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):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.

(00:27):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They call
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul Mission Control decond. 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

(00:47):
again on the edge of the real but not not
perhaps in a way we have been in the past.
In our show, we've often swam into the deep philosophical
waters contemplated the nature of perception and reality. It's a
dilemma that only grows more important as time goes on.

(01:08):
If you're like most people on the planet, you are
already familiar with today's topic, reality television. Before we begin,
we need to put a disclaimer at the top. Matt, Noel,
Michion Control, and myself have all had some personal experience
with reality television, so we are entering today's exploration with

(01:33):
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.

(01:56):
So all fair, You know, we we hang out. We
hang out when this show is not rolling or we're
not recording uh 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 Noel Matt Michigan troll with.

(02:19):
I mean, we've all got we've all got some weird
ones here. What uh what? What are what are our
personal experiences with reality TV? Well? Unknownst to you guys
or anybody else. Um, I am actually the uh the
sort of abandoned Kardashian uh son. I am the black

(02:39):
sheep of the Kardashian family. No one talks about me.
I had to change my name. Yeah, this isn't exclusive. No,
I'm obviously I'm obviously kidding. I would probably be assassinated
if that were the truth, and I dropped that on
the show. And it's funny you say you mentioned this.
Ben Um, Paul and I actually, in a previous life,
pre podcast, pre pandemic, work together on a pilot for

(03:03):
a reality show. Um, I don't think actually dropped the
name because I don't know if it's still of a
working affair potentially being pitched. It was a long time ago,
and I haven't seen the show come into exact No,
you know what, I gotta do it. I gotta because
that the title was so great. It was called the
Underground Runway, which I felt was problematic for several reasons

(03:23):
because the implication makes you think of the underground railroad obviously,
which is not connected to frivolous 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, um,
starting a fashion brand in like a basement room of

(03:46):
this very affluent Buckhead esque let's say Buckhead like people
know that as Buckheat is sort of like the boogie
brunch part of Atlanta, and um, 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. Um was sent like a like

(04:10):
a box of sex toys, I want to say, 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 in like
the stand ups, that was the part that I was
the most, uh kind of intrigued by. They're all frank

(04:30):
in bited, which is a term maybe people in the
media don't know, 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. Um,
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's it was a hoot.
I was only doing it for one day, but I

(04:51):
talked taught me everything I used to know about the
world of reality television. That's amazing. Wow, I didn't have
anything like that happened. I was a part of a
cooking show pilot one time, but and 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

(05:14):
as you possibly could with as many cameras as you could,
and then the whole thing, the whole story, and everything
happens later. Basically that was my experience. Um, that particular
one involved the Dungeon family from Atlanta, and it never
saw the light of day, sadly yet. Yeah. Yeah, they
were probably just intimidated by having you, you know, by

(05:37):
having you on set with them, you know. Oh, I'm
sure it was all Yeah, I'm sure. And Casey and
Tyler and Chandler. Yes, yeah, that's right. I forgot those
guys were involved as well. Uh. Yes, so, Matt, you
and I have had a very strange experience. We flew
to l A years years and years ago to make

(05:59):
a pilot, uh, make a pilot sizzle reel, which is
a very common thing with production companies. They'll they'll make,
almost on spec, ah, 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

(06:19):
a trailer for a real show? Uh? And our experience
there was I had a fun time but I think
they were irritated with us because, um we yeah, we
flat out refused to play ball. Uh. They we can

(06:40):
talk about 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, uh, on
a on a not infrequent basis, with people who want
to pitch us ideas for things. And we were asked

(07:03):
to work on a essentially treasure hunting show, an investigative
treasure hunting docuseries kind of thing. Uh. They found out
that I am a melungeon, and that's a a very small,
tri racial isolate population it's called here in the US.
And they wanted us to act as if, uh, some

(07:28):
things that were legends were absolutely true and then they
were absolutely true and we're going to find them, 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 they were very nice people. Um,

(07:48):
but I think they were a little irritated with us
when both Matt and I separately and together would just
put our foot down saying I won't say that because
it is it is untrue, and it's this leading And
then in a different life before hold on, do you
remember being out in the dry uh, just hills somewhere

(08:13):
out there. I forget exactly where it was, some somewhere
out there in near l A, with shovels and other
like old tools that they made us carry and walk
around for a long time while they shot video of it. Yeah,
they're a wildfire country. Yes, didn't they try to make
you wear like a Indiana Jones ask explorer like adventurer

(08:34):
outfits or something that I make that part up or
I seem to remember that from my wish No, okay,
I made that up. In then, well, I have some
stuff from what I was living in in uh More
on the road situations that I wore there. It was
it was just yeah, it was just very strange and
it was not us. Yeah, it wasn't really us. And
uh And then previously before falling into this pecasting thing,

