CLASSIC: The Reality of Reality TV

Love it or hate it, there's no denying that reality TV -- also known as unscripted television -- is a titan of the entertainment industry. In fact, if you have cable and turn on your TV right now, you'll probably find a reality show of some sort playing on multiple channels. Most people know this sort of programming isn't as 'real' as it may purport to be... but what made this stuff so successful? Perhaps most importantly: Why do some of its critics allege this content is worse than tacky? Why do some people think it's dangerous?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Phil conspiracy realists. Are you a fan of so called

(00:03):
reality television? What about you guys? Are you guys fans
of it?

Speaker 2 (00:07):
I liked The Osbournes back when it was on. And
does do cooking shows count as reality television? I mean
technically in competitions?

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Yeah, I like that stuff too. I'm a sucker for
I mean, is it documentary reality television or one of
those shows where they just show you how a factory
makes mass market case ideas? I don't know. I think
we're talking about the manufactured drama kind of stuff, like
you were saying with the Osbourne's or with Real Housewives

(00:37):
of at all.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Some of those cooking competitions do incorporate a lot of
those those tropes, like the confessional rooms, the potentially manufactured
rivalry between contestants used with cross cutting, and the creative editing.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
How I love the soundtracks to keep Kyle has a
great sketch about that, Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
But then we've got stuff that is just the kinder,
gentler version of all these things, like, for example, the
Great British Baking Show and one that I'm personally in
love with these days, Culinary Class Wars, one of the
best of these types of cooking combindition shows I think
I've ever seen. But we are talking more about the
what was it been the term that we talked about
with that really cool guy on Ridiculous History about nineties

(01:15):
trash culture, low culture, low culture. We are talking about
the advent of that kind of stuff, as you know,
evidenced by things like the real world road rules that
led to an absolute explosion of this kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Oh gosh, wait, are we reality TV? Since we're on
Netflix now.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
I ask a good question.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Let's roll the tape.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radio.

Speaker 4 (01:59):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nol.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul, Mission Control decand most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. And today candidly we
are yet again on the edge of the real, but

(02:27):
not perhaps in the way we have been in the past.
In our show, we've often swam into the deep philosophical waters,
contemplating the nature of perception and reality. It's a dilemma
that only grows more important as time goes on. If
you're like most people on the planet, you are already

(02:48):
familiar with today's topic, reality television. Before we begin, we
need to put a disclaimer at the top. Matt Nol,
Mission Control, M myself have all had some personal experience
with reality television, so we are entering today's exploration with

(03:08):
a bit of unavoidable bias. As always, we're going to
do our best to stay as objective as possible, but
in the interest of transparency, we would like to give
you a few war stories from our at times surreal
experiences with this phenomenon. It's sometimes called a genre, sometimes
it's called a travesty, and sometimes it's called an art form.

(03:32):
So off air, you know, we hang out. We hang
out when this show is not rolling or we're not
recording an off air. Over the years, I think we've
all shared some of these stories with each other, but
as we were gearing up for this episode, we were
reminded of them again. So no, Matt Michigan troll, I mean,

(03:54):
we've all got we've all got some weird ones here.
What are what are our personal experiences with reality TV?

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Well, well, unknownst to you guys or anybody else. I
am actually the sort of abandoned Kardashian son. I am
the black sheep of the Kardashian family. No one talks
about me. I had to change my name. You're right now, Yeah,
this is an exclusive. No, I'm obviously I'm obviously kidding.

(04:23):
I would probably be assassinated if that were the truth,
and I dropped that on the show. It's funny you
say you mentioned this. Ben Paul and I actually, in
a previous life, pre podcast, pre pandemic, work together on
a pilot for a reality show. I don't think I
should dropped the name because I don't know if it's
still a working affair potentially being pitched. It was a

(04:46):
long time ago and I haven't seen the show come
into exit. No, you know what, I gotta do it.
I got it because the title was so great. It
was called The Underground Runway, which I felt was problematic
for several reasons, just because cas makes you think of
the underground railroad obviously, which is not connected to frivolous

(05:06):
fashion concerns and kind of Real Housewives esque drama, which
is what this show very much was. It was these
women buckhead type Atlanta women starting a fashion brand in
like a basement room of this very affluent Buckhead esque
let's say Buckhead like people know that as Buckhead is

(05:27):
sort of like the bougie brunch part of Atlanta. And
they manufactured a whole lot of drama. There was one
part where like they had a package sent to the
house for this one particularly boisterous European woman was sent
like a box of sex toys, I want to say,

(05:48):
and her boyfriend kept sending these inappropriate gifts to the
house and disrupting the flow of their you know, startup
brainstorming sessions. And it was all totally manufactured. And even
like the stand ups, that was the part that I
was the most kind of intrigued by. They're all frankinbited,
which is a term maybe people in the media don't know,

(06:08):
but it's where you just take words and cut them
up and put them in order to make it sound
like somebody says something they didn't say, and the director
is literally they're feeding them, telling them what to say,
to push the drama and make it as like salacious
as possible, and it.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Was a hoot.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
I was only doing it for one day, but I
taught me everything I used to know about the world
of reality television.

Speaker 4 (06:31):
That's amazing. Wow, I didn't have anything like that happened.
I was a part of a cooking show pilot one time,
but I guess a cooking show in a way is unscripted.
There's probably an outline. There was, at least in the
version that we attempted, But it was just trying to
get as much coverage as you possibly could with as

(06:51):
many cameras as you could, and then the whole thing,
the whole story, and everything happens later. Basically, that was
my experience. That particular one involved the Dungeon family from Atlanta,
and it never saw the light of day, sadly.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Yes, yeah, yeah, they were probably just intimidated by having you,
you know, by having you on set with them, you know.

Speaker 5 (07:14):
Oh, I'm sure it was all yeah, me, I'm sure.
And Tyler and Chandler, Yes, yeah, that's right. I forget
those guys were involved as well. Yes, so, Matt, you
and I have had a very strange experience. We flew
to la years years and years ago.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
To make a pilot, make a pilot sizzle reel, which
is a very common thing with production companies. They'll they'll
make almost on spec, a fake trailer for a show
that doesn't yet exist. They'll show the trailer to a
network and say, wouldn't this be cool if this was

(07:54):
a trailer for a real show. And our experience there
was I had a fun time. But I think they
were irritated with us because we have Yeah, we flat
out refused to play ball. They we can talk about

(08:16):
this now without naming too many specifics. So so we
get contacted. I think I get contact as an individual.
We get contacted as a show on a not in
frequent basis with people who want to pitch us ideas
for things. And we were asked to work on a

(08:41):
essentially treasure hunting show, an investigative treasure hunting docuseries kind
of thing. They found out that I am a luncheon
and that's a very small tri racial isolate population it's
called here in the US, and they wanted us to
act as if some things that were legends were absolutely true,

(09:06):
and then they.

Speaker 4 (09:08):
At least we believed they were absolutely true and we're
going to find them.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
Yeah, exactly, and so they wanted us to pretend some
things were true that Matt and I knew not to
be true. They did want us to, you know, frank
and bite or get some takes. And there were very
nice people, but I think they were a little irritated
with us when both Matt and I separately and together
would just put our foot down and say, I won't
say that because it is it is untrue and it's misleading.

