This post was originally going to be about the History Channel paying $3.5 million to advertise their show “Swamp People” during the Super Bowl. As I was reading over the story, however, I came across this paragraph:

“Swamp People” is History’s third most-watched original series, trailing only “Pawn Stars” and “American Pickers.” “Pawn Stars” throughout 2011 averaged 7.02 million L7 viewers, making it the fifth most popular program on basic cable. “Pickers” averaged 5.78 million.

Yeah… none of those shows are about history. Not even a little bit. “Swamp People” is about Cajun dudes catching alligators or something, “Pawn Stars” is just about a fancy pawn shop, and “American Pickers” is about buying and selling antiques. To bastardize a great Mitch Hedberg joke, this would be like if the Food Network started airing a reality show about farmers. It’s ridiculous. Yes, the network’s ratings are up, but I don’t see how they can keep calling themselves “The History Channel” like they’re some beacon for educational programming when their schedule is full of shows like this. I’m on to you, History Channel! YOUR HEAD RESTS UPON A BED OF LIES!

But, the more I thought about it, I realized that the History Channel is far from the only network guilty of this. I’ve compiled a collection of other offenders after the jump.

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It’s strange enough peering into the fabricated reality of Reality TV, but it can extra surreal — and often painfully sad — when actual reality seeps into that world, as is the case of U.S. Army paratrooper Wesley Durden. Durden was eliminated last night from the reality show, “The Next Great Baker,” and it wasn’t until after the airing that TLC revealed with an In Memoriam card that Durden was dead. He had died of a self-inflicted gunshot would back in October. The 28 year old left behind a wife, seven-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter.

The knee-jerk criticism, at least on Twitter, has been to somehow fault TLC’s handling of the matter and its decision to wait until after the airing to reveal the news. I don’t know, however, if there was a better way to handle it. The suicide came long after production on the season had wrapped, and at least TLC didn’t exploit his death in advance for ratings, as would’ve been the criticism had they announced it earlier (and, in fact, was the criticism leveled at NBC a few years ago when a contestant on a reality boxing show, “The Contender” took his own life after he was eliminated). Was it insensitive to mention it at all? Or was it insensitive that they didn’t mention it earlier?

Regardless of how TLC handled it, and regardless of what one thinks of reality TV (and there’s no reason to believe his elimination was responsible), the obvious tragedy here is that a solider — one who had been deployed in two tours in Iraq — is dead. That’s sad no matter how you look at it.

This weekend, TLC — which no longer has anything to do with learning, and everything to do with cruelty to people — will debut its new reality series, “Geek Love,” which follows the speed-dating scene among sci-fi dorks at various Comic-Con type conventions. Basically, it’s a window into a world of lonely desperate people searching for a connection beyond what they get from their television sets and action figures. It’s an incredibly easy premise to make fun of, and of course, the overriding temptation is to point and laugh at the overweight geeks with their Chewbacca mating calls and homely geek women wielding light sabers.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? That’s exactly what they want. They want us to point and laugh at the misfortune of others, which serves a dual purpose: It boosts our own egos by comparison, and it boosts the profits of the cable networks that exploit the fringes. It’s mean-spirited television gawkery. Of course, “Geek Love” is not the first of its kind; it’s simply the latest in a series of reality shows designed to elicit our mockery and mean-spirited derision. After the jump, we’ll examine four more reality shows that prey upon our collective schaudenfreude.

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“All-American Muslim” airs on Sunday nights on TLC. It’s about five Muslim families living in Dearborn, Michigan, the city with the highest Muslim community in the country. According to Amy Winter, TLC’s general manager, her network wanted to show that “these are families that might have beliefs that are different than yours, but we are all living similar daily lives and hopefully we will bring that to light.”

A few days ago, hardware store giant Lowe’s pulled its advertising from “Muslim,” due to threats of a protest from the Florida Family Association. (Florida is the worst.) In a statement, the FFA, led by David Caton, said, “The show profiles only Muslims that appear to be ordinary folks while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to the liberties…that the majority of Americans cherish.”

(The FFA has a long history of pointing their bigoted blame on TV shows, like “Modern Family” because of Cam and Mitchell and “Degrassi” because of everything. Their website is currently down, due to a much-deserved hacking effort, so you won’t be able to enjoy their official ignorance until later.)

Many people are pissed at Lowe’s pulling their ad money from the show, but I don’t think the overpriced big-box retailer is really the problem; it’s a business decision and at least they gave some money in the first place, even though they knew the show was going to be a lightning rod for controversy. Focusing on that part of the issue is like worrying about a single flea when you’ve already got the Bubonic Plague. The real issue at hand is that it’s 2011 (almost 2012!), and we’re still fu*king afraid of a TV show about Muslims.

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UPDATE: Now with high-quality video.

Next week, TLC will air “Virgin Diaries,” a special in which hapless idiots get married before knowing if they’re sexually compatible — before knowing ANYTHING about sex, apparently. That’s what we see in this promo when a couple shares their first kiss on their wedding day. It’s positively glorious, and you must watch it and share it with everyone you know right this instant. That groom is one lucky dude.

[The Set; thanks to Vince at FilmDrunk for the GIF]