As American Ninja Warrior‘s Las Vegas finals begin, an unlikely fan looks back on her obsession with the reality competition.

My obsession began around this time last year, on Tumblr – as things seem to do nowadays.

A GIF set flickered across my dashboard. It looked like any other, except that these images seemed to be taken not from Game of Thrones or Supernatural, but from something that had actually happened.

A tiny young woman flitted across bars and beams, leaping yawning distances and scaling walls like a spider. Corresponding exclamations of excited shock were conveyed in yellow text beneath her dangling feet.

“Kacy Catanzaro,” the caption read. “First woman to complete an American Ninja Warrior finals course.” A link was provided to the full video.

“What the hell is American Ninja Warrior?” I thought, and clicked the link.

A simple seduction

As it turns out, American Ninja Warrior is a reality TV show where people run an obstacle course.

That’s it. There are no shocking twists, no catty surprises, no tearful confrontations — what you see is pretty much what you get.

Based off of a similar competition in Japan called Sasuke, American Ninja Warrior functions (mostly) on pure merit. If contestants can get to the end of “the hardest obstacle course in the world” (or complete enough obstacles in a short enough time) then they get to move on to the next level. The competition culminates at Japan’s “Mount Midoriyama” — the final set of four obstacle courses from Sasuke.

For the convenience of all involved, American Ninja Warrior‘s Mount Midoriyama is now — where else? — in Las Vegas.

For all its relative simplicity, American Ninja Warrior does engage in many of the trappings of reality TV. Heartwarming segments about the contestants air before their runs. Families are interviewed on the sidelines. Loud, enthusiastic commentary is provided by hosts Matt Iseman and Akbar Gbajabiamila, who analyze everything from contestants’ grip technique to their hairstyles.

The effect is highly theatrical, slightly manipulative, and disconcertingly, irresistibly charming.

I really shouldn’t be here

As a rule, I do not watch reality TV. My appetite for the real-life foibles of strangers peaked after season 7 of American Idol. (David Cook FTW!) Apart from a few dalliances with Ace of Cakes and Say Yes to the Dress, I have remained faithful to my disdain for this ubiquitous genre. Fiction is where I live; at best, reality TV strikes me as incurably fluffy, at worst (and there is plenty to choose from in that category) it is exploitative, appalling, and encourages the worst of human impulses.

Oh, and it’s like, totally, totally stupid.

So I told myself that it was a firm feminist decision to watch Kacy Catanzaro’s epic run on American Ninja Warrior… seven times in a row. And it was merely idle curiosity to watch more clips of a few other competitors as they swung and leapt and clawed their way across an increasingly familiar obstacle course.

…and then I ran out of clips because I had watched every. single. one.

But it wasn’t until I sat through two hours of Mount Midoriyama contestants — live, and trust me, that’s a lot of commercials — that I realized I had a problem. My interest went beyond feminism, beyond underdogs, beyond any rational hand-waved explanation.

The fact was, I was just obsessed with American Ninja Warrior.

The winners of losers

This year, things have gotten more extreme: I have seen every single episode of American Ninja Warrior season 7. I know many contestants by name. I can point out particularly devious twists in various obstacles. I have startled people around me by gasping, moaning, and cheering spontaneously at the strange reality playing out on my computer screen.

But to be honest, it’s been a lot of fun. And watching from the start of the season has given me just a touch of perspective on my obsession.

Make no mistake: American Ninja Warrior is mindless entertainment. Like I said, it’s a show about people running an obstacle course — no more or less complicated than that.

But it’s also an event that has created an intense camaraderie among diverse people. Aspiring Ninjas often train together, nurse injuries together, and cheer each other from the sidelines. No one has ever defeated Mount Midoriyama in competition, which makes the show much less about defeating anyone else, and much more about every Warrior’s personal best.

And for all its macho appearance, American Ninja Warrior is a profoundly emotional, and almost weirdly earnest experience. The contestants’s background segments may be hokey, but they aren’t self-serving — there are no judges to win over here, no fickle audience of voters to court. Sure, there’s room for cynicism; there always is. But it’s hard to be callus when the mother of an autistic girl screams with joy after defeating a balance obstacle, or when ridiculously buff veterans bellow encouragement to training partners whose arms are shaking with fatigue.

And poignantly, the story of American Ninja Warrior is consistently one of losing. Veteran competitors are disqualified in shocking falls, as Kacy Catanzaro was this year. Contestants with heartwarming stories fail constantly. And of course, no one has ever defeated Mount Midoriyama — and it’s possible no one ever will.

Because, like any obstacle (and any obsession), the point is the journey. The point is your last grip before you fall, or getting one step higher up an insurmountable wall. After all, if anyone really “wins” at life, isn’t it the people who make it farther than they thought they would?

So while I still turn my nose up at reality TV, and I still mumble and blush over my obsession with American Ninja Warrior, I have to admit: There’s something very real about that.

American Ninja Warrior: Vegas Finals airs tonight at 8:00 p.m. on NBC.