(09:36):
And then in a different life before.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
Wait, yeah, do you remember being out in the dry
just hills somewhere out there? I forget exactly where it was,
but some somewhere out there in near LA with shovels
and other like old tools that they made us carry

(09:59):
and walk our for a long time while they shot
video of it.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Yeah, they're a wildfire country.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yes, didn't I try to make you wear like a
Indiana Jones esque explorer, like adventurer outfits or something that
I make that part up or I've seen to remember
that from my wish No, okay, I made that up
in the mind.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Well, I have some stuff from when I was living
in more on the road situations that I wore. There
was it was just yeah, it was just very strange
and it.

Speaker 4 (10:26):
Was not us.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, it wasn't really us. And then previously, before falling
into this podcasting thing, I had been cast in several things,
many of which didn't come to fruition because you know,
in the world of television, ninety eight percent of the
stuff that gets pitched nothing ever comes of it. And

(10:49):
so we have all had a little bit of experience
in this world on the production end, on the possible
hosting or quote unquote talent. But as you can tell
from the stories you've heard from the three of us
just now, there is more to reality TV than what

(11:10):
you see on the screen, and the experience people have
during production is very different from the experience you as
a viewer have when you see the end result. So
today's question is what is the reality behind reality television?
Here are the facts.

Speaker 4 (11:30):
When you think about reality TV, it sounds a bit strange,
and I remember it feeling strange when it was first
really spoke about in that way because it's technically a
genre of television. A lot of times it's known as
unscripted or non scripted television. It's usually starring relatively unknown

(11:52):
people or at least non actors, right I think that's
probably the most important thing. They're non professional actors, or
sometimes they are professional actors. They're just posing as a
regular old person, uh, not an actor. You'll see that
a lot. Maybe we'll talk about it later, but you
see that a lot. In competition shows, you get working

(12:12):
or actors who need work who go on them.

Speaker 1 (12:14):
Oh no, I learned a cool portmanteau for this one.
Actors model slash actors.

Speaker 4 (12:24):
Oh wow, that's great. Oh yeah, And you can totally
see that on a lot of reality television, people who
look entirely just too perfect to be running around and
doing whatever wacky thing that the show is about. But
the whole point is you you don't have a script.
You put these non actors into basically real life situations

(12:48):
or larger than real life situations, and there's nothing to do,
really besides shoot a bunch of video of these people
doing the stuff, whatever it is, and then you'll know.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
This is where you get to see a lot of
setups because there's always a little bit of exposition, right
to explain the rules of this particular take on reality.
My favorites are always the house hunter subgenres, where there's
a couple that's like, uh, you know Bill, Bill collects

(13:25):
vintage condoms and Julie is a spiritual guide for Corgi's.
They want a house with four jacuzzis and a helicopter
landing pad. They need it by Tuesday. Their budget is
twelve dollars and I'm exaggerating a little, but maybe not
as much as as I'd wish.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
So of course, of course they're the most picky people
with twelve dollars you've ever seen, correct.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Ye, But it's like it's I think it's it's meant
to be aspirational, where it's like I too could have
a multimillion dollar fixer upper in San Francisco, you know,
me with my meager podcast salary. You know, it's what
keeps people on the hook because it doesn't make them
feel like there's I think there's different like categories of
reality show. There's the ones that are meant to be

(14:14):
exclusive and be like a look in to a world
you could never possibly be a part of. And then
there's ones like those that are aspirational and they're meant
to be like, oh that could be me. I could
do that. I could learn how to grout a bathtub
or whatever. It is you know, it's interesting, and all
these shows they fall into buckets, but at the end
of the day, they're all about keeping you, you know,

(14:35):
with your eyes glued to the show.

Speaker 4 (14:36):
We're gonna talk about that, right, what it means, like
the reality that is portrayed to us? What does that mean?
What are they telling us?

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah? Yeah, because so reality TV is a genre and
we want to be fair to it today. So I'm
not trying to put my thumb on the scales here
when I say the term reality TV is a group term,
kind of like the term cancer is a group term.
It describes a lot of very different things with you know,

(15:06):
a core, a kind of spinal column of commonalities. Once
upon a time, you know, we would consider news programs
or interviews or talk shows to be reality TV, or
follow alongs for law enforcement or medical professionals, or even
live quiz shows like of course the quiz Show. So now,

(15:30):
as in twenty eight twenty, we're at a place where
reality TV as a concept has evolved and the phrase
means the specific groupings of shows. And there's so many subgenres,
transactional shows like storage Wars, pond Stars, documentary approaches of
being diplomatic here, varying credibility, makeover shows, right, let us

(15:53):
make you look appropriate? Rights, it's a dangerous aspiration. And
then shows where contestants ostensibly search for romance.

Speaker 4 (16:03):
Or or specifically competition shows like cooking shows, and a
lot of these what's the What's the Ninja Warrior Ultimate?

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Ninja Ultimate? I was about to say, yeah, like, obstinately,
it's basically grown up double there, you know, with much
higher stakes. You guys remember Double There. Nickelodeon had a
lot of these back in the day. I mean, you're right, man,
game shows do theoretically fall into that category in an
interesting way. But then there's that whole quiz show scandal
that showed even those types of shows lack of credibility.

(16:35):
That was like could yeah, but it was a big deal.
It was a huge kerfuffle. There's a film about it,
uh with what's his Face? Sam Rockwell where it talks
about that whole It's also that he was like a
secret spy, and there's it's a really fast it was
called Portrait of a Dangerous Mind. I think it's what
it's called something along those lines. But yeah, it was
essentially they were rigging it. So that people would stay

(16:56):
engaged and you'd root for they. They would basically identify
this is the contest that everybody likes, this is the
one we want to do well. These are the ones
we want to eliminate. Has nothing to do with their
actual intellect. It has to do with what kind of
you know, curatorial, you know, kind of stable of humans
they want to push forth so that people can most

(17:17):
identify with.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Yeah, and that's why there are, at least in the US,
there are federal laws regarding how a competition has to
be carried out, but there are a lot of loopholes
in that. You know what I mean, and you can
That's why you'll see a lot of tiered competitions. There
are multiple episodes right of the same competition, and so

(17:39):
you can see the producers or showrunners tilting things in
favor of one person or another based on their ratings, right,
or based on audience response. But you might also see
something like a snapshot of life, people with a very
specific job, truckers driving across roads made of ice in
the far North. It's also i'd say it's also common

(18:04):
to see wealthy, vapid people try and fail to do
anything worthwhile or of interest. But you know that's like
interest is in the eye of the beholder. And again,
you know, I'm not saying I'm not saying these people
are vapid. I'm saying they are portrayed as being vapid

(18:24):
by the producers. Someone is telling you or you know,
steering you toward what you can see. And you'll see
people vying for a specific prize, a music deal, a
million dollars weight loss. Love it or hate it. This
is a massive genre and it's older then A lot
of us in the audience today probably think like you

(18:46):
think Big Brother, or you think the Real World and
Puck and everything. But the true, the truth is something
like this genre has been around since the earliest days
of television. We have to remember when television came out,
when it started rolling out, it was much more experimental.
People weren't sure what would work, kind of the way
that podcasts were several years ago. This like, there's this

(19:12):
show in nineteen forty five called Queen for a Day,
Queen for a Day, and you can you can find
some clips online about this. Queen for a Day would
have various contestants come on the show and explain their
plights often in a very tearful way to an audience,

(19:32):
and there would be an APPLAUSEO meter, and if this
person's tale of woe and tribulation connected most with the
audience measured by applause, then they would be given like
they would sit on a throne. They would get some
you know, they would get some like costumeriye that looked

(19:54):
like royalty. They would get a dozen roses, and then
they would get a list of prizes. This show was
tremendously popular. There was another show called Candid Camera. Well
remember that the guy who made Candid Camera also had
a show in the days of radio called Candid Microphone.
And that's where like that genre is. I think a

(20:16):
lot of us in the West are familiar with it.
People got pranked and then they would learn later that
they were being filmed by hidden cameras. Like I think
most of us, probably in twenty twenty have not seen
actually seen an episode of Candid Camera, but it is
part of our zeitgeist. Now smile, you're on candid Camera, right.

