( CNN ) -- All the world 's a stage , Shakespeare wrote long before television came into view . Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes , Andy Warhol added a few centuries later . Which leads us inexorably to Michaele and Tareq Salahi 's exuberant Facebook posting : `` Honored to be at the White House for the state dinner in honor of India with President Obama and our First Lady ! '' They have the pictures to prove it , and the overnight fame , too . The Salahis , with a Bravo camera crew in tow , apparently were trying to ratchet up their prospects for the cable network 's upcoming `` The Real Housewives of D.C. '' If only the Salahis were the exception . But the modern-day reality show genre , spearheaded nearly a decade ago by the first edition of CBS ' `` Survivor , '' has become a tidal wave of cost-efficient TV programming starring ... pretty much anyone . Its inhabitants increasingly are called on to step up the pace in pursuit of myriad available slots on networks large , small and sometimes desperate . Stand out in a crowd , or be pushed aside by someone who will . Crashing a White House state dinner has proved to be just the ticket for the fame-craving Salahis . Their audacious breach of Secret Service security has trumped the reality show aspirations of the `` balloon boy '' family and possibly even knocked Jon Gosselin out of the `` Entertainment Tonight '' spotlight for a day or two . Imagine that . What does this say about us as a people ? Well , the quest for fame is hardly new . Nor is our collective fascination with train wrecks . What 's changed is the escalation in available venues . There 's seemingly no limit to the number of enablers out there . Hitting it big with a `` reality '' franchise can work wonders for a TV network 's bottom line , overall visibility -- or both . Once upon a time , TLC was The Learning Channel . You actually could learn something by watching its instructional and educational programming . But the network gradually got out of that business . And it hit the mother lode with `` Jon & Kate Plus 8 , '' which eventually became the public face of a broken marriage while making the Gosselins internationally famous . Bravo , home to the ever-expanding `` Real Housewives '' franchise , used to devote itself to the performing arts . That began to change in a hurry after NBC Universal took control of the network in 2002 . The network now offers a virtual wall-to-wall reality lineup , with only occasional intrusions from `` Inside the Actors Studio , '' the only remaining evidence of what Bravo used to be . A & E originally launched as the Arts & Entertainment Network . Believe it or not , it once housed an anthology series , `` A & E Stage , '' that brought its audience plays , concerts , documentaries and even opera . The reality bug long since has bitten hard , though , with the once high-minded cable outlet now best known for `` Dog the Bounty Hunter , Intervention '' and `` Criss Angel Mindfreak . '' MTV used to be nothing but music videos . `` The Real World '' changed everything . NBC had a long and well-earned reputation for Emmy-caliber comedies and dramas such as `` Seinfeld , '' `` The Cosby Show , '' `` Frasier , '' `` Hill Street Blues , '' `` ER '' and `` L.A . Law . '' Now its most popular attraction , other than `` Sunday Night Football , '' is a weekly two-hour dose of `` The Biggest Loser , '' where little other than size matters . Against this backdrop , the Salahis in a way are only acting naturally . That 's lamentable , a sad commentary , an appalling sign of our times , etc. , etc . But TV has created -- and continues to create -- a bottomless pit of venues where preeners are prized commodities and abnormal behavior is not only encouraged but intrinsic to the common goal . The lone exception these days appears to be major league baseball . When a goofball fan runs out onto the field , the cameras turn away so as not to reward the trespasser with a minute or two of national or regional exposure . What a concept . Too bad it 'll never catch on . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ed Bark .
Reality shows are a low - budget form of entertainment for TV networks , says Ed Bark . He says the shows encourage viewers to do attention - getting things . Bark says the White House story is topped ` ` Jon & Jon '' and the ` ` ' boy '' story . TV has created a ` ` bottomless pit '' of venues for abnormal behavior , Bark says .