If you’re willing to convince a reality TV jury you need a nose job, you shouldn’t be getting surgery

Just when you think reality television has reached its peak and done it all, a TV producer somewhere pops up clutching a novel idea to remind us there are still new depths left to plumb. Ladies and gentlemen, The Surjury (no, really) awaits us in 2020.

Hosted by Love Island contestant-wrangler Caroline Flack, this televisual abomination has a new and freshly appalling premise – as the Channel 4 press release describes it, “a 12-strong jury of the public must decide if people get to undertake the cosmetic surgery they’ve always dreamt of”.

The “candidates” will make their argument for a chosen procedure to a group of strangers, apparently allowing them “to explore the choices more thoroughly and to take measured advice from their peers, some of whom may previously have gone under the knife themselves and will happily share their views and experiences.” Ahem.

It feels somewhat reminiscent of that infamous Michael Gove quote, that Britons “have had enough of experts”. You want to a Brazilian butt lift (aka “the BBL”)? Well here’s Another Random Punter to tell you about their experience with getting a nose job, and whether they think your derriere is in need of improvement. Whether any of these 12 jury members pass on the important information that the BBL has been dubbed “one of the deadliest aesthetic procedures” by both the American Society of Plastic Surgeons and the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons remains to be seen.

The nationwide obsession with Big Brother, following its debut on our screens in July 2000, heralded an era of dominance for reality television. Its rise in popularity coinciding with the advent of social media created a huge cultural shift and, in turn, a whole new genre of celebrity. Big Brother’s diary-room confessional became a medium available to us all with the introduction of Facebook, Twitter and, latterly, Instagram. Our interaction with strangers changed completely; we shared our triumphs, our defeats, our hopes and dreams in a new, removed way – less and less through face-to-face conversation with the people we knew and with whom we shared our lives, more and more with strangers through the porthole of digital communications.

It has led to a wider conversation about mental health, as we watched “ordinary people” on television, or Facebook, or Instagram, begin to disintegrate before our eyes. Jade Goody and her journey from obscurity to infamy, and her eventual death from cervical cancer; the tragic suicides of Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis, after participating in Love Island. These events provoked a genuine concern for reality TV “stars”, and a rightful expectation that producers of such shows adopted a responsible approach, a duty of care, once stars were cast back into the real world.

I sense that as a society, in response, we are shifting in our common understanding of what is acceptable – in terms of the language we use to describe ourselves and each other, and in the way we treat one another, in our social behaviour online and in person. Social media has highlighted and amplified division where it exists, but we are, in general, becoming kinder to one another. Oddly, that has done nothing to improve our own view of ourselves. This is one area where we seem unable to adopt a softer tone.

The phrase “the surgery they’ve always dreamt of” is telling: many of us still really wish that we looked different on the outside, and that we were different on the inside. But the responsibility to change on the inside lies within – it can’t be outsourced or taken care of by a surgeon – so the easier route seems to be changing the exterior and then to expect everything else to fall into place thereafter.

This latest incarnation of the reality television grotesque feels like a regressive step, cynical and ill-judged. I used to work in TV and, after the cancellation of The Jeremy Kyle Show, my mind boggles that it even made it through the (extensive, lengthy, often tedious) commissioning process. It is a saddening reminder that there are still so many 15-year-olds going to cosmetic surgeons and asking for the “Kylie Jenner package” (also known as “rich girl face”) which includes cheekbone and jawline fillers as well as “chin sculpting”.

Surely if surgery something you’ve “always dreamt of”, you don’t need to argue your rationale in front of a group of strangers just to convince yourself it’s worth going through with it. It will be interesting to see whether any of the candidates are talked out of their heart’s desire – if I can bear to watch.