(09:01):
I have been cast in several things, many of which
didn't come to fruition because you know, in the world
of television, of the stuff that gets pitched, nothing ever
comes of it. Uh. And so we we have all
had a little bit of experience in this world on
the production end, on the possible hosting or quote unquote

(09:24):
talent end. But as you can tell from the stories
you've heard from the three of us just now, there
is more true reality TV than what 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

(09:48):
what is the reality behind reality television? Here are the facts.
When you think about reality TV, it sounds a bit strange,
and I remember it feeling strange. It was first really
spoke about in that way because it's technically a genre
of television. UM a lot of times it's known as

(10:09):
unscripted or non scripted television. It's usually starring relatively unknown
people or at least non actors, right, That's I think
that's probably the most important thing. They're non professional actors,
where sometimes they are professional actors. They're just posing as
a regular old person, uh, not an actor. You'll see

(10:31):
that a lot. Well maybe we'll talk about it later,
but you see that a lot. In competition shows. You
get working or actors who need work who go on
them at portmanteau for this one. Uh mactors model slash actors.
Oh wow, that's great. Oh yeah, and you can totally

(10:52):
see that on a lot of reality television, people who
look entirely just too perfect to be running around and
doing whatever whack thing that the show is about. But
but the the whole point is you you don't have
a script. You put these non actors into basically real
life situations or larger than real life situations, and there's

(11:16):
nothing to do, really besides shoot a bunch of video
of these people doing the stuff, whatever it is, and
then you'll know. This is where you get to see
a lot of setups because there's always a little bit
of exposition right to explain them the rules of this
particular take on reality. My favorites are always the the

(11:40):
house hunter sub genres, where there's a couple that's like, uh,
you know Bill, Bill collects vintage condoms and Julie is
a spiritual guide for Corgis. They want a house with
four Jacuzzis in a helicopter landing pad. They needed by Tuesday.

(12:03):
Their budget is twelve dollars and uh and I'm exaggerating
a little, but maybe not as much as uh as
I wish. So, of course, of course they're the most
picky people with twelve dollars you've ever seen. Yes, But
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

(12:24):
multimillion dollar fixer upper in San Francisco, you know, me
with my meager podcast salary. You know, it's 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
exclusive and be like a look into a world you
could never possibly be a part of. And then there's

(12:45):
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 it's interesting on all these
shows they fall into buckets, but at the end of
the day, they're all about keeping you. You know, if
your eyes glued to the show, We're gonna talk about that,
right what it means, Like the reality that is prayed

(13:06):
to us? What does that mean? What are they telling us? Yeah? Yeah,
because so reality TV is a genre and 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

(13:27):
a lot of very different things with uh, you know,
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 uh,
follow alongs for law enforcement or medical professionals, or even

(13:50):
live quiz shows like, of course the quiz Show. So now,
as in, 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,

(14:13):
varying credibility, makeover shows right, let us make you look appropriate? Right?
Let us that's it's a dangerous aspiration, uh. And then
shows where contestants ostensibly search for romance or our specifically,
competition shows like cooking shows, and a lot of these

(14:35):
what's the What's the Ninja Warrior, Ultimate Ninja ultimately warrior.
I was about to say, yeah, like obsolutely, it's it's
basically grown up double there, you know, with much higher stakes.
You guys remember doubled there. Nickelodeon had a lot of
these back in the day. I mean, you're right, then
game shows do theoretically fall into that category in an
interesting way. But then there's that whole quiz show scandal

(14:56):
that showed even those types of shows lack credibility. That
was like could yeah, but it was a big deal.
It was a huge gerfuffle. There's a film about it,
uh with what's his face? Sam Rockwell, um, where it
talks about that whole Thing's also that he was like
a secret spy and there's all that's a really fast
It was called Portrait of a Dangerous Mind. I think
it's what it's called or something along those lines. But yeah,

(15:17):
it was essentially they were rigging it so that people
would stay engaged and you'd root for the the they
would basically like identify this is the contest of 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

(15:37):
of stable of humans they want to push forth that
people can most identify with. Yeah, and that's why there are,
at least in the US, their 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

(15:58):
tiered competitions. There are multiple episodes right of the same competition,
and so 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 snapshot of life, people with
a very specific job, truckers driving across roads made of

(16:23):
ice in the far North. I'd say it's also I'd
say it's also common 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

(16:45):
not saying these people are vapid. I'm saying they are
portrayed as being vapid by the producers. Someone's telling you
or you know, steering towards what you can see. 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

(17:07):
lot of us in the audience today probably think like
you think Big Brother, you think, uh, the real world
and Puck and everything. But 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

(17:28):
sure what would work, kind of the way that uh
podcasts were several years ago. This like, there's this show
in nine 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

(17:50):
the show and explain their plights, often in a very
tearful way, to an audience, and there would be an applausometer,
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

(18:12):
would get some they would get some like costumery that
looked 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

(18:34):
a show in the days of radio called Candid Microphone.
And that's where like that genre is. I think a
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 have not seen actually seen an

