What does the end of Big Brother say about all of us? Is it that we've tired of perving? That we're simply over salaciously watching the inconsequential lives of preening TV lab rats?

Or were we shamed by the discovery that so many of our fellow Aussies have the conversational skills of 6 year olds, the charisma of mould, the brain power of sheep and are about as interesting to be with as that really fat guy with halitosis who sits next to you on the long haul flight to London and starts speaking before the plane has taken off and the first drink has been served and doesn't stop at Bangkok or beyond despite your desperate and surely very apparent desire that he be sucked out at 35,000 feet?

Was it the riveting revelation that alcohol makes 20-somethings horny, or that the Big Brother stunts had all the subtlety of a piece of ‘four-b-two' straight between the eyes (and good morning to you Pamela Anderson's breasts)?

Or perhaps, just perhaps, it was the sad realisation that despite the distance of a TV set wedged between them and us, ultimately every tacky little act our inner voyeur lapped up was as demeaning for us as it was for them?

Or possibly it was just crap TV. A fad that had run its race.

Good golly I remember way back to the beginning of this century when Big Brother launched with such a bang into our lounge rooms and our lives. Sara Marie's bum dance and that nice solid Ben who won and then used his prize money to look after his family, and later his fame to help charities.

After years of manufactured TV here was a new fangled thing called ‘reality'. Real people doing real things. We laughed with them, got angry with them, liked some, and hated others. We formed attachments and voted off the duds. We'd never seen anything like this before and they'd never done anything like this before. As each week passed the artifice was stripped away and the show and the people became rawer and more real.

They were heady days for Big Brother. Big ratings. Big headlines. But there in the secret to its success were contained the seeds of its ultimate failure.

By Series Two and Three the players knew the game and because it was a game it wasn't as real. They were louder (to be noticed), nastier (to be noticed), and randier ("oh look at moi, I'm ever so naughty"). They shocked with their shamelessness and though it was fun for a while watching how low they'd go eventually it was so low there was nowhere else to go and no point going there.

There was nothing redemptive about these people. They weren't being themselves they were acting a part. In their desperation to be someone - someone on TV! - they confused infamy for celebrity and fame for substance. They became caricatures not characters.

Wow that's a lot of words. Enough already.

So back to my opening question, what did we learn? We learnt that there's more to Australians than we give ourselves credit for. When Big Brother was real we watched. But once we spotted the fake we switched off.

How ironic, "Big Brother NO-ONE is watching you."