The inquest into the death of Steve Dymond, the unfortunate man who was found dead a week after his appearance on the Jeremy Kyle Show in 2019, gives one the odd feeling that society has changed a lot in a short time, while at the same time not having changed at all. The days are gone when daytime TV was synonymous with the likes of Jerry Springer – the originator of the three-ring circus school of television – and his English imitator Jeremy Kyle; now it’s a much more sedate affair, with the likes of Homes Under The Hammer providing a low-level buzz of banality to accompany one from breakfast to tea-time. But that doesn’t mean the moral high ground belongs to us.
The daytime TV witch trials may be over, but the woke trials of social media are alive and kicking.
Unless in one’s dotage, ill or a shift-worker, there was always a taboo around watching daytime TV; in a world where being ‘super-busy’ was a favourite boast, the idea that you had so much time on your hands that you could spend half an hour watching a bickering expat couple do up a chateau made you about as socially sought-after as herpes.
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