(18:55):
episode of Candid Camera, but it's it's uh, it is
part of our zeitgeist. Now smile, you're on the camera, right, yeah, Well,
and now that everyone has a camera, it's happening all
the time without our knowledge. And that show came out
in nineteen you know. So there were other predecessors that

(19:17):
were more serious in tone that we're a little bit
more like what we might call a PBS documentary. There's
one that's of continuing relevance today called seven Up. Do
you guys, You guys remember hearing about that? Yes, Seven
Up was a television show in nineteen sixty four. That
got together a group of kids who are all aged

(19:37):
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,
How did it play out when they were fourteen? Probably
not so great. That's middle school. Nobody likes that. And

(19:58):
then but then continued on and the most recent installment
actually came out in nineteen just last year. It's called
sixty three Up. Wow. Yep. It's interesting because it began
with and I think, uh, this would be of interest
to you as well, Mission control. It It began without

(20:20):
really a plot, you know, or the constraints that are
familiar in today's reality TV shows. They documentary style. We're
talking to these people about their lives, and they kind
of found the themes and the narration and the arc
as these people aged. Yeah, and and and that's you know,
that's the true mark of a good documentary. You kind

(20:42):
of go and maybe with a little bit of 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 gonna get, and then it takes some interesting turn.
But the only 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

(21:03):
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 which are very much
the antithesis of that. So fast forward. N ABC creates

(21:25):
a show called The American Sportsman. This show, uh, this
show introduces celebrity kind of like for its own sake,
Like here are famous people with which are already familiar,
but there maybe not necessarily doing this stuff they're famous for. Instead,
they and family members and maybe friends are doing outdoor activities.

(21:48):
They're driving race cars, you know, they're they're hunting, etcetera.
The action in the dialogue as a result of this
was unscripted. Uh. The the only scripted stuff would be
vo narration vo meaning voice over, and this is often
today consider the first modern reality show. But again, for

(22:09):
a lot of us listening today, the paradigm shift for
reality TV begins with shows like the Real World, which
premiered in n UH. Strangers are selected, not famous people,
maybe people who aspire to be famous, Uh, these people anyway,
and they're selected based on what the showrunners see as

(22:31):
their potential for discord and uh. And then they are
put together in a shared living space and what happens
when people stop being polite and start being real? Right?
This is something that MTV spun out in multiple spinoffs
and spinoffs. Did you guys watch this when you were
when you were younger? Did not? Okay? I? Yeah? I

(22:53):
Ben did not. Matt Dead, I definitely did. I don't
think the earliest one was I believe San Francisco. Maybe
was it London? And I don't recall, but I definitely
remember Puck Puck. He was such a jerk. And then
there was 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

(23:14):
with a nail through it in a 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. Surely right, yeah, and

(23:36):
certainly not cameras everywhere as you're trying to have an
actual interaction with someone, and there's certainly not being applied
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 what

(23:59):
is called reality TV. There are spinoffs of spinoffs of spinoffs,
just like the heyday of sitcoms. 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 alone, there were hundreds and hundreds of reality
TV shows on primetime cable, eight three more than scripted shows. Crucially,

(24:27):
that number is not, uh, the the entire snapshot, because
that only accounts for series that aired 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 for be there.

(24:50):
It's a big proponent PBS. If you have cable in
and you know a lot of us don't, A lot
of us are cord cutters. But if you 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

(25:10):
that could be called unscripted or reality TV. 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

(25:33):
that is not the big plot twist for today's episode. UH.
Audience interests may also not be the driving factor in
the boom. In fact, some sub networks maybe UH pushing
programming that audiences don't particularly want, and according to some
reality television may be dangerous. What are we talking about?

(25:56):
We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor. Here's
where it gets crazy there. First things first, long time listeners,
I hope you know that this would not be our
only twist for the episode. There's several crazy things. But yes,

(26:20):
I don't know if we're in a bubble Matt Noel.
But I feel like everybody knows reality TV is much
less real than it purports to be, right, Like that's
not classified document or anything. Yeah, it's like wrestling, you know.
I mean, maybe there's that one poor little kid who's
gonna have his his mind blown when he realizes that, uh,

(26:42):
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 people come right out and say it.
But everyone kind of knows. There's been plenty of expose
as is a really Adam Ruins everything about it that
does a really good job of demystifying all of some

(27:04):
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 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. Same with wrestling and exactly, and

(27:27):
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 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 the
shows that we mentioned at the top of the show.

