There Goes the Neighborhood
An update.
The social experiment of neighbors competing and then voting each other out of the neighborhood ended Sunday with the winning family beating out the other families of the $ 250,000 prize money. Eight families were isolated behind 20 foot high walls and the bickering began and continued for the last seven weeks. The first thing to happen in the scorching heat of summer in a suburb of an
No air conditioning, no television, internet, cell phone, texting or other ‘modern day’ items to occupy the time. It’s like a trip back to the 50’s when families spent time together. There is the family dynamics of spending time together 24 hours a day plus the interactions between the other families playing the game.
The neighbors, 5 of the eight families call themselves “The Core” while the others who have not been living there as long “The Outsiders”. The core group moved in when the subdivision was built and have socially grown close to each other on many different levels . . . from helping with each others repairs or possibly helping out with the others children. The camaraderie between them was apparent during the first couple of shows leaving the other three families feeling totally on the fringes of the group dynamics.
As the week wore on and different families were voted out of the game the tempers and feelings of those forced out brought with it a breakdown of the ‘core’ values and strained friendships were brought to the forefront. It seemed at the time that once the walls came down the friendships and the family atmosphere were going to be a thing of the past. That could have been the editing but that seemed like it was going to go that way.
Several families, some strong, some weaker in game play made decisions early in the game about which family to vote out each week by the logical reasons of friendship (for a family to stay) or gamesmanship (vote out the stronger players) but as the game progressed it changed from the ‘Core’ families (possibly based on greed of winning) to which family to stay will get us further in the game or vote out the stronger family with lesser regard to friendship in the decision process.
Some of the later weeks discussions and debates within the families were heated with possible scenarios discussed between the children and the adults. The children stayed centered on friendship while the adults looked at things slightly differently in how they proposed the final choice in the voting.
My thoughts would be that after the game was played out to its conclusion the friendships would break down with little hope for repair. Many things said or felt by the families voted out led me to think the hurt feelings would disrupt the unity felt when this experiment started.
During the final show all of the families were brought back to discuss their family’s experience while the game was being played out. I found it interesting that there was a common theme among everyone. All of the men expressed they were grateful for taking the time off ‘work’ to spend time with the family and that families were brought closer together by the games played, the time spent together without electronic toys added to the overall time among their family.
Some were really mad they were voted out early but after leaving the confines within the walls and spending time with the family it seemed like hurt feelings were put aside and that the spirit game play was held to the higher standard.
There may be hope for mankind yet as the spirit of family and game playing won out over the greed of the prize money. It was good to see that everyone wanted to maintain their friendships and let the other three families into the ‘Core’ group after the walls come down.
I still wonder what the rest of the neighborhood has felt while this program was in production with the added crews, caterers, and assistants working around bringing chaos to the normally quiet subdivision.
There Goes the Neighborhood . . . probably the neighbors feel that way now.
Ice
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