When I first saw previews for the CW's new Fall show H8R, I was skeptical. I was prepared to be a hater of H8R. It looked from the ads that this could be just another rowdy, drama-ridden reality TV show. But, it turns out this show is the antidote to the hate that fans generate for celebrities. The unique twist of H8R is that celebrities get a chance to defend themselves against their self-proclaimed haters in hopes of changing their minds.

The part of this show that earns it a 5 Claw Rave! Rating is that H8R diagnoses the celebrity scapegoating taking place in America and offers a way out. In the introduction to the show, host Mario Lopez observes, “America loves their celebrities but we also love to hate them.” He then continues to state that, “Everywhere you look – you see it in tabloids, in online chat rooms, blogs. And most people do it anonymously, so somehow they think that makes it okay.” This show intends to disrupt the celebrity scapegoating and hate that is so prevalent in America today. As Mario Lopez explains, in the show H8R, “…for the first time ever, we are going to hold haters accountable for what they say. We’ve got hidden cameras that are going to capture a hater’s rant about a celebrity. And then, that celebrity is going to confront their hater without interference…” After the initial confrontation, the producers allow for the hater to get to know the object of their hate, the celebrity, in a more personal way. They even go as far as setting up situations to encourage connections because they know that if the hater identifies with the object of their hate then it will be much harder for them to continue to hate. At Raven we call this “humanizing the victim”. This humanizing of the celebrity will lead to the golden TV moment: the conversion. The moment when the H8R realizes that they have much more in common with the celebrity than they thought and, so, can no longer hate them.

The first half of the H8R season premiere on Wednesday, September 14, 2011 culminated in a very touching conversion moment for a hater of Snooki, a star of the MTV reality series Jersey Shore. After Snooki meets her hater, Nick, she offers to cook Sunday dinner for him and his family. He accepts and they go food shopping together. Then Snooki goes over to Nick’s house. After hanging out for a bit with Nick’s parents’, the family decides to call Snooki by her real name, Nicole, for the rest of the night. It was like they all agreed to let her be a different person from the one they had imagined and give her a second chance. During dinner the family is sitting around the table. Snooki’s hater, Nick, says this:

I would like to point out, that you have lot of guts coming into a bar where me and my buddy were playing pool and ya know, you walked right up to me and laid it out there on the table. And I found out a lot more about you, and we actually have a lot more in common. Nicole’s pretty cool. Very cool. And I definitely got to say, my hat’s off to ya.

Then, later in the confessional, Nick continues with the sentiment:

Everyone deserves a shot to not be hated. Everyone deserves a chance to explain themselves. And try to be a little bit more mindful, before you just start hating people.

They cut-back to the dinner table and Nicole asks, “So, do you still hate me?” And Nick responds with a smile saying, “I am no longer a hater.”

This moment was possible because Nick was open to changing his mind, which is not always easy to do. In the second half of the episode, the celebrity, Jake Pavelka, from The Bachelor, is not quite as successful with changing the mind of his hater. He still, however, ends up revealing a truth about the dynamic of hating. When feeling frustrated after his hater insists upon continuing to hate, he calls her out and slings back the accusation that “it feels good for you to hate me.” He also says that she is not open to persuasion because “she enjoys hating [him].” The producers have set up a situation that exposes a hidden purpose of hating. As humans, we like to hate because when we hate something that is bad, we believe that we are the opposite of that and so, therefore, we are good. The way out of this trap is the willingness to know the object of your hate so you can no longer justify your actions. You are forced to convert your opinion and dissolve your hate. Unfortunately, Jake’s hater was not ready to change her mind. Even at the end of the episode, in spite of all of his efforts, she was still clinging to being a “Jake hater”.

The new CW show H8R exposes several dynamics about scapegoating and hate that often go unnoticed on primetime television. It is refreshing to see a show that is trying to stop hating instead of perpetuate it. My first impressions of the show were wrong. I am not a hater of H8R. I’m a fan!