(27:48):
I'm never looking over and writing a note, Matt, because
this is excellent foreshadowing. I have a I have a
thing about this. Okay, okay, oh no, no, no, no,
this is perfect because this this leads us to a
very weird, very weird cultural rabbit holes. And But but
to do the due diligence, as is our want and

(28:11):
warrant on this show, we are going to We're going
to proceed to uh demolish any illusions that some of
us may still have about the reality depicted in reality television.
As as we said earlier, producers are the storytellers. I
really love that phrase, the invisible hand of storytelling. To Matt,

(28:35):
producers might frank and by audio, take visual clips, edit
them out of context to get closer to a desired narrative.
Good example of this off the top of my head.
If you are a producer on a show and you
want to of the cast members on the show to fight,

(28:55):
then maybe you know, these are not dumb people. They're
they're pretty smart. Uh 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 take a clip of Matt and Noel on
on a camping trip and Matt saying, hey, is there

(29:19):
do we do we have any more coffee? And then
Noel goes, oh, sorry, I didn't make any yet, and
then just cut to uh, cut to a different clip.
Like this is why there was always the stand ups
or the confessional parts. Cut to a different clip where
there the producer's off screen asking Matt like, so what
do you think of Adolph Hitler? And then Matt's like,

(29:42):
I think he's a terrible person, right, I think Adolf
Hitler is a terrible, terrible person, Like, could you say
that but not say the name Adolf Hitler's like, oh yeah,
I hate him. I think he's a monster. And then
in the post production the editing, it goes straight from
the clip of a very normal conversation about should we

(30:02):
make coffee to Matt saying I hate him. I think
he's a monster. And then and then they'll just frank
and bite some other clip of um of Noel saying
something again completely innocuous. Maybe they used the Hitler trick
on him that I'm making that up, but it is
a very plausible thing. And then maybe if they don't
have to frank and bite you guys, if you're totally

(30:25):
down to play ball and jump through those hoops, then
they'll lean into it and say, okay, uh, we want
you guys to really disagree about I don't know about
where a tent should be pitched, and then and go okay,
you know, and you guys have the argument about where
the tent should be pitched like that was great. That

(30:45):
was great, guys, that was really honest. Um, we're gonna
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 spontaneous organic disputes are
like multiple iterative takes. Oh. Absolutely, And like I was

(31:08):
saying with the pilot that Paul and I worked on,
the producers will actively do things to to game the system,
like sending those packages you know to this uh potentially
braggadocious uh, you know cast member who in an effort
to like get the other women to be annoyed with

(31:29):
her being all, look at me, my boyfriend 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 two herself. You know that she did that just
to like, you know, be the center of attention, right

(31:50):
and then you know, yeah, and then they asked, Anya,
what do you think that? Well, I don't understand why
the other goesa so mean to me. You know, I
just I'm just so beautiful and my boyfriend just loves me.
What's wrong with that? You know, 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

(32:13):
this situation where there's this like explosion moment and then
they capture that too, and they potentially do that from
other angles. You know, it's it's it's it's pretty wild.
Let me play this clip of what Anya said for you,
and I'd like you to react to it exactly, or
even if you're in one of those confessional booths. Was
a big right in front of you and there's a

(32:35):
producer in your ear and just saying, you know, we
captured some pretty disturbing stuff earlier. Um that was said
about you, and I just love to know what you
think about this, And that's all you have to do
because I'm on your side. Yeah, I want to hear
your side of this. Uh, there's you know. The first
example two is often things will get phrased as questions.

(32:58):
That's one that's one big part of interrogation and psychosocial manipulation. Right,
You don't you don't have to tell people what to say.
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

(33:19):
about hunting for some uh fictitious lost silver mine in
the apple in the Appalachian forest, and someone says, you know,
I heard that there was a lost silver mind and
I heard that there were even statues there hidden that
might have some mayan influence. What do you think about that?

(33:42):
And like, well, it's the first time I've heard it,
and I don't think it's true. Oh and if you
could please rephrase my question and your answer, please rephrase
my question and your answer. By the way, what if
it but what if that happens to but what I'm
talking about? Like they but what if it was? Could
you just repeat the question, which is why? Like which
is why. You'll see people who are you know, um,

(34:05):
incredibly reputable scientists who are top notch right, and they'll they'll, uh,
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, when when they see
the end result because they've been told just to say Uh,

(34:26):
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 well, and 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 sound by but it also kind of

(34:47):
primes the pump for whatever forgetting that person to talk
about what you want them to talk about. So you
asked them this question, and then they literally 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

(35:07):
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 part of
your answer when maybe it was a question that it
was phrased in a divisive way or in a leading
way or in some way kind of like you know, um, misleading. Uh,

(35:28):
this is the way I think about it, guys. So, Uh,
most of us out there have scenes 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 in
what's going to happen on set. The way I think

(35:49):
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 gonna be holes
in there that I need to get from point A

(36:09):
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 is 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. And for many people

(36:30):
this can feel like a big break. You know, so
we're incentivized to play ball. But but okay, so we've
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 in
the wild, but off off air, they're supplied with medicine,

(36:55):
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
and people still dig it and no one is getting

