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

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Speaker 1: reality television? What about you guys? Are you guys fans

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Speaker 1: of it?

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Speaker 2: I liked The Osbournes back when it was on. And

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Speaker 2: does do cooking shows count as reality television? I mean

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Speaker 2: technically in competitions?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that stuff too. I'm a sucker for

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Speaker 1: I mean, is it documentary reality television or one of

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Speaker 1: those shows where they just show you how a factory

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Speaker 1: makes mass market case ideas? I don't know. I think

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the manufactured drama kind of stuff, like

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Speaker 1: you were saying with the Osbourne's or with Real Housewives

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Speaker 1: of at all.

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Speaker 2: Some of those cooking competitions do incorporate a lot of

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Speaker 2: those those tropes, like the confessional rooms, the potentially manufactured

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Speaker 2: rivalry between contestants used with cross cutting, and the creative editing.

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Speaker 1: How I love the soundtracks to keep Kyle has a

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Speaker 1: great sketch about that, Oh my goodness.

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Speaker 2: But then we've got stuff that is just the kinder,

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Speaker 2: gentler version of all these things, like, for example, the

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Speaker 2: Great British Baking Show and one that I'm personally in

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Speaker 2: love with these days, Culinary Class Wars, one of the

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Speaker 2: best of these types of cooking combindition shows I think

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Speaker 2: I've ever seen. But we are talking more about the

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Speaker 2: what was it been the term that we talked about

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Speaker 2: with that really cool guy on Ridiculous History about nineties

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Speaker 2: trash culture, low culture, low culture. We are talking about

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Speaker 2: the advent of that kind of stuff, as you know,

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Speaker 2: evidenced by things like the real world road rules that

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Speaker 2: led to an absolute explosion of this kind of stuff.

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Speaker 1: Oh gosh, wait, are we reality TV? Since we're on

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Speaker 1: Netflix now.

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Speaker 2: I ask a good question.

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Speaker 1: Let's roll the tape.

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Speaker 3: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 3: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 3: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 3: production of iHeart Radio.

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Speaker 4: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,

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Speaker 4: my name is Nol.

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Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with

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Speaker 1: our super producer Paul, Mission Control decand most importantly, you

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Speaker 1: are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff

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Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. And today candidly we

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Speaker 1: are yet again on the edge of the real, but

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Speaker 1: not perhaps in the way we have been in the past.

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Speaker 1: In our show, we've often swam into the deep philosophical waters,

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Speaker 1: contemplating the nature of perception and reality. It's a dilemma

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Speaker 1: that only grows more important as time goes on. If

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Speaker 1: you're like most people on the planet, you are already

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Speaker 1: familiar with today's topic, reality television. Before we begin, we

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Speaker 1: need to put a disclaimer at the top. Matt Nol,

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Speaker 1: Mission Control, M myself have all had some personal experience

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Speaker 1: with reality television, so we are entering today's exploration with

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Speaker 1: a bit of unavoidable bias. As always, we're going to

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Speaker 1: do our best to stay as objective as possible, but

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Speaker 1: in the interest of transparency, we would like to give

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Speaker 1: you a few war stories from our at times surreal

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Speaker 1: experiences with this phenomenon. It's sometimes called a genre, sometimes

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Speaker 1: it's called a travesty, and sometimes it's called an art form.

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Speaker 1: So off air, you know, we hang out. We hang

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Speaker 1: out when this show is not rolling or we're not

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Speaker 1: recording an off air. Over the years, I think we've

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Speaker 1: all shared some of these stories with each other, but

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Speaker 1: as we were gearing up for this episode, we were

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Speaker 1: reminded of them again. So no, Matt Michigan troll, I mean,

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Speaker 1: we've all got we've all got some weird ones here.

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Speaker 1: What are what are our personal experiences with reality TV?

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Speaker 2: Well, well, unknownst to you guys or anybody else. I

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Speaker 2: am actually the sort of abandoned Kardashian son. I am

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Speaker 2: the black sheep of the Kardashian family. No one talks

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Speaker 2: about me. I had to change my name. You're right now, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: this is an exclusive. No, I'm obviously I'm obviously kidding.

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Speaker 2: I would probably be assassinated if that were the truth,

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Speaker 2: and I dropped that on the show. It's funny you

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Speaker 2: say you mentioned this. Ben Paul and I actually, in

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Speaker 2: a previous life, pre podcast, pre pandemic, work together on

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Speaker 2: a pilot for a reality show. I don't think I

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Speaker 2: should dropped the name because I don't know if it's

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Speaker 2: still a working affair potentially being pitched. It was a

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Speaker 2: long time ago and I haven't seen the show come

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Speaker 2: into exit. No, you know what, I gotta do it.

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Speaker 2: I got it because the title was so great. It

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Speaker 2: was called The Underground Runway, which I felt was problematic

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Speaker 2: for several reasons, just because cas makes you think of

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Speaker 2: the underground railroad obviously, which is not connected to frivolous

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Speaker 2: fashion concerns and kind of Real Housewives esque drama, which

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Speaker 2: is what this show very much was. It was these

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Speaker 2: women buckhead type Atlanta women starting a fashion brand in

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Speaker 2: like a basement room of this very affluent Buckhead esque

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Speaker 2: let's say Buckhead like people know that as Buckhead is

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Speaker 2: sort of like the bougie brunch part of Atlanta. And

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Speaker 2: they manufactured a whole lot of drama. There was one

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Speaker 2: part where like they had a package sent to the

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Speaker 2: house for this one particularly boisterous European woman was sent

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Speaker 2: like a box of sex toys, I want to say,

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Speaker 2: and her boyfriend kept sending these inappropriate gifts to the

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Speaker 2: house and disrupting the flow of their you know, startup

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Speaker 2: brainstorming sessions. And it was all totally manufactured. And even

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Speaker 2: like the stand ups, that was the part that I

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Speaker 2: was the most kind of intrigued by. They're all frankinbited,

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Speaker 2: which is a term maybe people in the media don't know,

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Speaker 2: but it's where you just take words and cut them

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Speaker 2: up and put them in order to make it sound

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Speaker 2: like somebody says something they didn't say, and the director

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Speaker 2: is literally they're feeding them, telling them what to say,

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Speaker 2: to push the drama and make it as like salacious

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Speaker 2: as possible, and it.

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Speaker 1: Was a hoot.

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Speaker 2: I was only doing it for one day, but I

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Speaker 2: taught me everything I used to know about the world

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Speaker 2: of reality television.

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Speaker 4: That's amazing. Wow, I didn't have anything like that happened.

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Speaker 4: I was a part of a cooking show pilot one time,

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Speaker 4: but I guess a cooking show in a way is unscripted.

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Speaker 4: There's probably an outline. There was, at least in the

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Speaker 4: version that we attempted, But it was just trying to

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Speaker 4: get as much coverage as you possibly could with as

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Speaker 4: many cameras as you could, and then the whole thing,

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Speaker 4: the whole story, and everything happens later. Basically, that was

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Speaker 4: my experience. That particular one involved the Dungeon family from Atlanta,

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Speaker 4: and it never saw the light of day, sadly.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah, they were probably just intimidated by having you,

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Speaker 1: you know, by having you on set with them, you know.

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Speaker 5: Oh, I'm sure it was all yeah, me, I'm sure.

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Speaker 5: And Tyler and Chandler, Yes, yeah, that's right. I forget

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Speaker 5: those guys were involved as well. Yes, so, Matt, you

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Speaker 5: and I have had a very strange experience. We flew

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Speaker 5: to la years years and years ago.

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Speaker 1: To make a pilot, make a pilot sizzle reel, which

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Speaker 1: is a very common thing with production companies. They'll they'll

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Speaker 1: make almost on spec, a fake trailer for a show

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Speaker 1: that doesn't yet exist. They'll show the trailer to a

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Speaker 1: network and say, wouldn't this be cool if this was

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Speaker 1: a trailer for a real show. And our experience there

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Speaker 1: was I had a fun time. But I think they

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Speaker 1: were irritated with us because we have Yeah, we flat

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Speaker 1: out refused to play ball. They we can talk about

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Speaker 1: this now without naming too many specifics. So so we

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Speaker 1: get contacted. I think I get contact as an individual.

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Speaker 1: We get contacted as a show on a not in

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Speaker 1: frequent basis with people who want to pitch us ideas

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Speaker 1: for things. And we were asked to work on a

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Speaker 1: essentially treasure hunting show, an investigative treasure hunting docuseries kind

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Speaker 1: of thing. They found out that I am a luncheon

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Speaker 1: and that's a very small tri racial isolate population it's

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Speaker 1: called here in the US, and they wanted us to

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Speaker 1: act as if some things that were legends were absolutely true,

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Speaker 1: and then they.

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Speaker 4: At least we believed they were absolutely true and we're

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Speaker 4: going to find them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, and so they wanted us to pretend some

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Speaker 1: things were true that Matt and I knew not to

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Speaker 1: be true. They did want us to, you know, frank

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Speaker 1: and bite or get some takes. And there were very

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Speaker 1: nice people, but I think they were a little irritated

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Speaker 1: with us when both Matt and I separately and together

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Speaker 1: would just put our foot down and say, I won't

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Speaker 1: say that because it is it is untrue and it's misleading.

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Speaker 1: And then in a different life before.

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Speaker 4: Wait, yeah, do you remember being out in the dry

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Speaker 4: just hills somewhere out there? I forget exactly where it was,

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Speaker 4: but some somewhere out there in near LA with shovels

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Speaker 4: and other like old tools that they made us carry

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Speaker 4: and walk our for a long time while they shot

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Speaker 4: video of it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they're a wildfire country.

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Speaker 2: Yes, didn't I try to make you wear like a

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Speaker 2: Indiana Jones esque explorer, like adventurer outfits or something that

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Speaker 2: I make that part up or I've seen to remember

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Speaker 2: that from my wish No, okay, I made that up

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Speaker 2: in the mind.

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Speaker 1: Well, I have some stuff from when I was living

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Speaker 1: in more on the road situations that I wore. There

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Speaker 1: was it was just yeah, it was just very strange

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Speaker 1: and it.