Speaker 4 (20:41):
Yeah, Well, now that everyone has a camera, it's happening
all the time without our knowledge.

Speaker 1 (20:46):
And that show came out in nineteen forty eight, you know.
So there were other predecessors that were more serious in tone,
that were a little bit more like what we might
call a PBS documentary. There's one of continuing relevance today
called seven Up. You guys remember hearing about that.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (21:05):
Seven Up was a television show in nineteen sixty four
that got together a group of kids who were all
aged seven and conducted interviews with them, and then every
following seven years they would interview them again, so in
chunks of seven years, just to see how all of
these people are growing up, what are their aspirations at seven?

(21:27):
How did it play out when they were fourteen? Probably
not so great. That's middle school. Nobody likes that. But
then it continued on and.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
The most recent installment actually came out in twenty nineteen,
just last year. It's called sixty three Up.

Speaker 4 (21:43):
Wow. Yep.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
It's interesting because it began with it and I think
this would be of interest to you as well, Mission Control.
It began without really a plot, you know, or the
constraints that are famili you're in today's reality TV shows,
the documentary style. We're talking to these people about their lives,

(22:06):
and they kind of found the themes and the narration
and the arc as these people aged.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah, and that's you know, that's the true mark of
a good documentary. You kind of go in maybe with
a little bit of an understanding of what you're going
to cover, and then if you do it for long
enough period, the story kind of reveals itself. I think
the best documentary is often like the filmmakers go in
maybe with one idea of what they're going to get,
and then it takes some interesting turn. But the only

(22:33):
way you can do that is by covering a topic
for a very very long time and being able to
kind of roll with the punches as things change, as
parts of the stories develop in ways you hadn't expected.
So these seven Up docs really are documentary, like, you know,
very well thought out, very well produced, documentary style filmmaking,
as opposed to more of what we're going to talk
about today, which are very much the antithesis of that.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
So fast forward nineteen sixty five, he creates a show
called The American Sportsman. This show introduces celebrity kind of
like for its own sake, like here are famous people
with which are already familiar, but they're maybe not necessarily

(23:17):
doing this stuff. They're famous for instead, they and family
members and maybe friends are doing outdoor activities. They're driving
race cars, you know, they're hunting, et cetera. The action
in the dialogue as a result of this was unscripted.
The only scripted stuff would be vo narration vo meaning voiceover.

(23:37):
And this is often today considered the first modern reality show,
but again, for a lot of us listening today, the
paradigm shift for reality TV begins with shows like the
Real World, which premiered in nineteen ninety two. Strangers are selected,

(23:58):
not famous people people who aspire to be famous, these
people anyway, they were selected based on what the showrunners
see as their potential for discord. And then they are
put together in a shared living space. And what happens
when people stop being polite and start being real?

Speaker 2 (24:18):
Right?

Speaker 1 (24:19):
This is something that MTV spun out in multiple spin
offs and spinoffs.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
Did you guys watch this when you were when you
were younger?

Speaker 3 (24:26):
I do?

Speaker 2 (24:27):
You did?

Speaker 4 (24:27):
Not?

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (24:28):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (24:28):
I Ben did not? Matt did, I definitely did. I
don't think the earliest one was I believe San Francisco
maybe or was it London? And I don't recall, but
I definitely remember Puck puck. He was such a jerk.
And then there was a There was one particular season
where there was like this kind of goth metal guy
who was in London and he like sent his girlfriend
a pig's heart with a nail through it in a

(24:51):
box and it was so like Emo and I loved it.
I was whatever his name was. He had like facial piercing.
That's all I remember. But that was a leap forward
because it really did feel like, oh my god, I'm
a fly on the wall watching these people's lives unfold
very organically with no input from producers.

Speaker 4 (25:09):
Surely right right, yeah, and certainly not cameras everywhere as
you're trying to have an actual interaction with someone and.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
They're certainly not being plied with alcohol or other intoxicants, right,
and god forbid there'd be a second take of something anyhow, Yes,
you guys are right from there. The genre was very
much off to the races. Now we have so many
subgenres of what is called reality TV. There are spinoffs
of spinoffs of spinoffs, just like the heyday of sitcoms.

(25:40):
The trend does not seem set to die down anytime soon.
As a matter of fact, if anything it can. The
trend continues, it escalates. In twenty fifteen alone, there were
hundreds and hundreds of reality TV shows on primetime cable,
eighty three percent more than scripted shows. Crucially, that number

(26:03):
is not the entire snapshot, because that only accounts for
series that air during primetime and on cable, so we're
not counting broadcast network reality shows like American Idol or Survivor,
or all the documentary programs on PBS. Once again, thank
you PBS.

Speaker 4 (26:22):
For be there.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
It's a big proposed PBS. If you have cable in
twenty twenty, and you know a lot of us don't,
A lot of us are cord cutters. But if you
do have cable and you're near a television, odds are
that if you turn it on right now and you
just scroll through the channels, you will find inevitably some
sort of thing that could be called unscripted or reality TV.

(26:49):
It's here to stay, and despite what often seems to
be its innocuous nature, it shouldn't surprise anybody to know
what that Reality TV is Enormously controversial. Fans and critics
of the shows in this genre will readily admit it
is not as real as it is often made to seem. Spoiler,
that is not the big plot twist for today's episode.

(27:12):
Audience interests may also not be the driving factor in
the boom. In fact, some networks may be pushing programming
that audiences don't particularly want, and, according to some reality
television may be dangerous. What are we talking about. We'll

(27:32):
tell you after a word from our sponsor. Here's where
it gets crazy. First things First, longtime listeners, I hope
you know this would not be our only twist for
the episode. There's several crazy things. But yes, I don't

(27:57):
know if we're in a bubble matt nole. But like
everybody knows, reality TV is much less real than it
purports to be, right, Like, that's not a classified document
or anything.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah, it's like wrestling, you know. I mean, maybe there's
that one poor little kid who's gonna have his mind
blown when he realizes that wrestling is not real. Hopefully
I'm not doing that to you poor little kid right now.
But same with reality TV. I mean, like I think
it's pretty much not even an open secret because you
can't even say it's a secret. But it's not like

(28:30):
people come right out and say it, but everyone kind
of knows. There's been plenty of expositions are really great.
Adam ruins everything about it that does a really good
job of demystifying all of some of the tactics and
specific production techniques that go into the making of a
reality show, some of which you know I talked about
at the beginning of the show. But yeah, it's very
much a known thing, and it doesn't The interesting thing

(28:52):
about it is it doesn't really affect your enjoyment of it,
or it doesn't seem to have caused it to wane
in popularity, I think, is what I'm getting at.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Same with wrestling ink.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
Fabe exactly, and it really is the invisible hand of
storytelling that we're going to talk about, the how the
editors have a lot of control over that in this world.
One thing we didn't mention earlier was just the number
of streaming service only reality shows, because those things are
just flooded with all of those shows or types of

(29:21):
the shows that we mentioned at the top of this show.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
I'm never looking over and writing a note map because
this is excellent foreshadowing. I have a I have a
thing about this.