(37:16):
hurt and no big whoop? Right, uh, where where's where?
Where's the beef? Where's the impossible burger? In that one?
But it turns out because remember, folks, we said, that's
not the big twist here. Everybody knows that reality TV
itself is got a more than a bit of cave
aid to it. As they say in wrestling, economic factors

(37:38):
are at play in a very very big way here. Uh. One,
one thing is interesting, you guys, remember the writer's strike
two thousand seven are very much especially with regularly occurring shows,
late night shows, talk shows. I remember that being a

(37:58):
major issue. Yeah. Wow, everything from the Daily Show to
Cone into all of those gave us horrible That was cool.
I still love that one. Uh, yeah, hamstrung broadcasting cable networks.
And remember there's a billion dollar industry. They're scrambling desperately

(38:19):
to find any original content to fill that programming schedule.
These are not the days of early television. You can't
just say, well, it's ten PM, so we're signing off.
Here's our you know, here's 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?

(38:42):
At CRILL the mainstays more than one hundred unscripted shows, competitions,
dating games, life improvement stuff. Uh, more than one hundred
either debuted or returned in a single season. And I
was looking into, uh, the boots on the ground for
this from both people who are established industry insiders and

(39:06):
then people who are kind of like pop culture pundits
observing this, 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 could no
longer be dismissed as a trend or a fad. From

(39:29):
that point forward, reality programs began to top the ratings
week after week after week, and it was so good
for the bottom line. This is something that we have
run into even in our own little uh, our own
little domain of media. Unscripted television is much much cheaper

(39:53):
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 weren't rest a little bit a
conversation for a different day. Um, you just need a
handful of producers or handlers. Uh. 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

(40:14):
sure to get the coverage, and you probably have a
director of photography that's just assuring that they capture as
much as humanly possible. But so many of these shows
to 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

(40:36):
up and picking up 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 cheapye GoPro cameras mounted everywhere, and those
confessional booths or what have you. It's all really really affordable.
And think about something as simple as set dressing in
in a place. So in a reality show, this person

(41:00):
and 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 in a film
or a televis scripted television series, you have to very
specifically place things that are going to tell you about
the arc of that character. And the money that you

(41:22):
spend on just stuff for set dressing 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. Um,
and that's like the tiniest liver of expenses that you're
saving when you make unscripted And that is UH. I

(41:42):
hope you don't get mad at me for disclosing this man,
but uh, Matt, I can tell you're still a little
bit bitter about the uh set design costs that sank,
That sank your historically accurate period piece series right on.
What was that again? What time period was that? My

(42:03):
historically accurate period accurate period piece project? Oh? Man, improv improv,
yes and yes, and oh it was. I got nothing, guys,
I've kind of got something like this going on behind

(42:23):
me right now. If you can see this video, I
am ridiculously delayed right now in our zoom called by
the way, and it 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

(42:43):
production scripted or unscripted. But I guess the stakes of
it for unscripted or so smaller. I don't know where
I'm going with this guy. Yeah, I totally I I
totally improv rules through you under the bus. I apologize,
but um, but but I just I love the idea
of you having uh like this mostly and they can

(43:09):
sweeping historical epic and then like the breaking point for
the budget was making sure you add historically accurate you know,
like carriages or something. But but that happens, you know,
and it is You're right, there are so many expenses
to come into play, like uh, according to e Online

(43:30):
and according to History Channel, a thirty minute episode of
your average reality TV show halts somewhere between a hundred
grand to five 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 steel
that's a fire sale. Because if you look at the

(43:52):
other side of the spectrum. Uh, think about what we
call prestige television, right, breaking Bad Sopranos set or the
last season of Game of Thrones, despite being enormously divisive, Uh,
keeping my personal opinions out here. Uh, each episode of
that last season cost fifteen million dollars. Think of how

(44:16):
much reality TV you can make with fifteen mil 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, and an
ice road truckers, I think they have their own trucks,
so you don't have to pay for those either. This

(44:38):
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, doesn't always translate to
commercial success. You could spend millions of dollars per episode
on a season of something, and critics could pan it,

(44:59):
and you know, like it would be the worst move
of your career. So why write a stunnying fantasy? Why
produce this historically accurate, sweeping thing when you could just
churn and burn unscripted material across all these different subgenres.
I mean, the weird thing is, for a while, production

(45:20):
houses were creating scripted television and it's very expensive to
create it, and they were also regularly losing in their
ratings to reality TV. 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

(45:41):
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 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

(46:03):
expensive thing. Then they they sold it as a television
show and then 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 now guys with
COVID and the movie theaters essentially being like on the
brink of annihilation. Like we saw that movie Tenant come
out and and did like why I think thirty million

(46:25):
dollars total over like two weeks, which and it costs
like hundreds of millions of dollars, and that it just
does not bode well for the industry. So they're gonna,
I wonder if we're gonna 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 um
while you know, still presenting an appearance of quality or

(46:48):
integrity or what have you. Yeah, well, let's let's talk
about that. The money, the actual ticket price right really quickly. Here,
History Channel or you know History, excuse me History, they
would budget two thousand to four thousand per episode for
an unscripted show. Just then they make a lot of them,
and they have historically made a lot of them, and

(47:12):
and they air some of the highest rated shows in America.
Their show Pond Stars that we've 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 exciting
in this pawn shop, Well, you gotta tune in to
find out that was beating mad Men, one of the
most lauded shows to come around in a long time.

