Reality shows rely on stars who must possess the following qualities: quirky in some strange way, easily riled up, and not afraid ruffle feathers when it comes to interacting with their fellow cast members.
Luckily, these are also the qualities of most fame-whores, so it works out well for casting directors looking for the guys that are going to get them ratings. Whereas it's a bigger stretch to find well-adjusted, likable people on reality television, finding the annoying and awful ones that everyone loves to hate—and some everyone just flat out hates—is easy because, really, it's what the genre is all about. No one likes to watch these kinds of trashy shows for the quality—they watch them for the mindless entertainment factor. It's purely a method of escape, and a good one at that.
2012 was no different. Reality shows that aired this year featured all sorts of batshit crazy people, from angry mob wives to drunken Welsh people to a teenage bride who thinks she's Erin Brokovich. It sounds crazy, we know, but that's reality television—the crazier, the better. In honor of the year's end, we sifted through the insanity and ranked The 25 Worst Reality TV Stars of 2012.
Unlike how it is with reality television's "good" people, if the world ends next week and our generation is defined by these guys, we're screwed.
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Written by Tanya Ghahremani (@tanyaghahremani)