Speaker 4 (29:31):
Oh okay, okay, oh no, no, no, no, this is no.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
This is perfect because this this leads us to a
very weird, very weird cultural rabbit hole.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
Second.

Speaker 4 (29:42):
Okay, but to do the due.

Speaker 1 (29:44):
Diligence, as is our want and warrant on this show,
we are going to We're going to proceed to demolish
any illusions that some of us may still have about
the reality picted it in reality televisions. As we said earlier,

(30:04):
producers are the storytellers. I really love that phrase, the
invisible hand of storytelling to Matt. Producers of My Frank
and by Audio take visual clips, edit them out of
context to get closer to a desired narrative. A good
example of this, off the top of my head, if
you are a producer on a show and you want

(30:26):
two of the cast members on the show to fight,
then maybe you know, these are not dumb people. They're
pretty smart, so they may even like each other and
they don't want to seem like they're fighting. But all
you have to do is take a clip of like

(30:46):
take a clip of Matt and Noel on a camping
trip and Matt saying, hey, is there do we have
any more coffee? And then Noel goes, oh, sorry, I
didn't make any yet, and then just cut to cut
to a different clip like this is why there was
always the stand ups or the confessional parts, cut to

(31:08):
a different clip where they're the producer's off screen asking
Matt like, so, what do you think of Adolf Hitler?
And then Matt's like, I think he's a terrible person.
Or I think Adolf Hitler is a terrible, terrible person,
and like, could you say that but not say the
name Adolf Hitler. It's like, uh, yeah, I hate him.
I think he's a monster. And then in the post

(31:31):
production and the editing, it goes straight from the clip
of a very normal conversation about should we make coffee
to Matt saying I hate him. I think he's a monster,
and then they'll just frank invite some other clip of
Noel saying something again completely innocuous. Maybe they use the
Hitler trick on him that I'm making that up, but

(31:53):
it is a very plausible thing. And then maybe if
they don't have to frank and bite you guys, if
you're totally down to play ball and jump through those hoops,
then they'll lean into it and say, okay, we want
you guys to really disagree about I don't know about
where a tent should be pitched, and then we go, okay,

(32:15):
you know when you guys have the argument about where
the tent should be pitched, like that was great. That
was great, guys, that was really honest. We're going to
reset a couple of cameras because we want to get
a good over the shoulder on Matt, and then you'll
just have the argument again like those Some of those
things you see that appear to be spontaneous organic disputes

(32:38):
are like multiple iterative takes.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
Oh absolutely, And like I was saying with the pilot
that Paul and I worked on, the producers will actively
do things to game the system, like sending those packages,
you know, to this potentially braggadocious you know, cast member
who in an effort to like get the other women

(33:03):
to be annoyed with her being all, look at me,
my boyfriend's sending me all these amazing gifts. Oh, he
loves me so much. And then they have like, so
what do you think about Anya, Like she's a little
much huh Oh my god, yes, Anya is the worst.
You know, she had she sent those to herself. You
know that she did that just to like, you know,

(33:24):
be the center of attention, right, and then you know, yeah,
and then they ask Anya, what do you think that? Well,
I don't understand why the other goes so mean to me,
you know, I just am just so beautiful and my
boyfriend just loves me. What's wrong with that?

Speaker 6 (33:37):
You know?

Speaker 2 (33:37):
And then it all comes to a head. And even
that's manufacturer because they literally have each other talking trash
about each other behind their backs, and they're poking the
bear essentially and creating this situation where there's this like
explosion moment and then they capture that too. They potentially
do that from other angles. You know. It's it's it's
it's pretty wild.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Let me play this lip of what Anya said for you,
and I'd like you to react.

Speaker 4 (34:03):
To it exactly. Or even if you're in one of
those confessional booths with a big bright light in front
of you and there's a producer in your ear and
just saying, you know, we captured some pretty disturbing stuff
earlier that was said about you, and I would just
love to know what you think about this. And that's
all you have to do, because.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
I'm on your side. Yeah, I want to hear your
side of this, there's you know, a personal example. Two
is often things will get phrased as questions. That's one
that's one big part of interrogation and psychosocial manipulation, right,
don't You don't have to tell people what to say.

(34:43):
You ask people a question and then frame it in
such way that you're trying to get them to say
what you want them to say, as though it were
their ideas. So, for instance, if you're on a pilot
about hunting for some fictitious lost silver in the apple
in the Appalachian forest, and someone says, you know, I

(35:05):
heard that there was a lost silver mine, and I
heard that there were even statues there hidden that might
have some mayan influence. Yeah, what do you think about that?
And like, well, it's the first time I've heard it,
and I don't think it's true.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Oh and if you could please rephrase my question in
your answer, Please rephrase my question in your answer.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
By the way, what if it but what if that
happens too? But what I'm talking about is like they'll go,
but what if it was? Could you just repeat the question?

Speaker 4 (35:35):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Which is why, Like, which is why you'll see people
who are you know, incredibly reputable scientists who are top
notch right, and they'll they'll they'll come off looking like
they believe wholeheartedly and ancient aliens or something like that,
and a lot of those scientists are very upset, you know,

(35:56):
when they see the end result, because they've been told
to say, uh, just like read these questions, and they'll
read five questions, and one of them is the one
that the showrunner is aiming to use right.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Well, and the reason I bring up the whole please
rephrase my question in your response. A. It's a good
technique so that you can cut out the interviewer's voice
so that you have a self contained soundbit. But it
also kind of primes the pump for whatever forgetting that
person to talk about what you want them to talk about.
So you ask them this question and then they literally

(36:31):
have to kind of frame their entire answer around incorporating
that question into their response, thereby making that sort of
the locust of control for the whole the whole shebang,
where like it starts from, Okay, I have to like
answer maybe it's a leading question it usually is, and
then you're playing totally playing ball by making that question

(36:53):
part of your answer when maybe it was a question
that it was phrased in a divisive way or in
a leading way, or an some way kind of like,
you know, misleading.

Speaker 4 (37:04):
This is the way I think about it, guys. So
most of us out there have seen or know what
a script is, right. We understand that it's a series
of words on a lot of paper that tells usually
a camera and actors what to do. That's generally it
what's going to happen on set. The way I think

(37:24):
about reality TV is that you don't have a script
at all until you've got all or most of your
stuff shot, and then you form that script backwards basically
from what you know, you what you want to happen,
and then everything else you kind of plot in with
footage that you've collected, Right, and there's going to be
holes in there that I need to get from point

(37:45):
A to point B somehow. Now I need to get
this person or somebody else to say this very specific thing.
And they use the technique ben As talking about where
they will just try and seed you with something as
the actor or character, or try and psychologically manipulate it
out of you in some way.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
And for many people this can feel like a big break,
you know, so we're incentivized to play ball. But okay,
so we've proven that this stuff happens. Producers, also, by
the way, are known for breaking various rules off camera.
You're in a survival show, right, there's one where it's like,
literally people are supposed to be running around naked, surviving

(38:26):
in the wild, but off air they're supplied with medicine,
they're supplied with food and things like that when the
cameras aren't rolling. So yes, there are many, many, many,
many instances of what could be called active conspiracies on
the sets of many reality TV shows. That doesn't make
them bad again, because hey, if it's an open secret

(38:48):
and people still dig it and no one is getting hurt,
and no big whoop, Right, where's where's the beef? Where's
the impossible burger? In that one? But it turns out, remember, folks,
we said that's not the big twist here. Everybody knows
that reality TV itself got more than a bit of

(39:09):
k fave to it. As they say in wrestling, economic
factors are at play in a very very big way here.
One thing that's interesting, you guys, remember the writer's strike
two thousand and seven and.