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Speaker 4: Was not us.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't really us. And then previously, before falling

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Speaker 1: into this podcasting thing, I had been cast in several things,

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Speaker 1: many of which didn't come to fruition because you know,

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Speaker 1: in the world of television, ninety eight percent of the

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Speaker 1: stuff that gets pitched nothing ever comes of it. And

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Speaker 1: so we have all had a little bit of experience

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Speaker 1: in this world on the production end, on the possible

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Speaker 1: hosting or quote unquote talent. But as you can tell

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Speaker 1: from the stories you've heard from the three of us

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Speaker 1: just now, there is more to reality TV than what

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Speaker 1: you see on the screen, and the experience people have

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Speaker 1: during production is very different from the experience you as

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Speaker 1: a viewer have when you see the end result. So

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Speaker 1: today's question is what is the reality behind reality television?

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Speaker 1: Here are the facts.

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Speaker 4: When you think about reality TV, it sounds a bit strange,

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Speaker 4: and I remember it feeling strange when it was first

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Speaker 4: really spoke about in that way because it's technically a

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Speaker 4: genre of television. A lot of times it's known as

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Speaker 4: unscripted or non scripted television. It's usually starring relatively unknown

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Speaker 4: people or at least non actors, right I think that's

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Speaker 4: probably the most important thing. They're non professional actors, or

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Speaker 4: sometimes they are professional actors. They're just posing as a

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Speaker 4: regular old person, uh, not an actor. You'll see that

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Speaker 4: a lot. Maybe we'll talk about it later, but you

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Speaker 4: see that a lot. In competition shows, you get working

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Speaker 4: or actors who need work who go on them.

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Speaker 1: Oh no, I learned a cool portmanteau for this one.

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Speaker 1: Actors model slash actors.

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Speaker 4: Oh wow, that's great. Oh yeah, And you can totally

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Speaker 4: see that on a lot of reality television, people who

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Speaker 4: look entirely just too perfect to be running around and

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Speaker 4: doing whatever wacky thing that the show is about. But

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Speaker 4: the whole point is you you don't have a script.

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Speaker 4: You put these non actors into basically real life situations

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Speaker 4: or larger than real life situations, and there's nothing to do,

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Speaker 4: really besides shoot a bunch of video of these people

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Speaker 4: doing the stuff, whatever it is, and then you'll know.

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Speaker 1: This is where you get to see a lot of

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Speaker 1: setups because there's always a little bit of exposition, right

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Speaker 1: to explain the rules of this particular take on reality.

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Speaker 1: My favorites are always the house hunter subgenres, where there's

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Speaker 1: a couple that's like, uh, you know Bill, Bill collects

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Speaker 1: vintage condoms and Julie is a spiritual guide for Corgi's.

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Speaker 1: They want a house with four jacuzzis and a helicopter

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Speaker 1: landing pad. They need it by Tuesday. Their budget is

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Speaker 1: twelve dollars and I'm exaggerating a little, but maybe not

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Speaker 1: as much as as I'd wish.

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Speaker 4: So of course, of course they're the most picky people

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Speaker 4: with twelve dollars you've ever seen, correct.

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Speaker 2: Ye, But it's like it's I think it's it's meant

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Speaker 2: to be aspirational, where it's like I too could have

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Speaker 2: a multimillion dollar fixer upper in San Francisco, you know,

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Speaker 2: me with my meager podcast salary. You know, it's what

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Speaker 2: keeps people on the hook because it doesn't make them

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Speaker 2: feel like there's I think there's different like categories of

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Speaker 2: reality show. There's the ones that are meant to be

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Speaker 2: exclusive and be like a look in to a world

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Speaker 2: you could never possibly be a part of. And then

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Speaker 2: there's ones like those that are aspirational and they're meant

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Speaker 2: to be like, oh that could be me. I could

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Speaker 2: do that. I could learn how to grout a bathtub

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Speaker 2: or whatever. It is you know, it's interesting, and all

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Speaker 2: these shows they fall into buckets, but at the end

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Speaker 2: of the day, they're all about keeping you, you know,

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Speaker 2: with your eyes glued to the show.

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Speaker 4: We're gonna talk about that, right, what it means, like

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Speaker 4: the reality that is portrayed to us? What does that mean?

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Speaker 4: What are they telling us?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, because so reality TV is a genre and

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Speaker 1: we want to be fair to it today. So I'm

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Speaker 1: not trying to put my thumb on the scales here

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Speaker 1: when I say the term reality TV is a group term,

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Speaker 1: kind of like the term cancer is a group term.

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Speaker 1: It describes a lot of very different things with you know,

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Speaker 1: a core, a kind of spinal column of commonalities. Once

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Speaker 1: upon a time, you know, we would consider news programs

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Speaker 1: or interviews or talk shows to be reality TV, or

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Speaker 1: follow alongs for law enforcement or medical professionals, or even

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Speaker 1: live quiz shows like of course the quiz Show. So now,

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Speaker 1: as in twenty eight twenty, we're at a place where

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Speaker 1: reality TV as a concept has evolved and the phrase

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Speaker 1: means the specific groupings of shows. And there's so many subgenres,

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Speaker 1: transactional shows like storage Wars, pond Stars, documentary approaches of

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Speaker 1: being diplomatic here, varying credibility, makeover shows, right, let us

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Speaker 1: make you look appropriate? Rights, it's a dangerous aspiration. And

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Speaker 1: then shows where contestants ostensibly search for romance.

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Speaker 4: Or or specifically competition shows like cooking shows, and a

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Speaker 4: lot of these what's the What's the Ninja Warrior Ultimate?

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Speaker 2: Ninja Ultimate? I was about to say, yeah, like, obstinately,

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Speaker 2: it's basically grown up double there, you know, with much

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Speaker 2: higher stakes. You guys remember Double There. Nickelodeon had a

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Speaker 2: lot of these back in the day. I mean, you're right, man,

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Speaker 2: game shows do theoretically fall into that category in an

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Speaker 2: interesting way. But then there's that whole quiz show scandal

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Speaker 2: that showed even those types of shows lack of credibility.

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Speaker 2: That was like could yeah, but it was a big deal.

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Speaker 2: It was a huge kerfuffle. There's a film about it,

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Speaker 2: uh with what's his Face? Sam Rockwell where it talks

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Speaker 2: about that whole It's also that he was like a

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Speaker 2: secret spy, and there's it's a really fast it was

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Speaker 2: called Portrait of a Dangerous Mind. I think it's what

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Speaker 2: it's called something along those lines. But yeah, it was

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Speaker 2: essentially they were rigging it. So that people would stay

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Speaker 2: engaged and you'd root for they. They would basically identify

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Speaker 2: this is the contest that everybody likes, this is the

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Speaker 2: one we want to do well. These are the ones

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Speaker 2: we want to eliminate. Has nothing to do with their

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Speaker 2: actual intellect. It has to do with what kind of

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Speaker 2: you know, curatorial, you know, kind of stable of humans

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Speaker 2: they want to push forth so that people can most

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Speaker 2: identify with.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's why there are, at least in the US,

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Speaker 1: there are federal laws regarding how a competition has to

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Speaker 1: be carried out, but there are a lot of loopholes

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Speaker 1: in that. You know what I mean, and you can

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Speaker 1: That's why you'll see a lot of tiered competitions. There

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Speaker 1: are multiple episodes right of the same competition, and so

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Speaker 1: you can see the producers or showrunners tilting things in

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Speaker 1: favor of one person or another based on their ratings, right,

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Speaker 1: or based on audience response. But you might also see

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Speaker 1: something like a snapshot of life, people with a very

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Speaker 1: specific job, truckers driving across roads made of ice in

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Speaker 1: the far North. It's also i'd say it's also common

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Speaker 1: to see wealthy, vapid people try and fail to do

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Speaker 1: anything worthwhile or of interest. But you know that's like

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Speaker 1: interest is in the eye of the beholder. And again,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm not saying I'm not saying these people

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Speaker 1: are vapid. I'm saying they are portrayed as being vapid

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Speaker 1: by the producers. Someone is telling you or you know,

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Speaker 1: steering you toward what you can see. And you'll see

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Speaker 1: people vying for a specific prize, a music deal, a

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Speaker 1: million dollars weight loss. Love it or hate it. This

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Speaker 1: is a massive genre and it's older then A lot

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Speaker 1: of us in the audience today probably think like you

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Speaker 1: think Big Brother, or you think the Real World and

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Speaker 1: Puck and everything. But the true, the truth is something

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Speaker 1: like this genre has been around since the earliest days

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Speaker 1: of television. We have to remember when television came out,

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Speaker 1: when it started rolling out, it was much more experimental.

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Speaker 1: People weren't sure what would work, kind of the way

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Speaker 1: that podcasts were several years ago. This like, there's this

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Speaker 1: show in nineteen forty five called Queen for a Day,

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Speaker 1: Queen for a Day, and you can you can find

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Speaker 1: some clips online about this. Queen for a Day would

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Speaker 1: have various contestants come on the show and explain their

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Speaker 1: plights often in a very tearful way to an audience,

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Speaker 1: and there would be an APPLAUSEO meter, and if this

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Speaker 1: person's tale of woe and tribulation connected most with the

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Speaker 1: audience measured by applause, then they would be given like

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Speaker 1: they would sit on a throne. They would get some

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Speaker 1: you know, they would get some like costumeriye that looked

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Speaker 1: like royalty. They would get a dozen roses, and then

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Speaker 1: they would get a list of prizes. This show was

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Speaker 1: tremendously popular. There was another show called Candid Camera. Well

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Speaker 1: remember that the guy who made Candid Camera also had

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Speaker 1: a show in the days of radio called Candid Microphone.

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Speaker 1: And that's where like that genre is. I think a

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Speaker 1: lot of us in the West are familiar with it.

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Speaker 1: People got pranked and then they would learn later that

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Speaker 1: they were being filmed by hidden cameras. Like I think

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Speaker 1: most of us, probably in twenty twenty have not seen

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Speaker 1: actually seen an episode of Candid Camera, but it is

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Speaker 1: part of our zeitgeist. Now smile, you're on candid Camera, right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, now that everyone has a camera, it's happening

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Speaker 4: all the time without our knowledge.

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Speaker 1: And that show came out in nineteen forty eight, you know.

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Speaker 1: So there were other predecessors that were more serious in tone,

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Speaker 1: that were a little bit more like what we might

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Speaker 1: call a PBS documentary. There's one of continuing relevance today

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Speaker 1: called seven Up. You guys remember hearing about that.

