14 Reality Shows Around the World That Make Us Doubt the Limits of Creativity

Since the launch of the first BBB, Brazilians have discovered that they love a reality show and follow everyone with dedication and passion. People cheer, watch, go to social networks to defend their favorite participants and some even pay to see 24 hours of programming.

Although the confinement format (like BBB and A Fazenda) works very well here, there are other types of reality shows, especially survival (No Limite), relationship (Marriage to the Blind) and transformation (Queer Eye). In other countries, the amount of reality shows is astonishingly diverse and somewhat bizarre. And many do not even reach Brazilians.

For that very reason, we awesome.club we traveled around the world to bring the most peculiar reality shows ever shown, including in Brazil.

Shown by Record in 2017 and presented by Marcos Mion, A Casa was a confinement reality show where 100 anonymous people had to live in a house designed for the housing of only four people. That is, for three months the participants shared four beds, two bathrooms, food and even enough hygiene items for four people.

Participants were eliminated by tests and votes, but many dropped out in the middle of the program, either due to health problems or pressure. The prize was 1 million reais, but the money was used throughout the program by the residents, leaving only R$ 436,772.00 for the winner.

I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant is a program whose title leaves no doubt as to its theme. In each episode, the presenter narrates the story of a person who learned that he was expecting a baby just at the moment of giving birth. Many cases reported in the program show people who have not experienced nausea or even doctors who give wrong diagnoses when the pregnant person feels sick.

One example was Abbigale, who felt abdominal pain during a party and went to the bathroom, where she began surprise labor. Another case shown on the show was that of Nicci, who gave birth without knowing she was pregnant with the help of her other son, just 10 years old!

The reality show Van do Amor premiered in Japan in 1999 and was shown for ten years, until it was relaunched and made available on Netflix in 2018. In the program, seven young people board a pink van that travels through several cities. Without cell phones and with a limited budget (about R$ 40 per day for each one), participants interact and get to know each other, with the aim of forming couples. If this happens, the couple leaves the program and other participants take their place.

We’ve already talked about Netflix’s Don’t Sleep on Point, where participants stay up for 24 hours to win a prize. But in this other competition reality show, Shattered, the ten contestants are seven days (and a half) without sleep to deserve the £100,000 prize. They are given tasks like attending a lecture on triangles, peeling potatoes, and counting peas. Every time someone takes a nap or closes their eyes for ten seconds, the prize is reduced.

Really, some things are so weird that it takes a reality show to prove that yes, it’s a reality! This is the case of Whisker Wars, which set out to bring together the biggest bearded competitors in the United States to compete in the World Beard and Mustache Championship in Norway. The program shows the contest of ego between the participants, internal competitions and tests of leaders.

Critics claim that, watching, you come to doubt if it’s all reality or a well-constructed joke. There is a fascination in watching a subculture of facial hair growing among men who display vanity and frailty.

This program generated a lot of controversy when it was launched in 2007. That’s because it proposed to bring together 40 children from 8 to 15 years old in a ghost town in the state of New Mexico, so that they could try to create a society without the help of adults. They even needed to prepare food, transport water, institute some form of government, and run businesses with the money that production gave each one.

The show was canceled after 13 episodes, mainly after criticism of subjecting minors to long hours of work in a row. Young people were monitored 24 hours a day, as in any reality show in confinement, which generated anger among spectators. In addition, other issues were raised, such as those related to children’s health.

In 2016, a British channel tried to correct Kid Nation’s mistake by creating a reality show called Eden, this time with 23 adult contestants in a remote area of ​​Scotland previously used for military training in World War II. The goal was the same: to create a self-sufficient community, being able to decide for themselves how to feed, organize and shelter away from technology. Participants themselves were given cameras to film their progress.

Did you notice that we said “tried” in the previous paragraph? It turns out that, due to lack of audience, the show was canceled after four episodes. The “only” production forgot to warn the participants, who continued to be abandoned and filming the program. The ten participants who resisted a pre-arranged year only found out about the cancellation when they returned home. Still, the recorded material was used in special episodes.