(47:35):
It was beating that Pod Stars was beating mad Men
in ratings on Sunday nights when they were both airing
at the same time, and it was infinitely cheaper. The
profit margins are much higher because the production costs are
much lower. The people that would be the talent, right

(47:56):
the principal cast of something like Pawn Pond Stars or
something like American Pickers or something, they tend to make
much much less 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

(48:19):
kind of like a long form, semi improvised thing. There
beats to this story. There's a narrative spine and that
falls on the producers. The producers are not considered writers.
They're not represented by a writer's union. That also lowers
the cost. Those two factors alone mean the profit margin
on a reality TV production can go as high as

(48:40):
fort like back in its back in its glory days,
American Idol was making. It was generating nineties 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 d d D sales

(49:00):
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 DVD
or Blu ray, and they were keeping it, they were
giving it as a gift of friends and so on.
Product placement super easy, you know, because I'm like excited
to uh to work with Shaun Puffy Colmes and I

(49:23):
really need to get uh, I need to get my
my verse in and nothing charges me up like uh
monster energy. You know. 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,

(49:44):
or that something's placed on a kitchen table or are
seen prominently in the fridge, you know, or whatever it is. Like,
that's the kind of set dressing, because it's all about
maximizing those dollars and then making sure that no, it
doesn't matter if oh this tells us story about a
person or an arc. It's can you see the box
of flame? And hot cheetahs you know come in boxes,

(50:06):
they come in bags. But you get what I'm saying.
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 livelong day in another country. But why don't I
just sell a license, have someone else make their own

(50:28):
version of The Bachelor, and just wait by the mailbox
for the check. That's something else that happens to Every
country has an idol, right, right, So we have two
we have we have two twists there. First that reality
shows are so profitable because they are so comparatively they're

(50:48):
so so cheap to produce, right uh. And then we
know that it is in fact a very for being diplomatic,
a very guided version of reality at the very least.
But those aren't the twist 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. We'll

(51:10):
tell you what it is after a word from our sponsor.
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

(51:33):
of The Hunger Games, there is a American idol esque
reality show component to the to the death matches that
these children are forced to fight in. And this didn't
come from, you know, just the mind of the author.
Over at The New Yorker, a writer and journalist named

(51:53):
Khalifa Sona outline some of the less obvious dangers of
the cultural impact and enormous influence wielded by reality TV.
Anthropologists have been looking at the concept of reality TV
since as far back as the nineteen seventies and nineteen
seventy three. Anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote an essay that was

(52:15):
kind of under the radar published in 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 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,

(52:38):
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 as cultural or social norms.
It's education as well as entertainment. When you when you
watched these shows and you re act when we when

(53:01):
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
what someone wants to be a cultural norm that is
foisted upon us as the viewer. Or we're rooting for
someone to meet cultural norms and to be like us,

(53:25):
one of us, or to you know, to 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 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 weight reinforces the concept of what is

(53:50):
or is not considered an acceptable or ideal body image.
Shows about finding love have this heavy implication that people
cannot be happy by them selves, that to be a
full member of society, one must participate in rituals like marriage.
Makeover shows skirt the line of ridiculing people for you know,

(54:12):
being themselves, that they want us to uh, they want
us as the audience to agree that, yes, these wretched
souls are just not good enough. So thank god, and
think the network that someone is here to correct that misconception.
For my personal amusement, I mean, think about the racial

(54:34):
stereotypes that proliferate through a lot of these things. A
lot of matchmaking shows to uh, they're like, they're numerous contestants.
Multiple shows have alleged serious discrimination based on race. Oh yeah,
for sure. And just something to think about here. In
any any thing you're watching on television, there is always

(54:56):
subtext to what is occurring at all times. Times. Actions
that are taking place, character representations, even if they are reality,
the way they are represented, their subtext to that. There's
stuff that is not said, 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.

(55:19):
And it's no different in something like the Sopranos versus
something like honey Boo boo. There's subtext in there that
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.

(55:40):
Just I just want to put the subtext angle in there. 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 Wean for a Day, right,

(56:01):
or or thousands of reality TV show contestants 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. Fear. Yeah, yeah, yeah, eat bugs,
Why go to college? Yeah, goat penis whatever? Yeah, But

(56:21):
I mean, uh, it is kind of the modern equivalent
of like bread and circuses, like the you know, gladiator battles,
Like it's people. It's it's literally, it's weaponized schadenfreude where
we it's so popular because it makes people feel better
about themselves to watch people they perceive as lesser than
them humiliating themselves on public television. And I look at

(56:45):
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. Agreed. I mean,
think about too. I don't want to be a stand
and deliver character going these kids, but you think about it.