Speaker 4 (39:24):
Eight, course very much, especially with regularly occurring shows, late
night shows, talk shows. I remember that being a major issue. Yeah, wow,
everything from the Daily Show to Conin to all of
those gave us.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
A horrible That was cool. I still love that one. Yeah,
hamstrunk broadcasting cable networks. And remember there's a billion dollar industry.
They're scrambling desperately to find any original content to fill
that programming schedule. These are not the days of early television.

(40:03):
You can't just say, well, it's ten PM, so we're
signing off, here's our you know, here's a holding pattern screen.
So as an end result of that, when they couldn't
get the scripted shows running, right How I Met Your Mother, etc.
All the mainstays, more than one hundred unscripted shows, competitions,

(40:23):
dating games, life improvement stuff. More than one hundred either
debuted or returned in a single season. And I was
looking into the boots on the ground for this from
both people who are established industry insiders and then people
who are kind of like pop culture pundits observing this,

(40:47):
and they said they don't all agree on how much
impact the writer's strike actually had on the explosion of
reality TV, since it was already well underway, but now
they said it was something they can no longer be
dismissed as a trend or a fad. From that point forward,
reality programs began to top the ratings week after week

(41:09):
after week, and it was so good for the bottom line.
This is something that we have run into even in
our own little, our own little domain of media. Unscripted
television is much much cheaper.

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Great because you don't need a writer, you don't need
a set barely. I mean, if you're doing a game show,
I guess, but that was a little bit of a
conversation for a different day. You just need a handful
of producers or handlers. You wouldn't even really call them
a director most of the time. I think they're just
producers who are kind of like, you know, you've got
a camera crew and people that are making sure to

(41:50):
get the coverage, and you probably have a director of
photography that's just assuring that they capture as much as
humanly possible. But some many of these shows too, like
use things like go pros or use like even iPhone footage,
you know. I mean it's that you don't need a massive,
glitzy production with tons of lighting. You can use a
skeleton crew and you're just setting up and picking up

(42:12):
in some very like maybe there's a whole show that
takes place. Definitely there is in the house, like a
Big Brother situation, where it's just lots of little cheapy
go pro cameras mounted everywhere, and those confessional booths are
what have you. It's all really really affordable.

Speaker 4 (42:26):
And think about something as simple as set dressing in
a place. So in a reality show, this person, you
may enhance the reality of what exists in their room
right to make that character seem more, oh, they really
like baseball. But in a film or a scripted television series,

(42:49):
you have to very specifically place things that are going
to tell you about the arc of that character. And
the money that you spend on just stuff for set
dress is insane. And the people you have to pay
to make sure all of that stuff gets in the
right place and is in the right spot every time
your roll camera. And that's like this tiniest sliver of

(43:12):
expenses that you're saving when you make unscripted.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
And Matt is I hope you don't get mad at
me for disclosing this man. But Matt, I can tell
you're still a little bit bitter about the set design
costs that sank, That sank your historically accurate period piece series.
Right on? What was that again? What time period was that.

Speaker 4 (43:38):
My historically accurate period accurate period piece project?

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (43:44):
Oh man improv improv Yes and yes and oh it was.
I got nothing, guys, no it I've kind of got
something like this going on behind me right now. If
you can see this video, I am ridiculously delayed right
now in our zoom call, by the way, and it

(44:05):
is weirding me out. But I've set dressed the everything
that's behind me to be Matt, Like this is Matt
to the character represented in things behind me. And it's
what you would do for either production scripted or unscripted.
But I guess the stakes of it for unscripted are

(44:25):
so smaller. I don't know where I'm going with this, Guys.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
Yeah, I totally, I totally improper rules threw you under
the bus. I apologize, but but I just I love
the idea of you having like this mostly in they
can sweeping historical epic and then like the breaking point

(44:49):
for the budget was making sure you add historically accurate
you know, like carriages or something. But that happens, you know,
and it is You're right. There are so many expenses
to come into play, like according to e online and
according to History Channel, a thirty minute episode of your
average reality TV show hasts somewhere between one hundred grand

(45:14):
to five hundred grand to produce. That's a huge amount
of money for individuals, but in the world of television,
it's not very much money at all. That's a steal,
that's a fire sale because if you look at the
other side of the spectrum, think about what we call
prestige television, right, breaking bad Sopranos, etc. The last season

(45:37):
of Game of Thrones, despite being enormously divisive, keeping my
personal opinions out here, each episode of that last season
cost fifteen million dollars. Think of how much reality TV
you can make with fifteen mil.

Speaker 4 (45:55):
Oh my god, so many fewer people. No sets, You
don't have to be in the winter. Winter is not
coming in your reality show unless you're the Ice Road Truckers.
It's already come. It's too late, right right.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
And in Ice Road Truckers, I think they have their
own trucks, so you don't have to pay for those either.
This means that there's inherently going to be more risk
in making any kind of scripted show because a huge
budget doesn't always translate to huge ratings, it doesn't always
translate to commercial success. You could spend millions of dollars

(46:31):
per episode on a season of something and critics could
pan it, and you know, like it would be the
worst move of your career. So why write a stunning fantasy?
Why produce this historically accurate, sweeping thing when you could
just churn and burn unscripted material across all these different subgenres.

(46:51):
I mean the weird thing is, for a while, production
houses we're creating scripted television and it is very expensive
to create it, and they were also regularly losing in
their ratings to reality TV.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Oh yeah, I mean we run into that a lot
in podcast world, and a lot of big television production
companies are seeing that as an opportunity as well, where
it's all about the intellectual property wars, where it's like
people want to develop things for as cheaply as possible
and test out intellectual property. And we see that happening

(47:27):
with shows like Homecoming that started off as a podcast
did moderately well as a podcast, and then since they
knew there was an interest, it's almost like a pretty cheap,
focus group version of a more expensive thing. Then they
sold it as a television show and it did very well,
and now it's got multiple seasons and it's on streaming.
And it's an interesting world with the media landscape, especially

(47:50):
now guys with COVID and movie theaters essentially being like
on the brink of annihilation. Like we saw that movie
Tenant come out and did like well, I think thirty
million dollars total over like two weeks, which and it
costs like hundreds of millions of dollars, and that's just
does not bode well for the industry. So they're going

(48:10):
to I wonder if we're going to see more of
this kind of stuff or more things as podcasts where
it's all about how quickly and cheaply can you make
it while you know, still presenting an appearance of quality
or integrity or what have you.