First of all, we need to translate this giant name: it’s something like “variety game and escape and solving mysteries in a closed room”. That is, a Japanese program that simulates dangerous situations that we see in action movies, such as flooding rooms, quicksand, bomb defusing and walls that close. Of course, none of the tasks pose any real danger, everything is made of foam and no one gets hurt. Mostly wet.

The program ran from 2009 to 2011, but was discontinued after an earthquake and tsunami struck the country. The producers did not think it was polite to expose players and spectators to situations that could be traumatic for many of them. However, the format is now marketed under the title EXIT!

This is also a women-only competition program with multiple races and penalties. One of the penalties places two women at the ends of a pipe with a cockroach inside. They need to blow the cockroach so that it reaches the opponent’s mouth. The show gets its name from being hosted by a group of pop singers called AKB48, even after the group was replaced by a comedy duo called the Bad Boys.

A reality show that features people who want to look like their famous idols doesn’t seem so quirky, does it? It really wouldn’t be, if these fans were limited to imitating celebrity haircuts, makeup, and clothing. But it turns out that what they really want is to undergo plastic surgery to literally have a face like their idols.

This reality show follows young people who undergo painful and even risky surgeries just to look like their famous idols. Some of the fan targets featured on the show were Pamela Anderson, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Victoria Beckham, Britney Spears and Brad Pitt. As an example, the twins Mike and Matt who wanted to look like Brad Pitt. Did it work?

A tattoo done at an unfavorable time, or that reminds you of an ex or even that got really ugly. If you don’t live this crisis, maybe you know a similar story. Because this reality show on Netflix proposes to cover these disappointments with new tattoos. But there must be some catch, right? Right. In this case, it is not the person himself who chooses his new tattoo, but a friend, relative, girlfriend or even his mother. And sometimes, the new tattoo ends up being even worse!

The Band aired this reality show in 2010 after having bought the format from Endemol, the Dutch producer that owns the MasterChef and Big Brother formats, for example. In Busão do Brasil, 12 participants board a 24-hour monitored bus, departing from Fortaleza, Ceará, and traveling through 11 Brazilian states.

In addition to spending time on the bus, they took part in tours and races in the cities where they stopped, almost always with the theme of local culture. The trip took just over two months and the final prize was R$ 1 million.

This reality was shown by SBT from 2005 to 2006 and mixed an auditorium program with confinement. Every week, a man and a woman went to the program to choose their future bride and groom from among several candidates. They reduced their choices to two candidates each and the final choice was made, amazingly, through an audience vote! The two couples were then directed to the Casa dos Grooms, where they were confined for 21 days and watched at all times.

The couples from the previous weeks were also present, until they completed their 21 days. There they participated in tests, outings in addition to watching romantic movies. When that period was up, they returned to the auditorium to announce whether they were going to marry or separate. If they chose to marry, Silvio Santos’ broadcaster would fund the party and give an allowance of R$10,000 a month for a year.

Last but not least, we need to talk about New Face Reality Brasil. For you to understand, imagine a BBB minus the millionaire budget, minus the luxurious house, minus the beautiful participants and minus the giant channel. This reality was shown 24 hours on YouTube, in May 2021, and took place in a rented party hall in the interior of Paraná, with very little budget but a lot of honesty.

Among the 21 participants, the most famous was former Legendary Hulk Skinny. The others are just aspiring internet celebrities vying for a R$6,000 motorcycle, a trip to Cancun, another to Brazil and, of course, the title of “ex-New Face”. Eliminations are made by spectator votes and the whole dynamic is based on the chess pieces. The episodes are still available on YouTube, on the TV channel Thepapo.

Well, when it comes to getting an audience, it seems that there are no limits to human creativity. Not to mention the participants, often people like us, who venture into reality shows to earn a little money or achieve fame. If you could choose, which program on this list would you participate?