Keeping Up With HGTV

 
I can’t not watch HGTV: House Hunters, Property Virgins, My First Place, Income Property, Property Brothers, et al. I do realize, of course, that these shows are all approximately the same, and offer approximately the same small pleasures. Carina Chocano summed it up nicely in her essay on “curated” personal websites like Pinterest and Tumblr in the Times magazine this week:

There’s a German word for it, of course: Sehnsucht, which translates as “addictive yearning.” This is, I think, what these sites evoke: the feeling of being addicted to longing for something; specifically being addicted to the feeling that something is missing or incomplete. The point is not the thing that is being longed for, but the feeling of longing for the thing. And that feeling is necessarily ambivalent, combining both positive and negative emotions.

Yes, I thought, as I read this: this is why I watch HGTV.

What is most surprising to me about these shows is the incredible homogeneity of homeowners’ desires all across the United States and Canada (many of these programs—especially the ones that don’t specify locations—film in Canada). Each prospective buyer’s must-have list goes something like this:

• Open floor plan

• Hardwood floors

• Granite countertops

• Stainless steel appliances

• Master bathroom with double vanity

This wish list transcends budget, race, and class, at least insofar as these are represented on HGTV. What does this mean? Not much, perhaps, especially since the house hunters who appear on the shows are almost certainly also the shows’ viewers. In other words, these desires are caught in a feedback loop: viewers learn what to want by watching HGTV; they then go on HGTV and tell other viewers what to want, and so on.

Corporations routinely cultivate our desires for things we don’t need, but there is something rather more insidious about the lifestyle branding occurring on HGTV. Rather than presenting viewers with an array of competing products as advertisers do (albeit a limited array), HGTV’s salespeople—ordinary folks like you and me—present a monolithic standard of living that challenges every viewer simply to keep up.

There is one HGTV show that threatens to break the cycle, however: the rarely aired My First Sale, which, according to the HGTV website, “takes the proven and successful docudrama format of My First Place and turns it upside down — telling the story from the seller's point of view.” Buyers, especially in this economy, hold all the cards. It is standard procedure for prospective buyers on HGTV to request, and receive, thousands of dollar in seller assist, and as viewers, we typically cheer them on. By contrast, My First Sale educates viewers about the hardships of prolonged time on the market and multiple price reductions. In one recent episode a Dallas family desperate to sell the large, well-maintained home in which they had lived for less than two years finally did so, at a loss of ten thousand dollars. Why so desperate? Their even larger, more upgraded developer-built home would not be constructed until they sold their house. Sehnsucht, indeed.