Speaker 4 (48:26):
Yeah, let's talk about that. The money, the actual ticket
price right really quickly here History Channel, you know History,
excuse me History. They would budget two one hundred and
twenty five thousand to four hundred and twenty five thousand
per episode for an unscripted show. Just then they make
a lot of them, and they have historically made a

(48:46):
lot of them, and and they air some of the
highest rated shows in America. Their show pawn Stars that
we talked about, we mentioned at least in passing at
the top of the show where it's literally a pawn shop.
What happens that's a exciting in this pawn shop. Well,
you got to tune in to find out that was
beating mad Men, one of the most lauded shows to

(49:10):
come around in a long time. It was beating that
ponnd Stars was beating mad Men in ratings on Sunday
nights when they were both airing at the same time.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
And it was infinitely cheaper. Oh yeah, the profit margins
are much higher because the production costs are much lower.
The people that would be the talent, right, the principal
cast of something like ponwn Stars or something like American
Pickers or something, they tend to make much much less

(49:42):
than actors in a scripted series. We've all heard stories
about a successful sitcom and how much money each actor
makes per episode. Also, the scripting we talked about this
little the scripting that does occur is kind of like
a long form, semi improvised thing. They're beats to this story.
There's a narrative spine, and that falls on the producers.

(50:04):
The producers are not considered writers, they're not represented by
a writers' union. That also lowers the cost. Those two
factors alone mean the profit margin on a reality TV
production can go as high as forty percent. Like back
in its glory days, American Idol was making was generating

(50:24):
ninety six million dollars in revenue. That gave it a
gross profit margin of seventy seven percent. And that's just
based on the ad dollars. That doesn't count that DVD
sales back in the days of physical media were huge
income stream people were buying you know, The Real Housewives
of insert city here, and they were buying it on

(50:45):
DVD or Blu Ray, and they were keeping it, they
were giving it as a gift to friends and so on.
Product placement super easy, you know, because I'm like excited
to work with Sean Puffy Combs and I really need
to get I need to get my verse in and
nothing charges me up like a monster energy, you know.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
Well, yeah, and then Matt, to your point about set dressing.
I almost would say more attention on reality TV show
in terms of set dressing goes into making sure those
brands are visible in the background, or that something's placed
on a kitchen table or seen prominently in the fridge,
you know, or whatever it is. Like, that's the kind

(51:28):
of set dressing because it's all about maximizing those dollars
and making sure that No, it doesn't matter if oh,
this tells a story about a person or an arc.
It's can you see the box of flaming hot Cheetos?
You know, coming boxes? They come in bags. But you
get what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
And one other piece of revenue for any reality TV
show is actually licensing. If I've got a show like
The Bachelor, let me I could republish The Bachelor all
the live long day in another country. But why don't
I just sell a license, have someone else make their
own version of the Bachelor, and just wait by the

(52:05):
mailbox for the check. That's something else that happens too.

Speaker 4 (52:09):
Every country has an idol, right.

Speaker 1 (52:12):
Right, So we have two we have two twists there. First,
that reality shows are so profitable because they are so
comparatively they're so cheap to produce right, and then we
know that it is in fact a very for being diplomatic,

(52:32):
a very guided version of reality at the very least.
But those aren't the twists that should bother you. That
shouldn't be what haunts you the next time you watch
reality television. There should be something that haunts you. I'll
tell you what it is after a word from our sponsor.

(52:55):
So the final twist is what we could perhaps call
cultural danger. This reminds me a lot of We've seen
it depicted in fiction as well. In the film adaptation
of The Hunger Games, there is an American idol esque
reality show component to the death matches that these children

(53:19):
are forced to fight in. And this didn't come from
just the mind of the author. Over at The New Yorker,
a writer and journalist named Khalifa Sanat outlined some of
the less obvious dangers of the cultural impact and enormous
influence wielded by reality TV. Anthropologists have been looking at

(53:41):
the concept of reality TV since as far back as
the nineteen seventies. In nineteen seventy three, anthropologist Margaret Meade
wrote an essay that was kind of under the radar
published and TV Guide, where she expounded on the impact
of this new genre. She said it was a new
kind of art form as significant as the invention of

(54:02):
the drama or the novel. There's another author, Jennifer L. Posner,
wrote a book called Reality Bites Back The Troubling Truth
about Guilty Pleasure TV, and she notes that a lot
of these shows, whether by design or by accident, a
lot of these shows end up reinforcing what are seeing

(54:25):
as cultural or social norms. It's education as well as
entertainment when you watch these shows and you react. When
we react as though we are scandalized by something, or
we are touched or we are saddened, what we are
reacting to is the depiction of a cultural norm or

(54:49):
what someone wants to be, a cultural norm that is
foisted upon us as the viewer.

Speaker 4 (54:54):
Or we're rooting for someone to meet cultural norms and
to be like us, one of.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
Us, or to you know, to yeah, to conform. Really,
what we're learning is conformity. It is an education as
much as it's entertainment, but it's not sold as such,
and that's a secret that people don't talk about as
often as they should. In some cases, this stuff is
straight up propaganda. Think about it. A show about losing

(55:21):
weight reinforces the concept of what is or is not
considered an acceptable or ideal body image. Shows about finding
love have this heavy implication that people cannot be happy
by themselves, that to be a full member of society,
one must participate in rituals like marriage. Makeover shows skirt

(55:43):
the line of ridiculing people for you know, being themselves.
They want us to they want us as the audience
to agree that, yes, these wretched souls are just not
good enough, thank God, and think the network that someone
is here to correct that misconception for my personal amusement,

(56:08):
I mean, think about the racial stereotypes that proliferate through
a lot of these things. A lot of matchmaking shows too,
Like there are numerous contestants, multiple shows have alleged serious
discrimination based on race.

Speaker 4 (56:22):
Oh yeah, for sure. And just something to think about here.
In any any thing you're watching on television, there is
always subtext to what is occurring at all times. Actions
that are taking place, character representations, even if they are
reality the way they're represented, there's subtext to that. There's

(56:43):
stuff that is not sad. It's not on the page
written down, but it has meaning there's a reasoning that
you come to, whether consciously or subconsciously, about these things.
And it's no different in something like the Sopranos versus
something like Honey Boo boo. There's subtext in there that

(57:04):
maybe you're not necessarily grasping in that moment, Like Ben
just described a lot of various ones. But yeah, there's
there's some there's some pretty bad stuff that's been alleged here.
Just I just want to put the subtext angle in there.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
Yeah, I mean, consider also there's a transactional angle to
a lot of this humiliate yourself for in front of
millions of strangers, for the chance at somehow, in some
way having a better life. Those contestants on Queen for
a Day, right, or thousands of reality TV show contestants

(57:40):
over the intervening decades, they're forced to undergo various forms
of degradation emotional trauma, or at least the appearance of it,
for the passive amusement of strangers.

Speaker 4 (57:51):
Fear factor.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
Yeah yeah, yeah, eat bugs, Why go to college?

Speaker 2 (57:54):
Sure, yeah, goat penis whatever. Yeah, But I mean it
is kind of the an equivalent of like Bread and
Circuses is like the you know, gladiator battles like it's people.
It's it's literally it's weaponized schadenfreude where it's so popular
because it makes people feel better about themselves to watch

(58:14):
people they perceive as lesser than them humiliating themselves on
public television. I look at that idiot. At least I'm
not that stupid, or at least I'm not that poor,
or at least I'm not that desperate or whatever. It's
it's it's it's weaponizing this impulse in human beings that
is very nasty.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
Agreed. I mean, think about too. I don't want to
be a stand and deliver character going these kids, but
think about it. Reality television can make this profound impact
on the mind of younger viewers especially. Are we, for instance,
teaching human beings to dehumanize other folks just because you

(58:56):
see them on a screen. Are we teaching audiences to
prize competition over collaboration, to value image and appearance over
merit and ability. Are we, as is so often alleged,
dumbing down our species. Because I can guarantee you a
lot of I don't know about you guys, but a
lot of my friends who don't live in the US
immediately think of the worst of reality television when they

(59:19):
think of the average US resident.

