We've followed their lives for six decades; now the stars of 7 Up are bowing out

loevborg•about 2 hours ago

7up is truly one of the most astonishing and ambitious pieces of television ever made. When I found it, I couldn't stop watching it and I learned a ton from it. Highly recommended!

the_interloper•about 2 hours ago

Nick Hitchon was a professor of mine in college. He seemed like a genuinely very nice guy and took the time to learn everyone's name, despite how large the classes were.

lordnacho•about 2 hours ago

This is what I thought "Reality TV" should have been. Genuinely interesting content about real people in the real world.

Somehow they managed to just create soap opera with bad actors instead.

dylan604•about 1 hour ago

"Reality TV" as it is now was born from a writer's strike. Producers couldn't outright give the people scripts and written lines, but they could stand off camera and feed them lines off the cuff in the style of leading questions. If anyone things these shows are not intentionally pushed in the directions the producers want, then they just are not paying attention. Which is precisely what these producers want

vasco•25 minutes ago

I know many people who watch, I watch myself, and we all know it's semi scripted and that the overall arcs are decided in advance. The really interesting thing about reality tv is once you realise that this is happening, the "Reality" part really comes back into play even stronger because you can see how people react in such situations (the situation being them being part of a scripted reality tv show while wanting to increase their social media following etc). These days there's also the whole component of social media posts and real life events between the seasons that sometimes are more juicy than the show itself, but only get exposed because of the show.

It's just that most people who don't watch, or like to feel smarter than those who watch, think that you just sit there and suspend all belief instead of seeing it for what it is and acknowledging it's pretty interesting.

lotsofpulp•20 minutes ago

I don’t see how that differs from any other fiction. Either the whole thing is non fiction, or it’s fictional.

I would even go so far as to label only videos of an event itself, like security recordings, to be non fiction as re-enactments and whatnot can have a lot of extra information that was not there in real life.

Aeolun•34 minutes ago

Reality TV in Japan is pretty nice. People mostly just spend time driving around the country talking to random people and eating tasty food.

Sometimes they vary the thing and do it overseas.

vr46•about 1 hour ago

I have followed the Up Series for decades, although fewer than six, and I am truly sorrowful at its end. When I was young they felt so far away from me and as I've gotten older I felt as though I have been catching up.

jrg123•about 3 hours ago

https://archive.ph/YvfUV

glimshe•about 3 hours ago

A genuinely interesting article. I'd like to know more about how their lives changed throughout the years...

...although there is no reason to want to know that. They are regular people like the neighbor and the mailmen. Gosh, the things TV make us want to do!

jhbadger•about 3 hours ago

The Up series is genuinely interesting though and previous installments directed by the late Michael Apted were critically acclaimed. The fact that these people are normal British people (from various socioeconomic classes) is the point -- you can look at them at different ages and see how the intersection of personality, ability, and class affected their development.

Aeolun•31 minutes ago

But they all went to the same elementary school!

nikanj•about 2 hours ago

I learned of the 7 Up from the case of Jason Arday, an unexpexted silver lining in an otherwise dismal affair

pelagicAustral•16 minutes ago

Whats the link?

We've followed their lives for six decades; now the stars of 7 Up are bowing out

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