Reality bites for pair of Utahns

If you subscribe to the theory that Utah is somehow represented by the locals who appear on nationally televised reality shows, the past few weeks haven't exactly been good to the Beehive State.

And not just because Megan Joy got booted from "American Idol" and Tyson Apostol got voted out of "Survivor: Tocantins," but because of the way the two exited.

It wasn't pretty in either case.

Things haven't been quite this ugly since 2006 when Salt Laker Desiree Valentin was telling "Bachelor" viewers she was "a little kinky," and West Bountiful's Heather Hansen was shrieking at other contestants on "The Biggest Loser."

To be clear — I'm not for a moment suggesting that state pride is in any way dependent on TV reality shows. Or that Utahns are in some way responsible for representing the state when they appear on those shows.

But to ignore the fact that a lot of local TV viewers seem to think that's the case would be writing about TV with one eye closed.

Anyway, Megan Joy's exit from "Idol" was well-documented. (Although, had the auditions not been held here last summer, I'm not sure much of anybody would have really made much of the fact that she's a Utahn.)

She did, however, cause a bit of a stir — and not because of her numerous tattoos. (Whatever controversy there was about those seems to have been a purely local phenomenon.)

Love him or hate him, Megan Joy dissing "Idol" judge Simon Cowell and getting dissed in return made headlines. And then there were the weird bird noises Megan Joy made during her exit.

It was, at best, odd.

But in terms of embarrassing, Megan Joy isn't even in the same league as Apostol. When he got tossed off "Survivor," it was one of those pride-goeth-before-a-fall moments that just makes your jaw drop.

To spin it as kindly as possible, for much of the season Apostol was apparently attempting to be humorous. His humor — as portrayed on the show — came across as arrogance. And, more often than not, it just made him seem downright mean.

Again, that's apparently not the way he was perceived by his fellow contestants. More than once, he's been identified as the funny one who kept everyone laughing.

But — note to future "Survivor" contestants — you might want to watch Apostol's run on the show to see how not to act if you don't want to be seen as "a jerk," as his rival Sierra called him last week.