Speaker 4 (59:21):
Yeah, I just on that on that competition angle. The
only extra thing I would put in there is that
some British competition shows, such as The Great British Baking Show,
do actually love foster the collaborative effort thing.

Speaker 2 (59:38):
Behindness, gentleness, helping your fellow human beings. I love it.
Great British Bakeoff Show is the Baking Show is the best.

Speaker 4 (59:47):
Yeah, And that one small thing makes it a completely
different experience, and the takeaway, the emotional takeaway from the
show is massively varied from something you'd get where you
know it's one takes all, and just because it's one
takes all, we all have to be at each other's
backs with knives.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
And there's still a winner. The Great British Banking Show
has a winner. But at the end, all of the
other competitors come back and they have a picnic on
the heath you know where the tent was pitched where
they do the tent, you know, that's the whole thing
takes place inside this massive tent and everyone says how
much they love that person, how much they're so happy

(01:00:27):
for them, and they deserve it. And you know, I
wish it would have been me, but if it wasn't
gonna be me, I'm glad it was whomever. There's this
genuine me exactly. Yeah, there's this genuine sense of love
in that show. And I'm sorry I'm gushing about great
because it's coming back. By the way, there's a new
season I think starting this Friday or today, which we

(01:00:49):
record this this episode, This whole.

Speaker 4 (01:00:51):
Thing has been a plug for The Great British Baking Show.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
So you know, I really appreciate you bringing up that point, Matt,
because there's another example that's also in the world of
reality TV cooking that I love to point to when
people ask about the power of producers, and that is
watch watch Gordon Ramsey in a US produced cooking show,
watch his behavior, watch the character he portrays, and then

(01:01:16):
watch him on a British show where he's much much
less abrasive.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
Right, well, unless it's Kitchen Nightmares, which was a British
show to start, and he is yelling at these people,
but they all deserve it because they are detestable people.

Speaker 4 (01:01:30):
And Kitchen Nightmares. I don't know if there's British and
US versions. I think there is, but no, there is
the British one. He is helping people, it seemed like.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
But he still shames them to make them realize the
air of their ways.

Speaker 4 (01:01:46):
But I'm telling you, the character that he plays is different,
vastly different.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
I'll tell yeah, very well, maybe right, But I do
remember having BBC America back when I had cable back
in the day and got obsessed with kitchen nightmares, and
it was definitely the British version, and he maybe wasn't
quite as over the top of a caricature of himself,
but he was still very no nonsense and doesn't take
any crap and and would put people in their places

(01:02:14):
very very quickly.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
Yeah, my argument is that that becomes radicalized or accelerated
exacerbated in the US productions. But but I think you
know what we're skirting around here is the hill that
I've chosen to die on, which is the original Iron
Chef is awesome. I don't care if it's fake.

Speaker 4 (01:02:37):
His hands down, you are correct sir.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
Can we talk about the fact that the guy that
plays the chairman in the American Iron Chef was in
the Double Dragon movie. I swear to god, I didn't
know that he claims to be the descendant of the
original chairman. I didn't know any of that was fake.

Speaker 4 (01:02:54):
Isn't that the wasn't in the Dan Show, the Dan
Hormon Show.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Maybe maybe so, Yeah, but had no idea. I was fooled.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
There's an honorable mention to the very brief original US reboot,
which had William Shatner as the chairman and added Iron
Chef America. I've got to watch that anyway, if you're
bored on YouTube, check it out. Telling Benson to so,
let's think about this idea of the competition. There's stuff

(01:03:26):
to unpack here. So reality television promotes this belief that
competition is the key to success, and in doing it
so it's kind of pre programming some assumptions of capitalist economy.
I'm not saying that that stuff is inherently evil, but
I'm saying subliminally seeding people that incepting them, especially when

(01:03:50):
they're at a young age, is maybe not the most
well definitely not the most ethical thing, right, And whether
we're talking about it's a surve winning millions of dollars,
or someone on who wants to marry a multimillionaire or
whatever getting a husband. These TV shows reinforce the idea

(01:04:13):
that your life as well is only a competition. Like
you said, Matt, people can only succeed by stabbing one
another in the back. And look, we have you know,
we have a all worked in a corporate structure before
we know that. We know that to a degree, it
rewards betrayal and it rewards people being horrible people. But

(01:04:37):
that doesn't mean there's not an alternative. I think the
biggest thing and the most damaging thing for a lot
of children watching is this implicit argument that an image
is more important than skill. Right that you don't like
you don't have to bother doing the work. You don't

(01:04:57):
have to bother practice, you don't have to bother getting
experts tease. You just need someone else to take care
of that backstage, and then you can reap the rewards.
That's why I contestant with like a cool backstory or
a quote unquote personality. They do or say controversial stuff.
They'll often win at least a certain level of a
competition over someone who might be like a better singer.

(01:05:21):
But they're just they're they're just like you know, regular
Jane or John last name, and they have a beautiful voice,
but they don't have they don't have that sizzle. They
don't have something for the audience to aspire toward or
look down upon. They're too normal. And this I think
that's one of the biggest dangers of reality TV because

(01:05:44):
calling it that, like, think about how powerful the language is.
Calling this reality TV does not just mislead viewers to
assume what they're seeing is real, it also pulls a
bait and switch, and a brilliant evil bait and switch,
which calling this stuff suggest reality suggests that we, as

(01:06:05):
the creators, are showing you society. What's that old argument,
we're holding up a mirror, We're just we're replicating what's
happening now. But are they really are they showing us
a real society or are they showing you what people
in power want you to think society should be? Like,
are they telling you how they are comfortable with society

(01:06:28):
working compete, don't collaborate well?

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
Or Not only that, but it's also putting forth all
of these very surfacey commercial kind of ideals and these
aspirational in terms of like I want to have that
million dollar home, I want to have these products, I
want to live this lifestyle, and it's something that forces
people to maybe spend money on Gucci belt bags they
can't really afford because they want to look like a Kardashian.

(01:06:55):
You know, it is in the best interest of the
economy and of those power making lots of money for
these shows to promote those kind of ideals and not
this the ones that the British shows promote about helping
your neighbor and collaborating and working together to make society
better for everyone, because there are people with the vested

(01:07:16):
interest in society not being better for everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:07:19):
Compete, don't collaborate, appeer to be like the way you
look is more important than who you are, and people
who have talent are irrelevant unless they look good doing it.
This is very dangerous.

Speaker 4 (01:07:37):
Stuff well, and that dovetails ray into two things that
I just want to talk about. We're talking about this
being a cultural danger. I think this is more of
a personal danger because, and this is just my opinion,
I think reality television normalized the concept of needing a
camera for mundane things to be recorded, which then went

(01:08:01):
directly into social media, which then created within ourselves, each
of us, the belief that it is worth taking a
picture of the food you're about to take and then
sharing it with everyone and placing your hopes on the
possibility that somebody else might tell you that that was
a great thing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
Well, social media just made us all reality stars, made
in our own minds, in our own minds, Matt, you
know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
That was my big Yeah, that was my big inter review.
I'm glad we're on the same page.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
That's what happened.

