Turns out, this is a pretty au courant time to be exploring interesting objects. Recently, the subject has been exploding on TV, and now has a newest iteration in "Buried Treasure" on Fox. I'm not a huge TV follower, but of course am familiar with "Antiques Roadshow," where ordinary people bring seemingly ordinary objects to be appraised by experts and find out they're worth whopping sums of money. This is just the granddaddy of what is apparently called the "pawn-reality genre," and includes The History Channel's "Pawn Stars," Spike's "Auction Hunters," and Discovery's "Auction Kings," among others. I'd throw into this list TLC's "Hoarders," because though of a very different sort, it's another show that is obsessed with things.
So why this popularity of shows about stuff? Maybe in our materialist culture, people are just obsessed with things. Or, maybe it is the stories and history behind objects that interests them. Maybe they are intrigued by the high sums of money in which the shows deal. Or, the shows could simply reflect the timeless Cinderella story: average people bring in what seems to be everyday junk, but is revealed to be valuable treasure.
Anyway, I let my curiosity get the better of me and watched the premiere of Buried Treasure.
Over-dramatization and corny graphics aside, there were actually some interesting aspects to this show. In contrast to Antiques Roadshow and Pawn Stars, Buried Treasure actually brings you into people's homes, and gives you a greater sense of the everyday contexts of extraordinary objects and the significance they hold in the owners' lives. In addition, rather than just valuing these treasures based on monetary worth, we see more their emotional value as a family heirloom or personal relic. And then at the extreme end, we see what happens when the objects take over a person's life.
As I go forward with this blog and my interest in objects, I wonder if it is even a good thing to be so interested in things: so quickly one can fall off the edge into materialism or at worst, hoarding. There are a great number of wonderful, interesting, valuable objects out there, but obviously they are not the most important part of life. At the very least, I hope the interest in these shows reflects that; they are just entertainment, after all.
