By Chris Cosci

If the first wave of reality television shows taught us anything, it's that people are greedy, backstabbing liars who are willing to do just about anything for a big pile of money. But the latest trend in reality television tells us something different: we're ugly, sloppy, and incompetent.

We're living in a makeover world, and nothing is safe from this revolution. Regular people are perfectly willing, on national television no less, to change their homes, their wardrobes, and even their looks to conform to the high standards set by the beautiful, well-dressed people that host these shows. The concept of being accepted for who you are and not what you look like is tossed aside with yesterday's garbage. Instead, we're giving in to the opinion of "wow, you look terrible - let us change you!"

Gone are the days of self-acceptance and inner beauty. Now it's all about what's on the surface. We need to strive for that perfect appearance. We must have the approval of the common man. Why settle for being content when you can get a television crew to film how hideous you look and a group of self-proclaimed "experts" to mock you in front of millions of people before transforming you into another one of their personal creations?

More than anything, reality television is out to prove that we as a society are totally incapable of getting anything done without outside help. We need these people to show us the way - to help us lose weight, decorate our homes, and organize our lives. We've grown dependent, and we're consistently slipping further and further down the ladder of social ineptitude. Perhaps this explains why a guy can't look clean, stylish, or intelligent without the collaborative efforts of a team of gay men.

But not even an extreme makeover can fix what seems to be one of the greatest threats to our very existence. People can no longer find a suitable mate without assistance. Seeing the desperate measures some people take to find "the one," it's amazing we all didn't die out as a species before the age of reality television.

The most common format for finding a partner on television is to have the network gather a large group of single people for you to choose from. These people must be equally or even more desperate than you, to the point where they'll fall in love with you after just shaking your hand. It must be difficult to have to break the heart of that poor person who has loved you ever since the minute ago they met you.

Still, one of those people must be the right one for you. How could all those television executives be wrong? After all, they have gone through the painstaking process of selecting twenty-five people from the roughly one billion single people in the world - just for you!

But this is still not good enough for some people. After all, this still requires you to make an actual decision. We can't have people using their brains on reality television. That's why other people have their friends, their family, or television viewers make the choice for them.

So we have reached the point where we are comfortable having millions of people who have never met us telling us who we're going to date - millions of people who are probably watching the show because they couldn't get a date that night. And some people are not just looking for a boyfriend or girlfriend, they're looking for somebody to marry. Sure, it's okay to have a home audience decide who we love unconditionally. But cultures that still practice arranged marriages? That's an outrage!

Eventually, we'll have a show to help us with every major event of our lives. Trying to find a job? Sign up for "Who Wants to Hire Me?" Need some root canal surgery? Try out for "Drill Me." Want to have a baby through artificial insemination? Go on "Choose My Donor!" The future is ours - let's make everybody else decide how it's going to turn out.