Envy makes us mad for Made In Chelsea

In the past couple of years we have become a nation obsessed with reality TV. But not just any old reality TV. Oh, no. Gone are the days when our appetite for having a nosy into other people’s lives was satisfied by a quick blast of contestants picking their toenails in the _Big Brother_ house. We want glitz, we want glamour and, most of all, we want drama. Basically, we want _Made in Chelsea_.

So why has this programme become such a phenomenon? It seems to be becoming even more popular than _The Only Way is Essex_, the show that headed up the recent influx of quality ‘scripted reality’ offerings, which also includes _Desperate Scousewives_. Possibly not the best example of the afore mentioned quality, but still. Why has _MIC_ moved to the front of this ever-growing genre? After a lot of thorough research (watching copious amounts of _MIC_ – a totally viable alternative to revision when described as ‘research’), I have concluded that it comes down to two simple elements: 1) the allure of specific people in the show, and 2) extreme jealousy.

The way the storylines are portrayed, you know that there are characters you are meant to like, and characters that are there to offend. No one seems sure whether they really do act like themselves; it doesn’t matter, we just want to know what happens. Caggie, Louise and Millie are our heroines; Jamie is our hero. Spencer used to be our hero but is currently on his way over to the dark side, a side previously only inhabited by crazy Gabriella.

However delusional Gabriella may be, she falls into the category of characters that make _Made in Chelsea_ what it is. The heroes and heroines are all very well but it’s the larger-than-life, flamboyant characters that set _MIC _apart. Do these people really exist? Is it physically possible to be as posh as Mark Francis? Can you be as crazy as Gabs and still be allowed to walk the streets? And the most pressing question… do people actually have boob parties?

This brings me to the second reason _MIC_ has become so popular. We want to live their lives. For most of them, we have no idea what they do and where on earth they got their money, and we don’t care. I watch them relax in chic bars and cafés in Chelsea, and try and banish the thought that if I move to London I’ll probably be living on baked beans and stale bread. Many people also envy the fashion side of the show. Every female character is a fashionista, and often conversations about the show focus on the clothes that were worn almost as much as whatever love-triangles, arguments and dog shows have been going on that week.

We envy their cars, their houses, their other houses and their other cars. _Made in Chelsea’s _blend of hard-to-believe characters and hard-to-stomach lifestyle make it impossible to turn off. At the end of the day, we want to ‘pardy’ just like they do.