MTV's True Life, a reality/documentary series that profiles real teens in episodes like “I'm a Textaholic”to “I'm a Sugar Baby” (you can look that one up to see what it means), is now accepting auditions for the newest episode, “I'm in a Sexting Scandal.”
Sexting makes its way into the headlines on a regular basis today, so it's not surprising that it has also become the subject of a True Life episode. Almost every week, I read stories about schools cracking down on sexting, kids charged as sex offenders for receiving or distributing sexts, teachers dismissed for sexting students, and states drafting new sexting legislation.
The True Life casting call is intended for people age 16-28 who are “involved in a sexting relationship, in a relationship based on only sexting, involved in other relationships where sexting feels like cheating, have sexting relationships with mutiple people, or find themselves sexting all the time.”
Naturally any parent's hackles are going to go up over a show exclusively about sexting, but it could actually turn out to be a good thing. Like MTV's show I'm a Teen Mom, the show may actually present a balanced dose of reality to teens about the negative ramifications of sexting. And as any parent knows, teens often listen more readily to other teens than to adults.
What do you think about the True Life episode? Would you let your kids watch it?
To be fair to MTV, I feel the need to say that True Life covers some truly unsavory behavior (some episodes include “I'm Polyamorous” and “I Have a Fetish”) but not all the episodes are so questionable. When visiting MTV's website, I got sucked into watching the full “I'm Allergic to Everything” episode, which was fascinating.