(57:08):
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 see them
on a screen. Are we teaching audiences to prize competition
over collaboration, to value image and appearance over merit and ability.

(57:30):
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 think of the average
US resident. Yeah, I just on that on that competition angle.
The only the only extra thing I would put in

(57:52):
there is that some British competition shows such as The
Great British Baking Show, do you actually love foster the
collaborative effort thing, kindness, gentleness, helping your fellow human beings.
I love it. Great British bake Off Show is the
Baking Show is the best? Yeah, And that one small

(58:13):
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 one takes all,
and and just because it's one takes all, we all
have to be at each other's backs with knives and
there's still a winner. The Great British Baking Show has

(58:34):
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 was pitched where
they do the tent. You know that that's what the
whole thing takes place inside this massive tent and everyone
says how much they love that person, how much they're
so happy for them and they deserve it, and you know,
I wish it would have been me, but if it

(58:56):
wasn't gonna be me, I'm glad it was whomever. There's
this general, genuine exactly yeah, there's this genuine um sense
of of love in that show. And I'm sorry I'm
gushing about great because it's it's coming back. By the way,
there's a new season I think starting this Friday or today,
which we record this this episode. This whole thing has

(59:16):
been a plug for the Great British Making Show. So uh,
you know, I really appreciate bringing up that point, Matt,
because there's 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,

(59:38):
watch his behavior, watch the character he portrays, and then
watch him on a British show where he's much much
less abrasive 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're detestable people. And
the kitchen Kitchen Nightmares, I don't know if there's British

(59:59):
in US versions, think there is, but there is the
British one. He he is helping people. It seemed like
he still shames them to make them realize the air
of their ways. But I'm telling you the character that
he plays is different, vastly different. I tell you you

(01:00:19):
very well. Maybe right, but I do remember having BBC
America back when I had cable back in the day
I got obsessed with kitchen nightmares, and it was definitely
the British version, and he he maybe it 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 very
very quickly. Yeah. My argument is that that becomes radicalized

(01:00:43):
or accelerated exacerbated in the US productions. But but I
think you know what we're skirting around here is uh,
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. Its hands down, you are correct sir. Can

(01:01:04):
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 isn't that the
wasn't that the Dan Show? That Dan Harmon Show? Maybe

(01:01:25):
maybe so? Yeah, but I had no idea. I was fooled.
There's uh an honorable mention to the very brief original
US reboot, which had William Shatner as the chairman uh
and added Iron Chef America. I've got to watch that anyway,
if you're bored on YouTube, check it out. Telling Benson

(01:01:46):
to uh, So, let's think about this idea of the competition.
There's stuff to unpack here. So reality television promotes this
belief that competition is the key to success, and in
doing it so it's it's kind of pre programming some
assumptions of capitalist economy. I'm not saying that that stuff

(01:02:06):
is inherently evil, but I'm saying subliminally seeding people that
incepting them, especially when they're at a young age, is
maybe not the most uh well, certainly not the most
ethical thing, right. Uh. And whether we're talking about it's
a survivor winning millions of dollars or someone on who

(01:02:29):
wants to marry a multimillionaire or whatever getting a husband.
These TV shows reinforced the idea 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 we have a

(01:02:50):
all worked in a corporate structure before. We know that.
We know that to a degree rewards betrayal and it
rewards people being horrible people. Uh, but that doesn't mean
there's not an alternative. So 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

(01:03:13):
important than skill. Right that you don't like, you don't
have to bother uh doing the work. You don't have
to bother practice, you don't have to bother getting expertise.
You just need someone else to take care of that backstage,
and then you can reap the rewards. That's why a
contestant with like a cool backstory or quote unquote personality,

(01:03:36):
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, But they're just they're
they're just like you know, regular Jane or John uh
last name, and they have a beautiful voice, but they
don't have they don't have that that sizzle. They don't

(01:03:59):
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 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

(01:04:20):
bait and switch, and a brilliant evil bait and switch.
Calling this stuff suggest reality suggests that we, as 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

(01:04:41):
society or 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 working compete, don't
collaborate well? Or not only that, but it's also putting
forth all of these very surfacing commercial kind of ideals

(01:05:03):
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. You know it is it is in the
best interest of the economy and of those in power

(01:05:25):
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 a vested interests in society not being
better for everyone. Compete, don't collaborate, appear to be like

(01:05:48):
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 this is very dangerous stuff. Well,
and that devetails right into two things I just want
to talk about. We're talking about this being a cultural danger.