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Speaker 2: Yes.

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Speaker 4: Seven Up was a television show in nineteen sixty four

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Speaker 4: that got together a group of kids who were all

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Speaker 4: aged seven and conducted interviews with them, and then every

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Speaker 4: following seven years they would interview them again, so in

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Speaker 4: chunks of seven years, just to see how all of

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Speaker 4: these people are growing up, what are their aspirations at seven?

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Speaker 4: How did it play out when they were fourteen? Probably

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Speaker 4: not so great. That's middle school. Nobody likes that. But

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Speaker 4: then it continued on and.

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Speaker 1: The most recent installment actually came out in twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 1: just last year. It's called sixty three Up.

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Speaker 4: Wow. Yep.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting because it began with it and I think

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Speaker 1: this would be of interest to you as well, Mission Control.

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Speaker 1: It began without really a plot, you know, or the

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Speaker 1: constraints that are famili you're in today's reality TV shows,

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Speaker 1: the documentary style. We're talking to these people about their lives,

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Speaker 1: and they kind of found the themes and the narration

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Speaker 1: and the arc as these people aged.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's you know, that's the true mark of

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Speaker 2: a good documentary. You kind of go in maybe with

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Speaker 2: a little bit of an understanding of what you're going

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Speaker 2: to cover, and then if you do it for long

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Speaker 2: enough period, the story kind of reveals itself. I think

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Speaker 2: the best documentary is often like the filmmakers go in

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Speaker 2: maybe with one idea of what they're going to get,

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Speaker 2: and then it takes some interesting turn. But the only

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Speaker 2: way you can do that is by covering a topic

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Speaker 2: for a very very long time and being able to

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Speaker 2: kind of roll with the punches as things change, as

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Speaker 2: parts of the stories develop in ways you hadn't expected.

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Speaker 2: So these seven Up docs really are documentary, like, you know,

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Speaker 2: very well thought out, very well produced, documentary style filmmaking,

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Speaker 2: as opposed to more of what we're going to talk

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Speaker 2: about today, which are very much the antithesis of that.

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Speaker 1: So fast forward nineteen sixty five, he creates a show

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Speaker 1: called The American Sportsman. This show introduces celebrity kind of

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Speaker 1: like for its own sake, like here are famous people

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Speaker 1: with which are already familiar, but they're maybe not necessarily

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Speaker 1: doing this stuff. They're famous for instead, they and family

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Speaker 1: members and maybe friends are doing outdoor activities. They're driving

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Speaker 1: race cars, you know, they're hunting, et cetera. The action

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Speaker 1: in the dialogue as a result of this was unscripted.

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Speaker 1: The only scripted stuff would be vo narration vo meaning voiceover.

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Speaker 1: And this is often today considered the first modern reality show,

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Speaker 1: but again, for a lot of us listening today, the

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Speaker 1: paradigm shift for reality TV begins with shows like the

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Speaker 1: Real World, which premiered in nineteen ninety two. Strangers are selected,

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Speaker 1: not famous people people who aspire to be famous, these

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Speaker 1: people anyway, they were selected based on what the showrunners

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Speaker 1: see as their potential for discord. And then they are

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Speaker 1: put together in a shared living space. And what happens

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Speaker 1: when people stop being polite and start being real?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 1: This is something that MTV spun out in multiple spin

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Speaker 1: offs and spinoffs.

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Speaker 2: Did you guys watch this when you were when you

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Speaker 2: were younger?

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Speaker 3: I do?

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Speaker 2: You did?

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Speaker 4: Not?

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Speaker 2: Okay?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: I Ben did not? Matt did, I definitely did. I

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Speaker 2: don't think the earliest one was I believe San Francisco

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Speaker 2: maybe or was it London? And I don't recall, but

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Speaker 2: I definitely remember Puck puck. He was such a jerk.

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Speaker 2: And then there was a There was one particular season

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Speaker 2: where there was like this kind of goth metal guy

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Speaker 2: who was in London and he like sent his girlfriend

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Speaker 2: a pig's heart with a nail through it in a

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Speaker 2: box and it was so like Emo and I loved it.

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Speaker 2: I was whatever his name was. He had like facial piercing.

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Speaker 2: That's all I remember. But that was a leap forward

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Speaker 2: because it really did feel like, oh my god, I'm

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Speaker 2: a fly on the wall watching these people's lives unfold

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Speaker 2: very organically with no input from producers.

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Speaker 4: Surely right right, yeah, and certainly not cameras everywhere as

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Speaker 4: you're trying to have an actual interaction with someone and.

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Speaker 1: They're certainly not being plied with alcohol or other intoxicants, right,

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Speaker 1: and god forbid there'd be a second take of something anyhow, Yes,

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Speaker 1: you guys are right from there. The genre was very

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Speaker 1: much off to the races. Now we have so many

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Speaker 1: subgenres of what is called reality TV. There are spinoffs

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Speaker 1: of spinoffs of spinoffs, just like the heyday of sitcoms.

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Speaker 1: The trend does not seem set to die down anytime soon.

436
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, if anything it can. The

437
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:52,440
Speaker 1: trend continues, it escalates. In twenty fifteen alone, there were

438
00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:56,439
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of reality TV shows on primetime cable,

439
00:25:56,840 --> 00:26:03,480
Speaker 1: eighty three percent more than scripted shows. Crucially, that number

440
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 1: is not the entire snapshot, because that only accounts for

441
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 1: series that air during primetime and on cable, so we're

442
00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:17,800
Speaker 1: not counting broadcast network reality shows like American Idol or Survivor,

443
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 1: or all the documentary programs on PBS. Once again, thank

444
00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 1: you PBS.

445
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 4: For be there.

446
00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 1: It's a big proposed PBS. If you have cable in

447
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:33,120
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and you know a lot of us don't,

448
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:35,359
Speaker 1: A lot of us are cord cutters. But if you

449
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,760
Speaker 1: do have cable and you're near a television, odds are

450
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:41,119
Speaker 1: that if you turn it on right now and you

451
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: just scroll through the channels, you will find inevitably some

452
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 1: sort of thing that could be called unscripted or reality TV.

453
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 1: It's here to stay, and despite what often seems to

454
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:56,399
Speaker 1: be its innocuous nature, it shouldn't surprise anybody to know

455
00:26:56,480 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: what that Reality TV is Enormously controversial. Fans and critics

456
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:04,639
Speaker 1: of the shows in this genre will readily admit it

457
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:08,439
Speaker 1: is not as real as it is often made to seem. Spoiler,

458
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 1: that is not the big plot twist for today's episode.

459
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:16,679
Speaker 1: Audience interests may also not be the driving factor in

460
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:22,160
Speaker 1: the boom. In fact, some networks may be pushing programming

461
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 1: that audiences don't particularly want, and, according to some reality

462
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 1: television may be dangerous. What are we talking about. We'll

463
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:42,400
Speaker 1: tell you after a word from our sponsor. Here's where

464
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:50,200
Speaker 1: it gets crazy. First things First, longtime listeners, I hope

465
00:27:50,240 --> 00:27:52,560
Speaker 1: you know this would not be our only twist for

466
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 1: the episode. There's several crazy things. But yes, I don't

467
00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 1: know if we're in a bubble matt nole. But like

468
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:04,680
Speaker 1: everybody knows, reality TV is much less real than it

469
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: purports to be, right, Like, that's not a classified document

470
00:28:09,119 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 1: or anything.

471
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:12,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like wrestling, you know. I mean, maybe there's

472
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,920
Speaker 2: that one poor little kid who's gonna have his mind

473
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:19,800
Speaker 2: blown when he realizes that wrestling is not real. Hopefully

474
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:21,960
Speaker 2: I'm not doing that to you poor little kid right now.

475
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 2: But same with reality TV. I mean, like I think

476
00:28:25,080 --> 00:28:27,960
Speaker 2: it's pretty much not even an open secret because you

477
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 2: can't even say it's a secret. But it's not like

478
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 2: people come right out and say it, but everyone kind

479
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 2: of knows. There's been plenty of expositions are really great.

480
00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 2: Adam ruins everything about it that does a really good

481
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 2: job of demystifying all of some of the tactics and

482
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 2: specific production techniques that go into the making of a

483
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 2: reality show, some of which you know I talked about

484
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 2: at the beginning of the show. But yeah, it's very

485
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 2: much a known thing, and it doesn't The interesting thing

486
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 2: about it is it doesn't really affect your enjoyment of it,

487
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:56,959
Speaker 2: or it doesn't seem to have caused it to wane

488
00:28:56,960 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 2: in popularity, I think, is what I'm getting at.

489
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: Same with wrestling ink.

490
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 4: Fabe exactly, and it really is the invisible hand of

491
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 4: storytelling that we're going to talk about, the how the

492
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 4: editors have a lot of control over that in this world.

493
00:29:11,800 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 4: One thing we didn't mention earlier was just the number

494
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 4: of streaming service only reality shows, because those things are

495
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 4: just flooded with all of those shows or types of

496
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 4: the shows that we mentioned at the top of this show.

497
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 1: I'm never looking over and writing a note map because

498
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 1: this is excellent foreshadowing. I have a I have a

499
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:31,720
Speaker 1: thing about this.

500
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:34,600
Speaker 4: Oh okay, okay, oh no, no, no, no, this is no.

501
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:37,840
Speaker 1: This is perfect because this this leads us to a

502
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 1: very weird, very weird cultural rabbit hole.

503
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 2: Second.

504
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 4: Okay, but to do the due.

505
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 1: Diligence, as is our want and warrant on this show,

506
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 1: we are going to We're going to proceed to demolish

507
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 1: any illusions that some of us may still have about

508
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:03,880
Speaker 1: the reality picted it in reality televisions. As we said earlier,

509
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 1: producers are the storytellers. I really love that phrase, the

510
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 1: invisible hand of storytelling to Matt. Producers of My Frank

511
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: and by Audio take visual clips, edit them out of

512
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 1: context to get closer to a desired narrative. A good

513
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 1: example of this, off the top of my head, if

514
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 1: you are a producer on a show and you want

515
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: two of the cast members on the show to fight,

516
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 1: then maybe you know, these are not dumb people. They're

517
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:39,720
Speaker 1: pretty smart, so they may even like each other and

518
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:42,480
Speaker 1: they don't want to seem like they're fighting. But all

519
00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:45,800
Speaker 1: you have to do is take a clip of like

520
00:30:46,520 --> 00:30:50,800
Speaker 1: take a clip of Matt and Noel on a camping

521
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 1: trip and Matt saying, hey, is there do we have

522
00:30:55,680 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 1: any more coffee? And then Noel goes, oh, sorry, I

523
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: didn't make any yet, and then just cut to cut

524
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 1: to a different clip like this is why there was

525
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 1: always the stand ups or the confessional parts, cut to

526
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: a different clip where they're the producer's off screen asking

527
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:16,120
Speaker 1: Matt like, so, what do you think of Adolf Hitler?

