later season of the “Real World”, and even “The Hills” have been reported having writers make up the plot for the day.

It seems that no matter what the case is, TV watchers will still tune in, even if the word reality doesn’t apply to the show.

With many more new surprises coming in 2008, and the writers strike going on it is promised that reality TV is and will remain a main genre in the television world.