(01:06:10):
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 directly into social media,
which then created within ourselves, each of us, the belief

(01:06:32):
that it is worth taking a picture of the food
you're about to take and then sharing it with everyone,
and and placing your hopes on the possibility that somebody
else might tell you that that was a great thing. Well,
social media just made us all reality stars, made in
our own minds, in our own minds math, you know
what I mean. Yeah, that was my big end review.

(01:06:54):
I'm glad we're on the same page. That's that's what happened. No, No,
you're right, that's the big um 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 Begaan when cameras were
more expensive, right, and the average person probably wouldn't afford

(01:07:17):
wouldn't be able to afford a camera that could film
moving pictures. And and now everyone is is told you
should be a reality TV star, like you should be
quote unquote on camera or on air all the time.

(01:07:37):
This goes into the social dilemma. The stuff that documentary explores,
the dopamine rush, the new neurochemistry at play. But you know,
very soon, I mean, we're 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

(01:07:58):
information flood and a big what is media to not
have some kind of nearly 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

(01:08:20):
real uh, It becomes an argument, It becomes a metaphor
of two mirrors 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. No, no,
thank you, no thank you. That's infinite black mirror. And
that sounds awful to say. It's the same as the

(01:08:41):
echo chamber effect we talked about on a recent news
episode when 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. Were so
self centered, both ideologically and aesthetically, that we just who

(01:09:02):
cares what anyone else? 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 um, you know,
rich or whatever. We're not thinking about those people as people.
They just represent something that we want for ourselves. Well,
I think in the end it's it's an insidious thing.

(01:09:25):
But I don't think it's I I personally don't think
it's like they some specific they that wants us to
be this way. Besides just overall consumerism and and large, um,
maybe it is just capitalism with a giant see that
anyone who benefits from selling goods and services, um, and

(01:09:49):
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 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.

(01:10:11):
And that is very I mean, there's a reason for that,
and 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 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

(01:10:32):
it's decreasing mindfulness and self awareness and and and the
awareness of others. It's kind of what you're hitting on
their guys. It's just I think that's the danger, and
that's the real 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

(01:10:56):
just as we outlined earlier, they're doing all of these
they're doing it for all the reasons that we outlined, right. Yeah,
it's the it's not look, it's not like it's not
as if there is some sort of shadowy couball of
people who secretly, through a series of front organizations, own
the entirety of media and want everybody to turn into

(01:11:18):
an increasingly your person. It's it's instead, it's a matter
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, 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

(01:11:41):
who are making reality TV or participating in 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 and purposefully driving

(01:12:03):
us away from the contemplation of reality off the screen.
We're saying, that's what happened. This is again, again, again, again, again,
this is Mickey Mouse Sorcerers Apprentice Fantasia. We automated some brooms,
the brooms, automated more brooms, and now the house is
flooding and there's not an easy way back. That is

(01:12:25):
just clear. But but they're also maybe positive impacts of
reality TV. 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 I was thinking of positive examples,
and I can only they're outweighed by the negatives. I

(01:12:48):
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. There are also shows
like Queer Eye, for example, like that is a very
important way of I don't know, normalizing a lifestyle in
a in a type of people that some people in
Middle America never see or some people representation exactly. And

(01:13:11):
I think that's important. And Queer I especially the new
season is much more like that great British Baking show
style of programming where they're hair to help people. They
are very it's all about inclusivity and about making people
feel good about themselves and empowering people, you know. Um.
But again it's also it really is important in its

(01:13:31):
representation of the gay and queer community in places that
just don't see that and maybe have a negative idea
of what that means. And this can kind of normalize
that in a very important way. Um. 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

(01:13:54):
them something that they've seen since they were little that
lets them know that they're you know, not alone. No
one has to struggle with those kinds of things anymore,
the idea of coming out because you have all these
stories on on shows like that. So I think that's
that's a that's a positive agreed. So a question we
end on today is, uh, we we've outlined the dangers,

(01:14:17):
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 positive
impacts of reality TV? Are they outweighed by the negative?

(01:14:39):
What do you 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? Uh?
Speaking for myself here, I I'd love to hear your take.
I I also want to know if we're going to
live in a dystopian world where having a twenty four

(01:14:59):
seven and 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 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, We're you can

(01:15:23):
find us on our social media sites, right, uh, 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 can also find us if you wish
as individuals. Yeah, I'm on Instagram at how Now, Noel Brown,
I am met Frederick Underscore. You can find me at

(01:15:44):
Ben Bulling HSW on Twitter. You can also find me
at Ben Bulling on Instagram. And if you think social
media is not your like cup of hammers or your
bag of badgers, I don't know what a cop It
defends the size of the cup. This is the handle,
It's really the handle. And we have a way for

(01:16:06):
you to contact us via telephone. That's right. Our number
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Leave a message, talk to us anything you want to say,
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little things like that. That's helpful for us. Otherwise we

(01:16:28):
just say anonymous person called something just flooded back to
my memory when 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 gonna be. Um, it's it's a

(01:16:49):
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(01:17:20):
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