528
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 1: And then Matt's like, I think he's a terrible person.

529
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 1: Or I think Adolf Hitler is a terrible, terrible person,

530
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:25,120
Speaker 1: and like, could you say that but not say the

531
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 1: name Adolf Hitler. It's like, uh, yeah, I hate him.

532
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: I think he's a monster. And then in the post

533
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 1: production and the editing, it goes straight from the clip

534
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 1: of a very normal conversation about should we make coffee

535
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 1: to Matt saying I hate him. I think he's a monster,

536
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 1: and then they'll just frank invite some other clip of

537
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 1: Noel saying something again completely innocuous. Maybe they use the

538
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:53,720
Speaker 1: Hitler trick on him that I'm making that up, but

539
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 1: it is a very plausible thing. And then maybe if

540
00:31:56,880 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 1: they don't have to frank and bite you guys, if

541
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:03,280
Speaker 1: you're totally down to play ball and jump through those hoops,

542
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 1: then they'll lean into it and say, okay, we want

543
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: you guys to really disagree about I don't know about

544
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:15,400
Speaker 1: where a tent should be pitched, and then we go, okay,

545
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:18,680
Speaker 1: you know when you guys have the argument about where

546
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 1: the tent should be pitched, like that was great. That

547
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:24,040
Speaker 1: was great, guys, that was really honest. We're going to

548
00:32:24,160 --> 00:32:27,479
Speaker 1: reset a couple of cameras because we want to get

549
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 1: a good over the shoulder on Matt, and then you'll

550
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 1: just have the argument again like those Some of those

551
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:37,719
Speaker 1: things you see that appear to be spontaneous organic disputes

552
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:42,000
Speaker 1: are like multiple iterative takes.

553
00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, And like I was saying with the pilot

554
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 2: that Paul and I worked on, the producers will actively

555
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 2: do things to game the system, like sending those packages,

556
00:32:54,360 --> 00:33:00,479
Speaker 2: you know, to this potentially braggadocious you know, cast member

557
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 2: who in an effort to like get the other women

558
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:06,440
Speaker 2: to be annoyed with her being all, look at me,

559
00:33:07,000 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 2: my boyfriend's sending me all these amazing gifts. Oh, he

560
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 2: loves me so much. And then they have like, so

561
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:15,480
Speaker 2: what do you think about Anya, Like she's a little

562
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 2: much huh Oh my god, yes, Anya is the worst.

563
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:21,800
Speaker 2: You know, she had she sent those to herself. You

564
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 2: know that she did that just to like, you know,

565
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:27,320
Speaker 2: be the center of attention, right, and then you know, yeah,

566
00:33:27,360 --> 00:33:29,360
Speaker 2: and then they ask Anya, what do you think that? Well,

567
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:32,240
Speaker 2: I don't understand why the other goes so mean to me,

568
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:35,000
Speaker 2: you know, I just am just so beautiful and my

569
00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 2: boyfriend just loves me. What's wrong with that?

570
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:37,400
Speaker 6: You know?

571
00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 2: And then it all comes to a head. And even

572
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 2: that's manufacturer because they literally have each other talking trash

573
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 2: about each other behind their backs, and they're poking the

574
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 2: bear essentially and creating this situation where there's this like

575
00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 2: explosion moment and then they capture that too. They potentially

576
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 2: do that from other angles. You know. It's it's it's

577
00:33:57,600 --> 00:33:58,480
Speaker 2: it's pretty wild.

578
00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 1: Let me play this lip of what Anya said for you,

579
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 1: and I'd like you to react.

580
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:06,240
Speaker 4: To it exactly. Or even if you're in one of

581
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:09,839
Speaker 4: those confessional booths with a big bright light in front

582
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:12,400
Speaker 4: of you and there's a producer in your ear and

583
00:34:12,560 --> 00:34:15,760
Speaker 4: just saying, you know, we captured some pretty disturbing stuff

584
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 4: earlier that was said about you, and I would just

585
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 4: love to know what you think about this. And that's

586
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 4: all you have to do, because.

587
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: I'm on your side. Yeah, I want to hear your

588
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 1: side of this, there's you know, a personal example. Two

589
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:34,520
Speaker 1: is often things will get phrased as questions. That's one

590
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 1: that's one big part of interrogation and psychosocial manipulation, right,

591
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: don't You don't have to tell people what to say.

592
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:47,680
Speaker 1: You ask people a question and then frame it in

593
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:49,879
Speaker 1: such way that you're trying to get them to say

594
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:52,000
Speaker 1: what you want them to say, as though it were

595
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:54,920
Speaker 1: their ideas. So, for instance, if you're on a pilot

596
00:34:55,000 --> 00:35:01,520
Speaker 1: about hunting for some fictitious lost silver in the apple

597
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:05,759
Speaker 1: in the Appalachian forest, and someone says, you know, I

598
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:07,920
Speaker 1: heard that there was a lost silver mine, and I

599
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 1: heard that there were even statues there hidden that might

600
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 1: have some mayan influence. Yeah, what do you think about that?

601
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: And like, well, it's the first time I've heard it,

602
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 1: and I don't think it's true.

603
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:23,319
Speaker 2: Oh and if you could please rephrase my question in

604
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 2: your answer, Please rephrase my question in your answer.

605
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: By the way, what if it but what if that

606
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:30,799
Speaker 1: happens too? But what I'm talking about is like they'll go,

607
00:35:31,000 --> 00:35:34,800
Speaker 1: but what if it was? Could you just repeat the question?

608
00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:36,240
Speaker 4: Yeah?

609
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 1: Which is why, Like, which is why you'll see people

610
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:43,399
Speaker 1: who are you know, incredibly reputable scientists who are top

611
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:47,640
Speaker 1: notch right, and they'll they'll they'll come off looking like

612
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:52,319
Speaker 1: they believe wholeheartedly and ancient aliens or something like that,

613
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:56,839
Speaker 1: and a lot of those scientists are very upset, you know,

614
00:35:56,880 --> 00:35:59,919
Speaker 1: when they see the end result, because they've been told

615
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 1: to say, uh, just like read these questions, and they'll

616
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 1: read five questions, and one of them is the one

617
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:09,520
Speaker 1: that the showrunner is aiming to use right.

618
00:36:10,239 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 2: Well, and the reason I bring up the whole please

619
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 2: rephrase my question in your response. A. It's a good

620
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 2: technique so that you can cut out the interviewer's voice

621
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 2: so that you have a self contained soundbit. But it

622
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 2: also kind of primes the pump for whatever forgetting that

623
00:36:26,200 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 2: person to talk about what you want them to talk about.

624
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 2: So you ask them this question and then they literally

625
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:35,160
Speaker 2: have to kind of frame their entire answer around incorporating

626
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:38,719
Speaker 2: that question into their response, thereby making that sort of

627
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 2: the locust of control for the whole the whole shebang,

628
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 2: where like it starts from, Okay, I have to like

629
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:49,440
Speaker 2: answer maybe it's a leading question it usually is, and

630
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:53,840
Speaker 2: then you're playing totally playing ball by making that question

631
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:55,960
Speaker 2: part of your answer when maybe it was a question

632
00:36:56,040 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 2: that it was phrased in a divisive way or in

633
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 2: a leading way, or an some way kind of like,

634
00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:03,000
Speaker 2: you know, misleading.

635
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:05,799
Speaker 4: This is the way I think about it, guys. So

636
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 4: most of us out there have seen or know what

637
00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 4: a script is, right. We understand that it's a series

638
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 4: of words on a lot of paper that tells usually

639
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 4: a camera and actors what to do. That's generally it

640
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 4: what's going to happen on set. The way I think

641
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:27,400
Speaker 4: about reality TV is that you don't have a script

642
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:30,080
Speaker 4: at all until you've got all or most of your

643
00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:34,239
Speaker 4: stuff shot, and then you form that script backwards basically

644
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 4: from what you know, you what you want to happen,

645
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:39,880
Speaker 4: and then everything else you kind of plot in with

646
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:42,640
Speaker 4: footage that you've collected, Right, and there's going to be

647
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 4: holes in there that I need to get from point

648
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:48,120
Speaker 4: A to point B somehow. Now I need to get

649
00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:51,920
Speaker 4: this person or somebody else to say this very specific thing.

650
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:54,359
Speaker 4: And they use the technique ben As talking about where

651
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:57,680
Speaker 4: they will just try and seed you with something as

652
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:02,839
Speaker 4: the actor or character, or try and psychologically manipulate it

653
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:04,440
Speaker 4: out of you in some way.

654
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 1: And for many people this can feel like a big break,

655
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 1: you know, so we're incentivized to play ball. But okay,

656
00:38:12,560 --> 00:38:16,759
Speaker 1: so we've proven that this stuff happens. Producers, also, by

657
00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 1: the way, are known for breaking various rules off camera.

658
00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 1: You're in a survival show, right, there's one where it's like,

659
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 1: literally people are supposed to be running around naked, surviving

660
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:30,720
Speaker 1: in the wild, but off air they're supplied with medicine,

661
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 1: they're supplied with food and things like that when the

662
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 1: cameras aren't rolling. So yes, there are many, many, many,

663
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:41,040
Speaker 1: many instances of what could be called active conspiracies on

664
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:44,200
Speaker 1: the sets of many reality TV shows. That doesn't make

665
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 1: them bad again, because hey, if it's an open secret

666
00:38:48,160 --> 00:38:52,160
Speaker 1: and people still dig it and no one is getting hurt,

667
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:56,760
Speaker 1: and no big whoop, Right, where's where's the beef? Where's

668
00:38:56,760 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 1: the impossible burger? In that one? But it turns out, remember, folks,

669
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:04,759
Speaker 1: we said that's not the big twist here. Everybody knows

670
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 1: that reality TV itself got more than a bit of

671
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 1: k fave to it. As they say in wrestling, economic

672
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:18,120
Speaker 1: factors are at play in a very very big way here.

