Shain Gandee died doing precisely what made him the star of MTV's "BUCKWILD" reality show: tearing through mudholes in his truck, taking chances most others wouldn't, living free and reckless.
MTV has not said whether cameras were rolling the night Gandee, his uncle and a friend left a bar at 3 a.m. to go "muddin'." But the line between television and real life blurred in one fatal moment when Gandee's vehicle got stuck in a deep mudpit. He and two passengers were found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Was Gandee living for the cameras that night, or for himself? Did his on-camera life, and the rewards it brought him, make him more reckless when the camera lights were off?
And how does the audience fit into this picture, the 3 million weekly viewers who made "BUCKWILD" a hit, plus the many millions more who have made shows from "Jersey Shore" to "Dancing With the Stars" to "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" a living, breathing part of our culture? How has reality TV shaped perceptions of real life — and of our own lives?
Everywhere you look these days, the lines blur.