We've followed their lives for six decades; now the stars of 7 Up are bowing out

My partner got me into The Challenge early in our relationship. There's a lot about it that I don't like, and it's pretty clear that the competition itself is steered by the production team in ways that aren't really natural, and the outcome week to week is often likely not what would happen if the cast members weren't interfered with. I'm not on social media and don't care what the cast is up to off-screen, and I never watch the "reunion" episode at the end of each season because it's just a bunch of big-personality drama and performances made for internet points. But the show itself can be fun to watch sometimes, and some of the challenges they have to complete are genuinely difficult and cool to watch.

[0] The "regular people" thing is also really blurry. Sure, most (all?) reality shows pull from people who aren't otherwise actors or famous, but being on a long-running reality TV show can create that fame and lead to other (no-reality-TV) acting gigs. (Arguably many of the long-time cast members of The Challenge are celebrities in their own right, with curated public presences, and some of them have since taken on regular non-reality acting roles.)

I would even go so far as to label only videos of an event itself, like security recordings, to be non fiction as re-enactments and whatnot can have a lot of extra information that was not there in real life.