Back when MTV was the coolest channel to watch as a teenager, Music Television was the best place to binge on music videos, reality television, and animated shows like SpongeBob SquarePants and Daria. The 2000s was also MTV's bling era, as hip-hop and RnB dominated the music charts. Eminem, Destiny's Child, Missy Elliot, Puff Daddy, and more brought new energy to American popular culture.
This new energy was reflected in some of the most popular reality TV shows of the time. Many people wanted to live the life of the stars. Without YouTube or social media, the best way to achieve this was to be a contestant on a reality TV show. Or, to live vicariously by watching it. These shows defined a generation of millennials and harkened the next generation of stars to come.
MTV Cribs
Back when reality TV was still an exciting concept, audiences were thrilled to be able to see into the homes of some of their favorite musicians. This was the pre-Instagram days when it wasn't as easy as the swipe of a smartphone to contact a celebrity, or to see a tour of their home on Instagram Live.
Cribs first aired in September 2000 and features big names of the time, including Snoop Dogg, Puff Daddy (as he was known at the time), and 50 Cent. Ironically, many musicians rented out expensive homes and cars to pass off as theirs. One famous example was 50 Cent, who rented out three Ferraris, before being outed online.
Pimp My Ride
Pimp My Ride was the quintessential 2000s reality TV show. It featured rapper Xzibit customizing people's terrible cars, and making them beautiful. It was Extreme Makeover, but for car lovers.
Using incredibly angled close-ups, and transition shots, Pimp My Ride showed just how cool technology was becoming, by adding unnecessary things to cars, like a CAT scan for an aspiring nurse, mud flaps with LCD mirrors, a yoga studio, a satellite dish, and a flame thrower. The show was technology and reality TV on steroids. Sadly, the reality of the cars that were pimped out ended up being far from the glitzy image portrayed on MTV.
The Swan
The Swan took a simple premise, and made it a reality: what if we make everyday people really, really good-looking? The Swan took its name from The Ugly Duckling, as it aimed to turn women into beautiful swans. The show offered women plastic surgery so that they could look good.
The famous end sequence of each episode saw the contestant pulling a curtain to see her final form in a full-length mirror. The Swan remains one of the most criticized reality TV shows of the 2000s, because of its emphasis on turning "ugly duckling" women into swans.
My Super Sweet 16
My Super Sweet 16 asked the question: what if teenagers, in reality, lived their lives like Hollywood teenagers? The 1990s and 2000s saw an explosion of teen movies and TV shows where teenagers led incredibly cool lives that were far from real. Shows like Dawson's Creek and movies like High School Musical presented life as a teenager as the best thing since sliced bread.
MTV's My Super Sweet 16 turned the camera on teenagers who could afford to live this life, at least for their sixteenth birthday. The teenagers on the show usually got expensive cars as their birthday gifts and were able to have celebrities perform at their parties. This ignored the fact that not every teenage viewer had parents who could afford these luxury gifts.
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was a spinoff of Extreme Makeover. It saw a family who had been through or was going through, a tough time provided a free home makeover. The family was sent on vacation for a week while the Extreme Makeover crew rebuilt their home into luxurious mansions.
The show's producers received a thousand applicants a day because the show was so popular. Unfortunately, many families could no longer afford the higher taxes and utility bills on their expanded homes. Many homes were foreclosed and there was even a lawsuit in 2005.
The Simple Life
"That's hot!"
The 2000s was the decade of Paris Hilton. Paparazzi culture was still very big in the 2000s since smartphones were not widely available to capture celebrities 24/7. Paparazzi were, therefore, interested in the socialite, Paris Hilton, further promoting her claim to fame. Hilton joined another socialite, Nicole Richie, as the two women from LA journeyed across America, living life without their accustomed luxury.
The Simple Life turned the reality TV format story of rags to riches on its head, to show a riches to rags story. The 2000s celebrated extravagant displays of wealth. For fans of the show, the pleasure was in knowing that Paris and Nicole always had their privileged life to return to.
America's Next Top Model
Created and headed by Tyra Banks, America's Next Top Model captured the hearts of fans worldwide. This was the first reality show to truly allow audiences to see how models are found. Although 'the supermodel' as a career would die by the end of the 2000s, many young fans of the 2000s still dreamt of becoming a supermodel like Tyra Banks herself.
Some of the show's most successful contestants include Eva Marcille and Nile DiMarco. In recent years, former fans of the show have revisited the series to speak about its problematic themes. In one instance, contestants were told that they were not model quality, and were not beautiful unless they choose to have surgery to 'fix themselves'.
The Biggest Loser
Like The Swan, The Biggest Loser took the idea of an 'ugly duckling' and tried to turn them into a swan. This time, contestants were very overweight people with a BMI above 40. The show promised a cash price to whoever lost the most amount of weight by the end of the series.
Contestants were provided with round-the-clock nutritionists, fitness instructors, and doctors to help them lose weight in thirty weeks. The show was built around a common theme from the 2000s, which was improving the body to achieve physical beauty. The show's medical experts approved of drastic weight loss measures, despite proof that they do not work long-term.
Punk'd
MTV's Punk'd was very popular during its original run, between 2003 and 2007. The show was very elaborate for a reality television show, with Kutcher dreaming up pranks to make celebrities think something really bad had happened to them. In retrospect, Punk'd was quite mean to the victims of the prank, even if they were rich celebrities.
The very first episode of Punk'd is a classic episode that is remembered for making Justin Timberlake cry. Other times, celebrities would become agitated, and understandably act out in anger at being told their business had failed through no fault of their own, or that someone had purposefully destroyed their expensive car.
Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica
Newlyweds: Nick And Jessica was one of a few popular reality TV shows about already popular celebrities being filmed living their day-to-day lives. As the name suggests, Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson had just married, and MTV wanted to film the newlyweds at home.
The show is famous for depicting Simpson as a 'dumb blonde', especially after her infamous 'chicken of the sea' mishap. The couple's marriage was far from perfect, despite how it was represented on the show. They divorced four years after their marriage.