Cheaters is a Great Show

"And if you're well-off, well then I'm happy some for you
But I'd rather not celebrate my defeat and humiliation here with you"
— Jenny Lewis, Rilo Kiley, "The Execution of All Things"

Despite its religious undertones, Cheaters is a great show. I caught an episode once a few years ago and I'm fortunate enough now to find it airing on G4, a station otherwise useless to me.

It's a hard show to watch, even if you stop to go browse their surprisingly in-depth website like I did. It's a lot of very hurt people reiterating the same points: soul-shattering sorrow, mind-altering anger, a betrayal of trust, and a total inability to understand how their feelings could be manipulated so easily by a person they loved and who they believed loved them back. By contrast, the cheaters invariably display a disturbingly consistent mix of disbelief, surprise, callous arrogance, and the questioning of the need to point cameras at their deceitful, lying asses.

I think a lot of this comes down to the constant human need to save face. Nobody likes to look bad, and any kind of public hearing of your flaws is universally believed to be humiliating. It usually is. I think the point of public humiliation is not lost on the Japanese. They make frequent use of "shame badges", an oxymoron I think, wherein people in the workplace who fail to meet their goals are charged to wear a physical token of their failure on their clothes for all to see.

In the U.S., we have the image of a boy sitting in the corner of his classroom wearing a dunce cap. Same thing.

Adverse psychological impact of humiliation as a teaching mechanism aside, I think that we as Americans have developed such an inflated sense of self-worth and entitlement that humiliation often meets serious resistance by people who have been raised since birth to believe that society owes them something and that anything other than utter respect and continuous deference is an insult. Many people just have a ridiculous sense of themselves, and so a dunce cap is as likely to provoke a violent altercation as it is a negative stimulus for studying harder. It's no longer a "Man, this sucks, I feel so bad" situation as much as it is a "How dare you try to do that to me? / Who do you think you are?" situation.

I don't feel that humiliation really works. Even when done with the best of intentions and when acted upon a well-adjusted person, it can only breed resentment. Humiliation doesn't seem to really reduce the likelihood that a cheater won't cheat again, but it does make for good TV. Besides, if you are a lowlife scumbag who lacks the decency to not cheat on your boyfriend or girlfriend, you probably deserve to have your face plastered on a national TV show for 30 minutes just so that portion of America who's up at 1:30 A.M. knows to avoid you should they ever see you in a bar or hit you with their car as you walk down the street. If you're going to commit vehicular homicide, it may as well be against a cheater. You'll be doing our species a huge favor.

But I digress.

The Cheaters program has a nigh-comprehensive network of detective agencies with offices from central PA to Cleveland to Des Moines and beyond. Tennessee is surprisingly empty, so I will make a note to stay the hell out of Tennessee.

It's also interesting to note that they have their own dating service available online. That is awesome.