While many people are still glued to the television watching the reality of others, one can't help but to wonder, is reality TV a successful new trend or a fad that will just fade away?

Reality TV primarily started with The Real World in 1992. MTV’s idea to air the trials and tribulations of people’s lives turned into a phenomenon that no one expected. While The Real World was actually the first successful reality TV show, many people consider Survivor to be the beginning of this trend.

Survivor is based on human competition on a deserted island with a large cast who have very conflicting personalities. During its run, Survivor was the second most watched show in it’s time slot, said realitynewsonline.com.

After Survivor, a whirlwind of other reality shows, including Temptation Island, The Bachelor, Joe Millionaire, American Idol and many more hit prime time television.

The newest reality TV show list includes the Average Joe and Rich Girls. Average Joe is a story about an ex-NFL cheerleader/model who gets her pick between 16 “average Joes.” Even though the show is just in it’s third week, the beautiful bachelorette has already shown a side of shallowness. After professing to one of the contestants that “inner beauty is really what matters,” she proceeds to eliminate all six of the least attractive and most overweight men.

Rich Girls is based on Tommy Hilfiger’s daughter and her friend. The whole story is based around the trials and tribulations of these two rich girls who seem to have so many problems. However, many of the problems on the show so far have revolved around what to buy and boyfriend issues.

As reality TV continues to rise with similar themes and cheesy plot lines, the question of trend or fad comes up.

If reality TV is in fact just a fad, then the demise of it should happen just as it did with Beanie Babies, Cabbage Patch Kids, and the Rubiks Cube.

But as long as ratings continue to rise, new reality TV shows will be produced.

So, until there is a definite answer to the trend or fad question, information on reality TV can be found at http://www.realitynewsonline.com.