673
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:22,320
Speaker 1: One thing that's interesting, you guys, remember the writer's strike

674
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven and.

675
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:31,000
Speaker 4: Eight, course very much, especially with regularly occurring shows, late

676
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:37,320
Speaker 4: night shows, talk shows. I remember that being a major issue. Yeah, wow,

677
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:40,759
Speaker 4: everything from the Daily Show to Conin to all of

678
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:42,200
Speaker 4: those gave us.

679
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:46,439
Speaker 1: A horrible That was cool. I still love that one. Yeah,

680
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 1: hamstrunk broadcasting cable networks. And remember there's a billion dollar industry.

681
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:58,880
Speaker 1: They're scrambling desperately to find any original content to fill

682
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 1: that programming schedule. These are not the days of early television.

683
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:06,439
Speaker 1: You can't just say, well, it's ten PM, so we're

684
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:11,320
Speaker 1: signing off, here's our you know, here's a holding pattern screen.

685
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:15,000
Speaker 1: So as an end result of that, when they couldn't

686
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:17,879
Speaker 1: get the scripted shows running, right How I Met Your Mother, etc.

687
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:23,440
Speaker 1: All the mainstays, more than one hundred unscripted shows, competitions,

688
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 1: dating games, life improvement stuff. More than one hundred either

689
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:33,279
Speaker 1: debuted or returned in a single season. And I was

690
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:37,359
Speaker 1: looking into the boots on the ground for this from

691
00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: both people who are established industry insiders and then people

692
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:46,759
Speaker 1: who are kind of like pop culture pundits observing this,

693
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:50,919
Speaker 1: and they said they don't all agree on how much

694
00:40:50,960 --> 00:40:54,279
Speaker 1: impact the writer's strike actually had on the explosion of

695
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:58,959
Speaker 1: reality TV, since it was already well underway, but now

696
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:00,799
Speaker 1: they said it was something they can no longer be

697
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:05,400
Speaker 1: dismissed as a trend or a fad. From that point forward,

698
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:09,759
Speaker 1: reality programs began to top the ratings week after week

699
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:14,400
Speaker 1: after week, and it was so good for the bottom line.

700
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:17,759
Speaker 1: This is something that we have run into even in

701
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 1: our own little, our own little domain of media. Unscripted

702
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 1: television is much much cheaper.

703
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 2: Great because you don't need a writer, you don't need

704
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:33,919
Speaker 2: a set barely. I mean, if you're doing a game show,

705
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 2: I guess, but that was a little bit of a

706
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 2: conversation for a different day. You just need a handful

707
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:43,160
Speaker 2: of producers or handlers. You wouldn't even really call them

708
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:45,360
Speaker 2: a director most of the time. I think they're just

709
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:48,080
Speaker 2: producers who are kind of like, you know, you've got

710
00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 2: a camera crew and people that are making sure to

711
00:41:50,200 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 2: get the coverage, and you probably have a director of

712
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:55,279
Speaker 2: photography that's just assuring that they capture as much as

713
00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:57,880
Speaker 2: humanly possible. But some many of these shows too, like

714
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:02,680
Speaker 2: use things like go pros or use like even iPhone footage,

715
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 2: you know. I mean it's that you don't need a massive,

716
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:09,520
Speaker 2: glitzy production with tons of lighting. You can use a

717
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:12,400
Speaker 2: skeleton crew and you're just setting up and picking up

718
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:14,520
Speaker 2: in some very like maybe there's a whole show that

719
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:17,520
Speaker 2: takes place. Definitely there is in the house, like a

720
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:20,280
Speaker 2: Big Brother situation, where it's just lots of little cheapy

721
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 2: go pro cameras mounted everywhere, and those confessional booths are

722
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:26,680
Speaker 2: what have you. It's all really really affordable.

723
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 4: And think about something as simple as set dressing in

724
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:36,000
Speaker 4: a place. So in a reality show, this person, you

725
00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 4: may enhance the reality of what exists in their room

726
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:43,240
Speaker 4: right to make that character seem more, oh, they really

727
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:49,080
Speaker 4: like baseball. But in a film or a scripted television series,

728
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:52,439
Speaker 4: you have to very specifically place things that are going

729
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:57,000
Speaker 4: to tell you about the arc of that character. And

730
00:42:57,160 --> 00:42:59,640
Speaker 4: the money that you spend on just stuff for set

731
00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:03,319
Speaker 4: dress is insane. And the people you have to pay

732
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:05,480
Speaker 4: to make sure all of that stuff gets in the

733
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 4: right place and is in the right spot every time

734
00:43:08,280 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 4: your roll camera. And that's like this tiniest sliver of

735
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:15,400
Speaker 4: expenses that you're saving when you make unscripted.

736
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:19,120
Speaker 1: And Matt is I hope you don't get mad at

737
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:22,040
Speaker 1: me for disclosing this man. But Matt, I can tell

738
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:26,440
Speaker 1: you're still a little bit bitter about the set design

739
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:33,480
Speaker 1: costs that sank, That sank your historically accurate period piece series.

740
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 1: Right on? What was that again? What time period was that.

741
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 4: My historically accurate period accurate period piece project?

742
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:43,880
Speaker 2: Uh?

743
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:50,400
Speaker 4: Oh man improv improv Yes and yes and oh it was.

744
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:57,479
Speaker 4: I got nothing, guys, no it I've kind of got

745
00:43:57,560 --> 00:43:59,719
Speaker 4: something like this going on behind me right now. If

746
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 4: you can see this video, I am ridiculously delayed right

747
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:05,000
Speaker 4: now in our zoom call, by the way, and it

748
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:09,120
Speaker 4: is weirding me out. But I've set dressed the everything

749
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:13,239
Speaker 4: that's behind me to be Matt, Like this is Matt

750
00:44:13,280 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 4: to the character represented in things behind me. And it's

751
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:21,000
Speaker 4: what you would do for either production scripted or unscripted.

752
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 4: But I guess the stakes of it for unscripted are

753
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:28,040
Speaker 4: so smaller. I don't know where I'm going with this, Guys.

754
00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:31,959
Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally, I totally improper rules threw you under

755
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:37,719
Speaker 1: the bus. I apologize, but but I just I love

756
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:42,919
Speaker 1: the idea of you having like this mostly in they

757
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:49,840
Speaker 1: can sweeping historical epic and then like the breaking point

758
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:53,960
Speaker 1: for the budget was making sure you add historically accurate

759
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: you know, like carriages or something. But that happens, you know,

760
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:01,360
Speaker 1: and it is You're right. There are so many expenses

761
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:05,880
Speaker 1: to come into play, like according to e online and

762
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:09,640
Speaker 1: according to History Channel, a thirty minute episode of your

763
00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 1: average reality TV show hasts somewhere between one hundred grand

764
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:18,880
Speaker 1: to five hundred grand to produce. That's a huge amount

765
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:21,960
Speaker 1: of money for individuals, but in the world of television,

766
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 1: it's not very much money at all. That's a steal,

767
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 1: that's a fire sale because if you look at the

768
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:31,359
Speaker 1: other side of the spectrum, think about what we call

769
00:45:31,520 --> 00:45:37,040
Speaker 1: prestige television, right, breaking bad Sopranos, etc. The last season

770
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:42,960
Speaker 1: of Game of Thrones, despite being enormously divisive, keeping my

771
00:45:43,000 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 1: personal opinions out here, each episode of that last season

772
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:53,440
Speaker 1: cost fifteen million dollars. Think of how much reality TV

773
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 1: you can make with fifteen mil.

774
00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:59,440
Speaker 4: Oh my god, so many fewer people. No sets, You

775
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:02,440
Speaker 4: don't have to be in the winter. Winter is not

776
00:46:02,480 --> 00:46:05,320
Speaker 4: coming in your reality show unless you're the Ice Road Truckers.

777
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:08,760
Speaker 4: It's already come. It's too late, right right.

778
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:10,560
Speaker 1: And in Ice Road Truckers, I think they have their

779
00:46:10,600 --> 00:46:12,479
Speaker 1: own trucks, so you don't have to pay for those either.

780
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:17,240
Speaker 1: This means that there's inherently going to be more risk

781
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 1: in making any kind of scripted show because a huge

782
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 1: budget doesn't always translate to huge ratings, it doesn't always

783
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:30,440
Speaker 1: translate to commercial success. You could spend millions of dollars

784
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 1: per episode on a season of something and critics could

785
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 1: pan it, and you know, like it would be the

786
00:46:37,080 --> 00:46:40,800
Speaker 1: worst move of your career. So why write a stunning fantasy?

787
00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:45,399
Speaker 1: Why produce this historically accurate, sweeping thing when you could

788
00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:50,440
Speaker 1: just churn and burn unscripted material across all these different subgenres.

789
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:55,960
Speaker 1: I mean the weird thing is, for a while, production

790
00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 1: houses we're creating scripted television and it is very expensive

791
00:46:59,480 --> 00:47:03,759
Speaker 1: to create it, and they were also regularly losing in

792
00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 1: their ratings to reality TV.

793
00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean we run into that a lot

794
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:14,800
Speaker 2: in podcast world, and a lot of big television production

795
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:18,760
Speaker 2: companies are seeing that as an opportunity as well, where

796
00:47:18,960 --> 00:47:21,759
Speaker 2: it's all about the intellectual property wars, where it's like

797
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:24,760
Speaker 2: people want to develop things for as cheaply as possible

798
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:27,880
Speaker 2: and test out intellectual property. And we see that happening

799
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:30,880
Speaker 2: with shows like Homecoming that started off as a podcast

800
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:35,000
Speaker 2: did moderately well as a podcast, and then since they

801
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:37,720
Speaker 2: knew there was an interest, it's almost like a pretty cheap,

802
00:47:37,760 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 2: focus group version of a more expensive thing. Then they

803
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:43,960
Speaker 2: sold it as a television show and it did very well,

804
00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:46,480
Speaker 2: and now it's got multiple seasons and it's on streaming.

