The eighth season ended this weekend reality show "Elite" program on television "Pink". The previous name of this show was "Cooperative", but the name was changed to emphasize the aspiration to promote a new political and social elite during the reign of Aleksandar Vučić. The parallel, much less watched reality show "Farm" ended a few weeks ago, and the winner was Kristijan Golubović. In the superfinal, the winner of "Elite", another perennial reality contestant "Gastoz", was chosen, while the second place was taken by his girlfriend, with whom he dated and then broke up during 316 days in front of the cameras. "Pink" television has been bragging about record ratings for days, millions of visits on social networks and audiences on six continents. If you add up all the broadcast material and clips on the Internet, it is said that 11700 years of content have been produced, which sounds like the ultimate ode to nonsense.
If, therefore, by some miracle scientists were able to expand the capacity and engagement of the human brain, an urban Serb from 19 to 45 years old, or a suburban Serbian woman from 25 to 65 years old, would be able to process 316 times more "Pink" programs in 10000 days of the reality show, as in that sci-fi film by Luc Besson. Lusi, in which the beautiful and sexy Scarlett Johansson expands the capacity of her mind by absorbing all available information about our civilization from the Internet. I wonder what the outcome of that experiment would be, that is, what that consumer of "Pink" would turn into. Consider that this season was filmed and broadcast from September 2024 to July 2025. During these 316 days, Vučić was never mentioned, the fall of the canopy, the death of 16 people in Novi Sad, several huge gatherings of citizens, student protests, blockades of the faculty, a sound cannon, cars running into students, police beatings, arrests, counter-demonstrations, the Movement for the People and the State and for Vučić, the Ćaci phenomenon, the resignation of the Government of Serbia and many other events from our turbulent political everyday life, not to mention the political reality show Serbia.
My favorite statistics of the reality show are related to the bizarre counts that resemble Vučić's scribbling on the board as he rattles off kilometers, tons, planes and trucks.
So in "Elite" 7000 hours of programs were broadcast, 81 participants, in 500 shows with "Elite 8" presenters, where journalists and people asked the participants all kinds of stupid things. Elite male and female contestants have fought more than 2800 times, of which the winning couple is the most, which confirms the proverb that those who fight are loved. This also reconfirms Željko Mitrović's discovery that the biggest TV aphrodisiac for the audience in Serbia is not sex, but fights and violence of all kinds.
"Elita 8" gave birth to 39 couples, 5000 kisses were recorded, and "I love you" was said 2500 times. We can hypothetically conclude that on average they had to kiss twice to declare their love once, that is, to put it poetically, the lips testified to love 7500 times, with words or kisses. I guess that's why the girls' lips are filled with silicone, just like their breasts, but we don't have precise statistics, just like for sexual relations.
In fact, each of the relationships in "Elite" begins with a short period of courtship, then the actors have sex and then several weeks of arguments and insults follow. After that, optionally, either everything starts from the beginning or the partners change. This demi-world is especially striking when it comes to returning to everyday life, because some of them, professional reality show participants, have been living in front of the cameras for years. Like the Association of Journalists of Serbia, I think we are ready for the Association of Serbian Reality, where certain collective rights of the participants who fought on "Happy", "Pink" and other regime channels could be exercised.
The couple with the most gifts from viewers, fan groups and sent messages won, but they broke up tactically before the final. In the field of entertainment, the statistics are also similar to Vučić's ode to the average salary, or the minimum wage. In a country with a significant percentage of the poor, the common people bleat in 40 weekly leaders and the same number of runs, 400 parties, and five tons of alcohol, three tons of flour, four tons of meat, six tons of fruits and vegetables and 20000 liters of water were consumed.
The winner received a check for 100000 euros, the runner-up for 50000, but all participants earned serious money from their weekly and monthly fees from "Pink", i.e. the Big Boss - Željko Mitrović. I have no doubt that a new season will start from September, for which tens of thousands of seekers of this asylum from the gloomy reality will apply again.
Apparently, this "Opium for simple people", as Minimax said about "Pink", gives excellent results in anesthetizing the public.
In the breaks of the reality show, which today is formally deprived of any control and regulation, you had Vučić's propaganda and the inevitable Turkish series. This is the entire content of "Pink", which in the absence of REM today, no one even warns when it completely wildly and without control violates the provisions on the amount of marketing content. This is where we come to the biggest embarrassment for advertisers. It is clear to everyone that a significant part of our public, including the audience, does not share the values of "Elite 8". That's why for me the advertising of important brands and companies in this program is actually a marketing own goal. I don't know on what principle agencies advise their clients to link their brands to "Pink's" "Elite", but it also means that we don't have a seriously established media market, but rather blackmail and monopolies with political pressure.
I believe that sooner or later, like anywhere in the world, consumers/viewers/voters will be able to recognize and punish with a boycott those who are ready to irresponsibly finance this and all future elites with their advertising. Think about it before next season.
