A flatmate is pleading for help. When another person mentioned the need for a therapist, he was hushed. Someone person claims that now that they've returned to the Bigg Boss premises, they're experiencing unpleasant feelings. There are a few examples from the current season 14 of Bigg Boss 14, and they are not one-offs.

Year after year, we've seen a trapped bunch of roommates act in unnatural ways, giving up their idiosyncrasies, fears, and instabilities for voyeuristic viewing and huge ratings.

Housemates have stated that the scenario frequently leads to suicide thoughts. While the show fosters and normalizes violent behavior, it also indicates perversion among spectators that love such "humilitainment," according to behavioural psychologists. Read more about Desi Serial.

Which begs the question: will the show have a long-term influence on both participants and viewers' mental health? Will it be deemed "natural" to engage in such behavior in a confined space week after week or to derive enjoyment from observing such behavior as a spectator?

Evicted contestant Jasmin Bhasin was seen criticizing roommates for their earlier remarks earlier this week. Jasmin has returned to the house to show her support for Aly Goni, her boyfriend. She sobbed and realized that all of her negative feelings from her time on the show had surfaced when she sought to excuse herself.

Rubina Dilaik has previously admitted to having suicide thoughts, temper issues, and a strained connection with her parents.

Perhaps being locked up for months has the same effect on you. You want to get rid of your own demons. Rubina had indicated she needed to see a doctor, and her husband, the now-evicted Abhinav Shukla, had pleaded with her not to say it on camera.

"Bigg Boss is an intriguing psychological experiment in which candidates are locked in a room with limited access to the outside world. Even during the epidemic (when they were stuck within the house), people had cellphone connectivity, but that is not the case in the (Bigg Boss) house,” Sunil Mittal, Director, Cosmos Institute of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences (CIMBS), told IANS.

Staying at the residence is compared to "prison" by Mittal.

The psychologist claimed that the show encourages violence, violent behavior, and the normalization of harassment, saying, "It has a great effect on the mental health of those who are inside and people who are watching it."

"It standardizes a particular dialect. I understand that in real life, abusing and swearing language are used, but what about in the context of the show? Then there's TRP's added drama,” he explained.

According to mental psychiatrist Radhika Bapat, shows like Bigg Boss cater to people's voyeuristic impulses.

"It's perverse to have access to secrets by looking through a peephole. They argue that the forbidden has an attraction that makes it irresistibly appealing. "There's also the psychological term 'humilitainment,' which refers to the desire for you and me as spectators to be drawn to epic degradation and subjection of actual beings, and it's employed with such reality ‘dramas,'” Bapat told IANS.

As Mittal points out, the drama has real-world consequences.

"People who witness it become what they see and hear, and dramatic conduct becomes the standard for them.”

People are imbued with words, body language, and offensive behavior,” Mittal remarked.

"It praises and excuses bullying, and it brings out the worst in people who are confined to their homes,” says the author. People watch it for voyeurism's sake. There is also a lot of body slamming. After hearing it on the media, one of my young patients referred to her aunt as a "moti bhains" (fat buffalo). They were previously tasked with making fun of the mental institution's "patients." As a result, it allows for disrespectful behavior, dramatized hysterical behavior and language, and it puts pressure on the participants, prompting them to cry and break down,” Mittal explained.

Then there's the difficult task of keeping the participants out of the Bigg Boss zone until the show ends.

"It's like coming out of prison,” Mittal added, "with people opting for treatment to reclaim their lives.”

"When people blur the line between this reality television'show' and their actual reality, whether consciously or subconsciously, it can cause disaster in their personal lives,” Bapat says. It's important to remember the difference between real and fake drama.”

To counteract this, Samir Parikh, Director and Head of the Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences Department at Fortis Healthcare in New Delhi, emphasizes the significance of media literacy.

"They must be able to understand that it is a representation of something that does not exist in reality. It's a developing scenario, and if you grasp that, you'll be fine,” he explained.

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The truth is that the majority of those on Twitter who are advocating for non-abusive and non-aggressive behavior on a show that is totally founded on these ideas are acting. Faceless creatures on Twitter who give celebrities tips on how to act on national television are also not saints.

For a show like "Bigg Boss," the concept of a "neutral audience" is a fallacy, and what transpires on social media as a result is a tug of war between the show's celebrity audiences. Something that happens on the broadcast or on social media has no legal or ethical justification.

As host Salman Khan has stated multiple times, it is a show where an individual must represent themselves with a specific meaning. It might be a Shehnaaz, with her sincerity and ability to entertain, or a Sidharth, with his reasonable mind and violence. It may be someone like Gauahar, with her fiery attitude, or someone like Vikas Gupta, with his financial savvy. These traits come at the cost of hiding the best sides of one's nature; in their respective seasons, Sidharth suppressed his lighthearted and sentimental side, while Gauahar suppressed her humanitarian side.

The public's view of their flaws becomes the talk of the town, sparking a slapstick social media PR war. Many people who know, say, person A personally or have previously known him, back him up and criticize his opponents. Person B is in a similar situation. Battle lines are drawn in plain sight via posts and videos on Twitter and Instagram. Despite the fact that the entire exhibition screams rivalry for all participants, not just two races, more significant issues like as female equality, feminism, and chauvinism are addressed.

Journalists become complicit in the distrust because of their allegiances and contacts. Fans, mostly between the ages of 15 and 40, are affected, and the conversation surrounding a minor conflict escalates to abysmal heights of slut-shaming and, at times, body shaming as a result. When Sidharth Shukla was frequently told on the show and on social media that he was 39 in the thirteenth season, age shaming became a tactic.

The listener gets tricked, which is ironic. Do you have any other explanations for the recurring patterns carried out in these contestants' names? The battles of their idols become their own, and tight patterns emerge at all hours of the day and night. In many ways, these are bots aiming to increase the social media presence of an unknown person. More than half of the crowd, however, is made up of genuine people who squander their time following patterns.

There's also a subset of social media influencers who use video ratings to "influence" the opinions of a larger audience. Several of them were former season contestants, and it goes without saying that they are to blame for more than half of the vices they claim to be highlighting in their ratings.

The live feed from the house was available to viewers of the most recent season of 'Bigg Boss.' This proved what had already been stated about the show: it is not scripted, but it is severely edited. Season 14's live stream contained so many moments that needed to be telecast in the main event, such as Sidharth joking about. Nobody, on the other hand, had to be having a good time. Drama sells, and 'Bigg Boss' is all about drama.

There's no need to assess a celebrity or participant merely on the basis of 24-hour clips condensed into a one-hour show. If they are to be judged at all, the key challenge is to judge them based on how real they are. Toxic positivity is condemning, shading, or berating someone for a reason (read: shading and shaming – of any kind — are just as harmful, if not worse, than abuse). Check more info about Bigg Boss 15.

'Bigg Boss' is a ridiculous combination of public relations tactics, fan feuds, and human behavior in quarantine (read: sans cell phones) that exists simply to entertain the viewer. It's past time we stopped taking it so seriously.

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