805
00:47:46,560 --> 00:47:50,040
Speaker 2: And it's an interesting world with the media landscape, especially

806
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:55,480
Speaker 2: now guys with COVID and movie theaters essentially being like

807
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:58,640
Speaker 2: on the brink of annihilation. Like we saw that movie

808
00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 2: Tenant come out and did like well, I think thirty

809
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 2: million dollars total over like two weeks, which and it

810
00:48:05,200 --> 00:48:08,280
Speaker 2: costs like hundreds of millions of dollars, and that's just

811
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:10,680
Speaker 2: does not bode well for the industry. So they're going

812
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:12,480
Speaker 2: to I wonder if we're going to see more of

813
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff or more things as podcasts where

814
00:48:16,080 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 2: it's all about how quickly and cheaply can you make

815
00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:23,880
Speaker 2: it while you know, still presenting an appearance of quality

816
00:48:24,000 --> 00:48:25,560
Speaker 2: or integrity or what have you.

817
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:29,720
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's talk about that. The money, the actual ticket

818
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 4: price right really quickly here History Channel, you know History,

819
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 4: excuse me History. They would budget two one hundred and

820
00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:39,520
Speaker 4: twenty five thousand to four hundred and twenty five thousand

821
00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:43,279
Speaker 4: per episode for an unscripted show. Just then they make

822
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:46,080
Speaker 4: a lot of them, and they have historically made a

823
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:49,400
Speaker 4: lot of them, and and they air some of the

824
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:53,440
Speaker 4: highest rated shows in America. Their show pawn Stars that

825
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:56,200
Speaker 4: we talked about, we mentioned at least in passing at

826
00:48:56,200 --> 00:48:58,800
Speaker 4: the top of the show where it's literally a pawn shop.

827
00:48:59,120 --> 00:49:01,319
Speaker 4: What happens that's a exciting in this pawn shop. Well,

828
00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:03,920
Speaker 4: you got to tune in to find out that was

829
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:10,040
Speaker 4: beating mad Men, one of the most lauded shows to

830
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:12,560
Speaker 4: come around in a long time. It was beating that

831
00:49:13,320 --> 00:49:16,040
Speaker 4: ponnd Stars was beating mad Men in ratings on Sunday

832
00:49:16,120 --> 00:49:18,680
Speaker 4: nights when they were both airing at the same time.

833
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:26,160
Speaker 1: And it was infinitely cheaper. Oh yeah, the profit margins

834
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:29,200
Speaker 1: are much higher because the production costs are much lower.

835
00:49:29,640 --> 00:49:32,719
Speaker 1: The people that would be the talent, right, the principal

836
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:38,719
Speaker 1: cast of something like ponwn Stars or something like American

837
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:42,200
Speaker 1: Pickers or something, they tend to make much much less

838
00:49:42,280 --> 00:49:45,400
Speaker 1: than actors in a scripted series. We've all heard stories

839
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:49,200
Speaker 1: about a successful sitcom and how much money each actor

840
00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:52,319
Speaker 1: makes per episode. Also, the scripting we talked about this

841
00:49:52,400 --> 00:49:55,560
Speaker 1: little the scripting that does occur is kind of like

842
00:49:57,160 --> 00:50:00,800
Speaker 1: a long form, semi improvised thing. They're beats to this story.

843
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:04,000
Speaker 1: There's a narrative spine, and that falls on the producers.

844
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:07,520
Speaker 1: The producers are not considered writers, they're not represented by

845
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:10,919
Speaker 1: a writers' union. That also lowers the cost. Those two

846
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 1: factors alone mean the profit margin on a reality TV

847
00:50:14,280 --> 00:50:19,000
Speaker 1: production can go as high as forty percent. Like back

848
00:50:19,080 --> 00:50:24,120
Speaker 1: in its glory days, American Idol was making was generating

849
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:28,440
Speaker 1: ninety six million dollars in revenue. That gave it a

850
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:32,839
Speaker 1: gross profit margin of seventy seven percent. And that's just

851
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:35,719
Speaker 1: based on the ad dollars. That doesn't count that DVD

852
00:50:35,920 --> 00:50:39,480
Speaker 1: sales back in the days of physical media were huge

853
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:43,120
Speaker 1: income stream people were buying you know, The Real Housewives

854
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:45,719
Speaker 1: of insert city here, and they were buying it on

855
00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:47,640
Speaker 1: DVD or Blu Ray, and they were keeping it, they

856
00:50:47,640 --> 00:50:49,440
Speaker 1: were giving it as a gift to friends and so on.

857
00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:54,880
Speaker 1: Product placement super easy, you know, because I'm like excited

858
00:50:55,320 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 1: to work with Sean Puffy Combs and I really need

859
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:03,560
Speaker 1: to get I need to get my verse in and

860
00:51:03,680 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 1: nothing charges me up like a monster energy, you know.

861
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:10,680
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and then Matt, to your point about set dressing.

862
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:15,160
Speaker 2: I almost would say more attention on reality TV show

863
00:51:15,400 --> 00:51:17,839
Speaker 2: in terms of set dressing goes into making sure those

864
00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:21,600
Speaker 2: brands are visible in the background, or that something's placed

865
00:51:21,640 --> 00:51:25,640
Speaker 2: on a kitchen table or seen prominently in the fridge,

866
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:28,080
Speaker 2: you know, or whatever it is. Like, that's the kind

867
00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:31,920
Speaker 2: of set dressing because it's all about maximizing those dollars

868
00:51:32,160 --> 00:51:34,839
Speaker 2: and making sure that No, it doesn't matter if oh,

869
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:37,759
Speaker 2: this tells a story about a person or an arc.

870
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:40,719
Speaker 2: It's can you see the box of flaming hot Cheetos?

871
00:51:41,040 --> 00:51:43,440
Speaker 2: You know, coming boxes? They come in bags. But you

872
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:44,240
Speaker 2: get what I'm saying.

873
00:51:44,840 --> 00:51:49,600
Speaker 1: And one other piece of revenue for any reality TV

874
00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:53,520
Speaker 1: show is actually licensing. If I've got a show like

875
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 1: The Bachelor, let me I could republish The Bachelor all

876
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:01,120
Speaker 1: the live long day in another country. But why don't

877
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:03,640
Speaker 1: I just sell a license, have someone else make their

878
00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:05,880
Speaker 1: own version of the Bachelor, and just wait by the

879
00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:09,160
Speaker 1: mailbox for the check. That's something else that happens too.

880
00:52:09,760 --> 00:52:12,120
Speaker 4: Every country has an idol, right.

881
00:52:12,200 --> 00:52:16,600
Speaker 1: Right, So we have two we have two twists there. First,

882
00:52:16,680 --> 00:52:22,080
Speaker 1: that reality shows are so profitable because they are so

883
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:27,719
Speaker 1: comparatively they're so cheap to produce right, and then we

884
00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:32,360
Speaker 1: know that it is in fact a very for being diplomatic,

885
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:35,520
Speaker 1: a very guided version of reality at the very least.

886
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:38,480
Speaker 1: But those aren't the twists that should bother you. That

887
00:52:38,480 --> 00:52:42,160
Speaker 1: shouldn't be what haunts you the next time you watch

888
00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:45,640
Speaker 1: reality television. There should be something that haunts you. I'll

889
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:48,240
Speaker 1: tell you what it is after a word from our sponsor.

890
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:59,799
Speaker 1: So the final twist is what we could perhaps call

891
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:05,239
Speaker 1: cultural danger. This reminds me a lot of We've seen

892
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:08,680
Speaker 1: it depicted in fiction as well. In the film adaptation

893
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:13,440
Speaker 1: of The Hunger Games, there is an American idol esque

894
00:53:13,719 --> 00:53:19,680
Speaker 1: reality show component to the death matches that these children

895
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:24,239
Speaker 1: are forced to fight in. And this didn't come from

896
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:27,200
Speaker 1: just the mind of the author. Over at The New Yorker,

897
00:53:27,400 --> 00:53:31,680
Speaker 1: a writer and journalist named Khalifa Sanat outlined some of

898
00:53:31,719 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 1: the less obvious dangers of the cultural impact and enormous

899
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:41,560
Speaker 1: influence wielded by reality TV. Anthropologists have been looking at

900
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:44,359
Speaker 1: the concept of reality TV since as far back as

901
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:49,000
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. In nineteen seventy three, anthropologist Margaret Meade

902
00:53:49,160 --> 00:53:52,680
Speaker 1: wrote an essay that was kind of under the radar

903
00:53:52,880 --> 00:53:56,520
Speaker 1: published and TV Guide, where she expounded on the impact

904
00:53:56,560 --> 00:53:58,960
Speaker 1: of this new genre. She said it was a new

905
00:53:59,040 --> 00:54:02,799
Speaker 1: kind of art form as significant as the invention of

906
00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:08,040
Speaker 1: the drama or the novel. There's another author, Jennifer L. Posner,

907
00:54:08,520 --> 00:54:11,720
Speaker 1: wrote a book called Reality Bites Back The Troubling Truth

908
00:54:11,760 --> 00:54:16,839
Speaker 1: about Guilty Pleasure TV, and she notes that a lot

909
00:54:16,880 --> 00:54:20,960
Speaker 1: of these shows, whether by design or by accident, a

910
00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:24,960
Speaker 1: lot of these shows end up reinforcing what are seeing

911
00:54:25,120 --> 00:54:30,480
Speaker 1: as cultural or social norms. It's education as well as

912
00:54:30,600 --> 00:54:36,680
Speaker 1: entertainment when you watch these shows and you react. When

913
00:54:36,719 --> 00:54:40,840
Speaker 1: we react as though we are scandalized by something, or

914
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:43,920
Speaker 1: we are touched or we are saddened, what we are

915
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:49,560
Speaker 1: reacting to is the depiction of a cultural norm or

916
00:54:49,760 --> 00:54:52,120
Speaker 1: what someone wants to be, a cultural norm that is

917
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:54,520
Speaker 1: foisted upon us as the viewer.

918
00:54:54,520 --> 00:54:59,480
Speaker 4: Or we're rooting for someone to meet cultural norms and

919
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:01,120
Speaker 4: to be like us, one of.