Speaker 1 (01:08:32):
Sorry, that's what happened. No, No, you're right, that's the
big God, I know, I would hate to feel like
we're doing anything other than collaborating like this is. That's
that's the big point, you know, because reality TV would
have began again when cameras were more expensive, right, and
the average person probably wouldn't afford wouldn't be able to

(01:08:53):
afford a camera that could film moving pictures. And now
everyone is told you should be a reality TV star,
like you should be quote unquote on camera or on
air all the time. This goes into the social dilemma,

(01:09:16):
the stuff that documentary explores, the dopamine rush, the neurochemistry
at play. But you know, very soon, I mean we're
already past the point right of no return. Very soon,
It is going to be uncommon for someone growing up
in the age of information flood and ubiquitous media to

(01:09:36):
not have some kind of nearly twenty four to seven
data stream information about them. And then it will become recursive, increasingly,
the concept of perception and creation and what is or
is not the real It becomes an argument, It becomes

(01:09:58):
a metaphor of two mirror facing each other with nothing
between them, reflecting only themselves into infinity, and that's I
don't know about you. That's not a world I want
to live in.

Speaker 4 (01:10:10):
No, no, thank you, no thank you. That's infinite black mirror,
and that sounds awful.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
It's the same as the echo chamber of effect we
talked about on a recent news episode, and we're talking
about Facebook and polarization of people's opinions because we're all
just looking at ourselves. We're not looking at others, we're
not listening to other perspectives. We're so self centered, both
ideologically and aesthetically that we just who cares what anyone else?

(01:10:39):
I mean? But we do look at others, but we
only look at it through the mirror and the lens
of ourselves. And why am I not that pretty? Why
am I not that you know, rich or whatever. We're
not thinking about those people as people. They just represent
something that we want for ourselves.

Speaker 4 (01:10:55):
Well, I think in the end it's it's an insidious thing,
But I don't think it's I personally don't think it's
like they some specific they that wants us to be
this way. Besides just overall consumerism and large, maybe it

(01:11:16):
is just capitalism with a giant sea that anyone who
benefits from selling goods and services and you know, massive
global economies. Maybe it's just the global economy that we
could blame for it, where where they need they need
us to be thinking about things and stuff that we
can buy and when we're sharing all that stuff. It's

(01:11:37):
no there's no secret that there are ads. If you're
scrolling through Instagram or whatever you're using, there's an ad
every three or four spaces that you're scrolling past, and
that is very I mean, there's a reason for that.
It's because you're consuming and consuming, consuming, and there's another
thing that you can consume and it's so easy you
just click on it. And I think the real danger

(01:11:58):
here it's there's a the common phrase of dumbing down society,
right that we and that is to an extent correct,
But I think the biggest thing is that it's decreasing
mindfulness and self awareness and and the awareness of others.
It's kind of what you're hitting on there, guys. It's
just I think that's the danger, and that's the real

(01:12:19):
insidious thing. And a lot of the people that are
creating this stuff, the reality television and all these things
that come together, they don't even realize that they're working,
you know, towards that end goal. They're just as we
outlined earlier, they're doing all of these they're doing it
for all the reasons that we outlined. Right.

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
Yeah, it's it's not Look, it's not like it's not
as if there is some sort of shadowy cupball of
people who secretly, through a series of front organizations, own
the entirety of media and want everybody to turn into
an increasingly your person. It's it's instead, it's a matter

(01:12:58):
of how much profit can we make, how quickly can
we make it. Consequences be damned, And that's like that's
I know that's maybe a harsh, a harsh way to
say it, but also we have to be we have
to be very clear with this We're not saying that
the people who are making reality TV or participating in

(01:13:20):
it are somehow across the board terrible, terrible people. We're
also we're also not accusing anybody in the production of
reality TV of being some super brilliant, evil mastermind purposely
driving us away from the contemplation of reality off the screen.

(01:13:43):
We're saying, that's what happened. This is again, again, again, again, again,
This is Mickey Mouse SORCER's Apprentice Fantasia. We automated some brooms,
the brooms, automated more brooms, and now the house is flooding,
and there is not an easy way. That is just clear.
But there are also maybe positive impacts of reality TV.

(01:14:05):
People really do win millions of dollars. People maybe have
really found genuine romantic love. People's lives may have been
changed for the better. But I mean, what do you think, Like,
I was thinking of positive examples, and I can only
they're outweighed by the negatives.

Speaker 4 (01:14:23):
I am now aware of what an ice road trucker is. Okay,
I didn't know that was a potential job route for anybody,
but now I know it's there.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
There are also shows like Queer Eye, for example, like
that is a very important way of I don't know,
normalizing a lifestyle and a type of people that some
people in Middle America never see or some present representation exactly.
And I think that's important. And Queer Eye, especially the
new season, is much more like that great British Baking

(01:14:52):
show style of programming, where they're here to help people.
They are very it's all about inclusivity and about making
pe people feel good about themselves and empowering people, you know.
But again it's also it really is important in its
representation of the gay and queer community in places that
just don't see that and maybe have a negative idea

(01:15:14):
of what that means. And this can kind of normalize
that in a very important way. And also it's something
that kids grow up seeing and it makes them feel
if they end up deciding that that's how they feel
in terms of their how they identify, it gives them
something that they've seen since they were little that lets
them know that they're, you know, not alone. No one

(01:15:35):
has to struggle with those kinds of things anymore, the
idea of coming out because you have all these stories
on shows like that. So I think that's that's that's
a positive, agreed.

Speaker 1 (01:15:45):
So a question we end on today is we've outlined
the dangers, the potential, the trends, the history, the present,
the past and the future, and what we think about it.
But as always the most important part is to hear
what you think about it. Specifically, you what are the

(01:16:07):
positive impacts of reality TV? Are they outweighed by the negative?
What do you feel when you are watching these what
reactions are inspired in your mind? What do you think
the future of reality television will be? To speaking for

(01:16:27):
myself here, I'd love to hear your take. I also
want to know if we're going to live in a
dystopian world where having a twenty four to seven stream
somehow curated of your life is as important as having
a social Security number or something like. I think we're
already curating our lives through social media right in one

(01:16:48):
degree or another, We're all becoming a brand. So tell
us how far you think it'll go. You can find
us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. You can find us on
our social media sites right we recommend Here's where it
gets crazy. If you're still on Facebook, you can see
our favorite part of the show, our fellow listeners. You

(01:17:09):
can also find us if you wish as individuals.

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):
Yeah, I'm on Instagram at how Now, Noel Brown.

Speaker 4 (01:17:15):
I am Matt Frederick Underscore, iHeart.

Speaker 1 (01:17:18):
You can find me at Ben Bullin HSW on Twitter.
You can also find me at Ben Bollin on Instagram.
And if you think social media is not your cup
of hammers or your bag of badgers, I don't know
what a cup.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
How many hammers can you send a cup?

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Then that's the size of the cup.

Speaker 4 (01:17:35):
Yeah, this is the handle, It's really the handle.

Speaker 1 (01:17:40):
We have a way for you to contact us via telephone.

Speaker 4 (01:17:43):
That's right. Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK.
Leave a message, talk to us anything you want to say,
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Otherwise we just say anonymous person called.

Speaker 2 (01:18:05):
Something just flooded back to my memory when I heard
you say that I had a dream last night that
we were all in the same room together recording an
episode for the first time, and it was very important
that we said that phone number together for the first time,
and we talked about how cathartic that was going to be.

Speaker 4 (01:18:24):
It's a spell we will cast again someday soon, Greed.

Speaker 2 (01:18:28):
And if you don't want to do any of that
stuff and you want to just get in touch with
us the old fashioned way, why not just send us
a good old email.

Speaker 6 (01:18:33):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

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Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
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