920
00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:05,920
Speaker 1: Us, or to you know, to yeah, to conform. Really,

921
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:09,680
Speaker 1: what we're learning is conformity. It is an education as

922
00:55:09,760 --> 00:55:12,480
Speaker 1: much as it's entertainment, but it's not sold as such,

923
00:55:12,520 --> 00:55:15,319
Speaker 1: and that's a secret that people don't talk about as

924
00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:18,360
Speaker 1: often as they should. In some cases, this stuff is

925
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:21,760
Speaker 1: straight up propaganda. Think about it. A show about losing

926
00:55:21,880 --> 00:55:26,120
Speaker 1: weight reinforces the concept of what is or is not

927
00:55:26,320 --> 00:55:31,480
Speaker 1: considered an acceptable or ideal body image. Shows about finding

928
00:55:31,600 --> 00:55:35,080
Speaker 1: love have this heavy implication that people cannot be happy

929
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:38,640
Speaker 1: by themselves, that to be a full member of society,

930
00:55:38,840 --> 00:55:43,720
Speaker 1: one must participate in rituals like marriage. Makeover shows skirt

931
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:48,840
Speaker 1: the line of ridiculing people for you know, being themselves.

932
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:54,280
Speaker 1: They want us to they want us as the audience

933
00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:58,400
Speaker 1: to agree that, yes, these wretched souls are just not

934
00:55:58,680 --> 00:56:03,360
Speaker 1: good enough, thank God, and think the network that someone

935
00:56:03,440 --> 00:56:07,799
Speaker 1: is here to correct that misconception for my personal amusement,

936
00:56:08,160 --> 00:56:12,399
Speaker 1: I mean, think about the racial stereotypes that proliferate through

937
00:56:12,440 --> 00:56:14,799
Speaker 1: a lot of these things. A lot of matchmaking shows too,

938
00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:20,680
Speaker 1: Like there are numerous contestants, multiple shows have alleged serious

939
00:56:20,719 --> 00:56:22,279
Speaker 1: discrimination based on race.

940
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:25,600
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, for sure. And just something to think about here.

941
00:56:25,880 --> 00:56:31,400
Speaker 4: In any any thing you're watching on television, there is

942
00:56:31,560 --> 00:56:36,680
Speaker 4: always subtext to what is occurring at all times. Actions

943
00:56:36,680 --> 00:56:39,960
Speaker 4: that are taking place, character representations, even if they are

944
00:56:40,080 --> 00:56:43,640
Speaker 4: reality the way they're represented, there's subtext to that. There's

945
00:56:43,680 --> 00:56:46,160
Speaker 4: stuff that is not sad. It's not on the page

946
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:50,319
Speaker 4: written down, but it has meaning there's a reasoning that

947
00:56:50,360 --> 00:56:54,640
Speaker 4: you come to, whether consciously or subconsciously, about these things.

948
00:56:55,040 --> 00:57:00,360
Speaker 4: And it's no different in something like the Sopranos versus

949
00:57:00,400 --> 00:57:04,200
Speaker 4: something like Honey Boo boo. There's subtext in there that

950
00:57:04,440 --> 00:57:08,839
Speaker 4: maybe you're not necessarily grasping in that moment, Like Ben

951
00:57:09,040 --> 00:57:12,399
Speaker 4: just described a lot of various ones. But yeah, there's

952
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:15,920
Speaker 4: there's some there's some pretty bad stuff that's been alleged here.

953
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:17,919
Speaker 4: Just I just want to put the subtext angle in there.

954
00:57:18,040 --> 00:57:22,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, consider also there's a transactional angle to

955
00:57:22,320 --> 00:57:27,400
Speaker 1: a lot of this humiliate yourself for in front of

956
00:57:27,480 --> 00:57:32,200
Speaker 1: millions of strangers, for the chance at somehow, in some

957
00:57:32,280 --> 00:57:35,920
Speaker 1: way having a better life. Those contestants on Queen for

958
00:57:35,960 --> 00:57:40,400
Speaker 1: a Day, right, or thousands of reality TV show contestants

959
00:57:40,480 --> 00:57:44,320
Speaker 1: over the intervening decades, they're forced to undergo various forms

960
00:57:44,320 --> 00:57:48,000
Speaker 1: of degradation emotional trauma, or at least the appearance of it,

961
00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:50,720
Speaker 1: for the passive amusement of strangers.

962
00:57:51,080 --> 00:57:51,760
Speaker 4: Fear factor.

963
00:57:52,040 --> 00:57:54,520
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, eat bugs, Why go to college?

964
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:58,960
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, goat penis whatever. Yeah, But I mean it

965
00:57:59,080 --> 00:58:02,040
Speaker 2: is kind of the an equivalent of like Bread and

966
00:58:02,120 --> 00:58:06,400
Speaker 2: Circuses is like the you know, gladiator battles like it's people.

967
00:58:06,640 --> 00:58:11,320
Speaker 2: It's it's literally it's weaponized schadenfreude where it's so popular

968
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:14,840
Speaker 2: because it makes people feel better about themselves to watch

969
00:58:14,920 --> 00:58:19,520
Speaker 2: people they perceive as lesser than them humiliating themselves on

970
00:58:19,600 --> 00:58:22,320
Speaker 2: public television. I look at that idiot. At least I'm

971
00:58:22,360 --> 00:58:25,160
Speaker 2: not that stupid, or at least I'm not that poor,

972
00:58:25,480 --> 00:58:28,360
Speaker 2: or at least I'm not that desperate or whatever. It's

973
00:58:28,480 --> 00:58:32,160
Speaker 2: it's it's it's weaponizing this impulse in human beings that

974
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:33,240
Speaker 2: is very nasty.

975
00:58:33,600 --> 00:58:38,080
Speaker 1: Agreed. I mean, think about too. I don't want to

976
00:58:38,120 --> 00:58:42,480
Speaker 1: be a stand and deliver character going these kids, but

977
00:58:42,640 --> 00:58:46,680
Speaker 1: think about it. Reality television can make this profound impact

978
00:58:46,720 --> 00:58:50,600
Speaker 1: on the mind of younger viewers especially. Are we, for instance,

979
00:58:50,800 --> 00:58:56,240
Speaker 1: teaching human beings to dehumanize other folks just because you

980
00:58:56,280 --> 00:58:58,840
Speaker 1: see them on a screen. Are we teaching audiences to

981
00:58:58,920 --> 00:59:03,640
Speaker 1: prize competition over collaboration, to value image and appearance over

982
00:59:03,760 --> 00:59:08,080
Speaker 1: merit and ability. Are we, as is so often alleged,

983
00:59:08,520 --> 00:59:11,440
Speaker 1: dumbing down our species. Because I can guarantee you a

984
00:59:11,440 --> 00:59:13,360
Speaker 1: lot of I don't know about you guys, but a

985
00:59:13,360 --> 00:59:15,320
Speaker 1: lot of my friends who don't live in the US

986
00:59:15,880 --> 00:59:19,480
Speaker 1: immediately think of the worst of reality television when they

987
00:59:19,560 --> 00:59:21,080
Speaker 1: think of the average US resident.

988
00:59:21,280 --> 00:59:24,280
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just on that on that competition angle. The

989
00:59:24,400 --> 00:59:28,080
Speaker 4: only extra thing I would put in there is that

990
00:59:28,160 --> 00:59:33,280
Speaker 4: some British competition shows, such as The Great British Baking Show,

991
00:59:33,320 --> 00:59:38,200
Speaker 4: do actually love foster the collaborative effort thing.

992
00:59:38,120 --> 00:59:44,160
Speaker 2: Behindness, gentleness, helping your fellow human beings. I love it.

993
00:59:44,400 --> 00:59:47,320
Speaker 2: Great British Bakeoff Show is the Baking Show is the best.

994
00:59:47,720 --> 00:59:50,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that one small thing makes it a completely

995
00:59:50,240 --> 00:59:54,080
Speaker 4: different experience, and the takeaway, the emotional takeaway from the

996
00:59:54,120 --> 00:59:59,640
Speaker 4: show is massively varied from something you'd get where you

997
00:59:59,640 --> 01:00:03,400
Speaker 4: know it's one takes all, and just because it's one

998
01:00:03,400 --> 01:00:06,120
Speaker 4: takes all, we all have to be at each other's

999
01:00:06,160 --> 01:00:07,400
Speaker 4: backs with knives.

1000
01:00:07,160 --> 01:00:10,040
Speaker 2: And there's still a winner. The Great British Banking Show

1001
01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:12,360
Speaker 2: has a winner. But at the end, all of the

1002
01:00:12,400 --> 01:00:15,760
Speaker 2: other competitors come back and they have a picnic on

1003
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:20,240
Speaker 2: the heath you know where the tent was pitched where

1004
01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:21,880
Speaker 2: they do the tent, you know, that's the whole thing

1005
01:00:21,880 --> 01:00:25,040
Speaker 2: takes place inside this massive tent and everyone says how

1006
01:00:25,120 --> 01:00:27,680
Speaker 2: much they love that person, how much they're so happy

1007
01:00:27,680 --> 01:00:29,760
Speaker 2: for them, and they deserve it. And you know, I

1008
01:00:29,800 --> 01:00:31,800
Speaker 2: wish it would have been me, but if it wasn't

1009
01:00:31,840 --> 01:00:34,760
Speaker 2: gonna be me, I'm glad it was whomever. There's this

1010
01:00:35,560 --> 01:00:41,040
Speaker 2: genuine me exactly. Yeah, there's this genuine sense of love

1011
01:00:41,200 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 2: in that show. And I'm sorry I'm gushing about great

1012
01:00:43,920 --> 01:00:45,800
Speaker 2: because it's coming back. By the way, there's a new

1013
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:49,360
Speaker 2: season I think starting this Friday or today, which we

1014
01:00:49,400 --> 01:00:51,520
Speaker 2: record this this episode, This whole.

1015
01:00:51,280 --> 01:00:54,360
Speaker 4: Thing has been a plug for The Great British Baking Show.

1016
01:00:56,080 --> 01:00:59,600
Speaker 1: So you know, I really appreciate you bringing up that point, Matt,

1017
01:00:59,640 --> 01:01:02,440
Speaker 1: because there's another example that's also in the world of

1018
01:01:02,480 --> 01:01:05,520
Speaker 1: reality TV cooking that I love to point to when

1019
01:01:05,520 --> 01:01:08,400
Speaker 1: people ask about the power of producers, and that is

1020
01:01:09,000 --> 01:01:13,360
Speaker 1: watch watch Gordon Ramsey in a US produced cooking show,

1021
01:01:13,480 --> 01:01:16,520
Speaker 1: watch his behavior, watch the character he portrays, and then

1022
01:01:16,640 --> 01:01:21,200
Speaker 1: watch him on a British show where he's much much

1023
01:01:21,280 --> 01:01:22,680
Speaker 1: less abrasive.

1024
01:01:22,920 --> 01:01:25,280
Speaker 2: Right, well, unless it's Kitchen Nightmares, which was a British

1025
01:01:25,320 --> 01:01:27,120
Speaker 2: show to start, and he is yelling at these people,

1026
01:01:27,160 --> 01:01:29,680
Speaker 2: but they all deserve it because they are detestable people.

1027
01:01:30,040 --> 01:01:34,640
Speaker 4: And Kitchen Nightmares. I don't know if there's British and

1028
01:01:34,760 --> 01:01:36,880
Speaker 4: US versions. I think there is, but no, there is

1029
01:01:37,040 --> 01:01:42,000
Speaker 4: the British one. He is helping people, it seemed like.

1030
01:01:42,560 --> 01:01:45,360
Speaker 2: But he still shames them to make them realize the

1031
01:01:45,360 --> 01:01:46,440
Speaker 2: air of their ways.

1032
01:01:46,680 --> 01:01:51,960
Speaker 4: But I'm telling you, the character that he plays is different,

1033
01:01:52,160 --> 01:01:53,040
Speaker 4: vastly different.

1034
01:01:53,080 --> 01:01:56,360
Speaker 2: I'll tell yeah, very well, maybe right, But I do

1035
01:01:56,440 --> 01:01:59,720
Speaker 2: remember having BBC America back when I had cable back

1036
01:01:59,760 --> 01:02:02,080
Speaker 2: in the day and got obsessed with kitchen nightmares, and

1037
01:02:02,120 --> 01:02:05,560
Speaker 2: it was definitely the British version, and he maybe wasn't

1038
01:02:05,640 --> 01:02:08,320
Speaker 2: quite as over the top of a caricature of himself,

1039
01:02:08,440 --> 01:02:11,520
Speaker 2: but he was still very no nonsense and doesn't take

1040
01:02:11,560 --> 01:02:14,000
Speaker 2: any crap and and would put people in their places

1041
01:02:14,120 --> 01:02:15,080
Speaker 2: very very quickly.

1042
01:02:15,480 --> 01:02:21,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, my argument is that that becomes radicalized or accelerated

1043
01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:27,040
Speaker 1: exacerbated in the US productions. But but I think you

1044
01:02:27,040 --> 01:02:30,880
Speaker 1: know what we're skirting around here is the hill that

1045
01:02:30,920 --> 01:02:33,480
Speaker 1: I've chosen to die on, which is the original Iron

1046
01:02:33,600 --> 01:02:36,240
Speaker 1: Chef is awesome. I don't care if it's fake.

1047
01:02:37,040 --> 01:02:39,120
Speaker 4: His hands down, you are correct sir.

1048
01:02:39,960 --> 01:02:41,640
Speaker 2: Can we talk about the fact that the guy that

1049
01:02:41,680 --> 01:02:45,480
Speaker 2: plays the chairman in the American Iron Chef was in

1050
01:02:45,520 --> 01:02:48,400
Speaker 2: the Double Dragon movie. I swear to god, I didn't

1051
01:02:48,400 --> 01:02:50,480
Speaker 2: know that he claims to be the descendant of the

1052
01:02:50,520 --> 01:02:54,000
Speaker 2: original chairman. I didn't know any of that was fake.

1053
01:02:54,720 --> 01:02:57,920
Speaker 4: Isn't that the wasn't in the Dan Show, the Dan

1054
01:02:57,960 --> 01:02:58,600
Speaker 4: Hormon Show.

1055
01:02:59,440 --> 01:03:03,720
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe so, Yeah, but had no idea. I was fooled.

1056
01:03:04,200 --> 01:03:12,000
Speaker 1: There's an honorable mention to the very brief original US reboot,

1057
01:03:12,000 --> 01:03:16,760
Speaker 1: which had William Shatner as the chairman and added Iron

1058
01:03:16,840 --> 01:03:19,720
Speaker 1: Chef America. I've got to watch that anyway, if you're

1059
01:03:19,720 --> 01:03:23,000
Speaker 1: bored on YouTube, check it out. Telling Benson to so,

1060
01:03:23,080 --> 01:03:26,080
Speaker 1: let's think about this idea of the competition. There's stuff

1061
01:03:26,080 --> 01:03:31,240
Speaker 1: to unpack here. So reality television promotes this belief that

1062
01:03:31,360 --> 01:03:35,040
Speaker 1: competition is the key to success, and in doing it

1063
01:03:35,160 --> 01:03:40,080
Speaker 1: so it's kind of pre programming some assumptions of capitalist economy.

1064
01:03:40,720 --> 01:03:43,760
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that that stuff is inherently evil, but

1065
01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:50,840
Speaker 1: I'm saying subliminally seeding people that incepting them, especially when

1066
01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:53,760
Speaker 1: they're at a young age, is maybe not the most

1067
01:03:54,600 --> 01:03:58,080
Speaker 1: well definitely not the most ethical thing, right, And whether

1068
01:03:58,160 --> 01:04:03,360
Speaker 1: we're talking about it's a surve winning millions of dollars,

1069
01:04:04,040 --> 01:04:07,120
Speaker 1: or someone on who wants to marry a multimillionaire or

1070
01:04:07,160 --> 01:04:13,000
Speaker 1: whatever getting a husband. These TV shows reinforce the idea

1071
01:04:13,040 --> 01:04:16,840
Speaker 1: that your life as well is only a competition. Like

1072
01:04:16,920 --> 01:04:20,640
Speaker 1: you said, Matt, people can only succeed by stabbing one

1073
01:04:20,680 --> 01:04:23,720
Speaker 1: another in the back. And look, we have you know,

1074
01:04:24,160 --> 01:04:27,960
Speaker 1: we have a all worked in a corporate structure before

1075
01:04:28,080 --> 01:04:31,320
Speaker 1: we know that. We know that to a degree, it

1076
01:04:31,480 --> 01:04:37,000
Speaker 1: rewards betrayal and it rewards people being horrible people. But

1077
01:04:37,200 --> 01:04:40,560
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean there's not an alternative. I think the

1078
01:04:40,600 --> 01:04:42,840
Speaker 1: biggest thing and the most damaging thing for a lot

1079
01:04:42,880 --> 01:04:48,920
Speaker 1: of children watching is this implicit argument that an image

1080
01:04:48,960 --> 01:04:52,400
Speaker 1: is more important than skill. Right that you don't like

1081
01:04:52,520 --> 01:04:57,400
Speaker 1: you don't have to bother doing the work. You don't

1082
01:04:57,400 --> 01:04:59,600
Speaker 1: have to bother practice, you don't have to bother getting

1083
01:04:59,640 --> 01:05:03,320
Speaker 1: experts tease. You just need someone else to take care

1084
01:05:03,360 --> 01:05:06,320
Speaker 1: of that backstage, and then you can reap the rewards.

1085
01:05:06,560 --> 01:05:09,800
Speaker 1: That's why I contestant with like a cool backstory or

1086
01:05:09,840 --> 01:05:13,360
Speaker 1: a quote unquote personality. They do or say controversial stuff.

1087
01:05:13,760 --> 01:05:17,080
Speaker 1: They'll often win at least a certain level of a

1088
01:05:17,160 --> 01:05:21,040
Speaker 1: competition over someone who might be like a better singer.

1089
01:05:21,600 --> 01:05:24,200
Speaker 1: But they're just they're they're just like you know, regular

1090
01:05:24,840 --> 01:05:30,000
Speaker 1: Jane or John last name, and they have a beautiful voice,

1091
01:05:30,520 --> 01:05:34,320
Speaker 1: but they don't have they don't have that sizzle. They

1092
01:05:34,360 --> 01:05:37,160
Speaker 1: don't have something for the audience to aspire toward or

1093
01:05:37,200 --> 01:05:41,480
Speaker 1: look down upon. They're too normal. And this I think

1094
01:05:41,520 --> 01:05:44,800
Speaker 1: that's one of the biggest dangers of reality TV because

1095
01:05:44,920 --> 01:05:47,800
Speaker 1: calling it that, like, think about how powerful the language is.

1096
01:05:48,000 --> 01:05:52,960
Speaker 1: Calling this reality TV does not just mislead viewers to

1097
01:05:53,080 --> 01:05:56,000
Speaker 1: assume what they're seeing is real, it also pulls a

1098
01:05:56,120 --> 01:05:59,959
Speaker 1: bait and switch, and a brilliant evil bait and switch,

1099
01:06:00,000 --> 01:06:05,840
Speaker 1: which calling this stuff suggest reality suggests that we, as

1100
01:06:05,880 --> 01:06:09,600
Speaker 1: the creators, are showing you society. What's that old argument,

1101
01:06:09,600 --> 01:06:12,760
Speaker 1: we're holding up a mirror, We're just we're replicating what's

1102
01:06:12,760 --> 01:06:16,640
Speaker 1: happening now. But are they really are they showing us

1103
01:06:16,680 --> 01:06:20,280
Speaker 1: a real society or are they showing you what people

1104
01:06:20,400 --> 01:06:24,680
Speaker 1: in power want you to think society should be? Like,

1105
01:06:24,760 --> 01:06:28,520
Speaker 1: are they telling you how they are comfortable with society

1106
01:06:28,640 --> 01:06:31,400
Speaker 1: working compete, don't collaborate well?

1107
01:06:31,640 --> 01:06:34,080
Speaker 2: Or Not only that, but it's also putting forth all

1108
01:06:34,080 --> 01:06:38,960
Speaker 2: of these very surfacey commercial kind of ideals and these

1109
01:06:39,440 --> 01:06:41,800
Speaker 2: aspirational in terms of like I want to have that

1110
01:06:41,960 --> 01:06:45,160
Speaker 2: million dollar home, I want to have these products, I

1111
01:06:45,200 --> 01:06:47,800
Speaker 2: want to live this lifestyle, and it's something that forces

1112
01:06:47,840 --> 01:06:51,560
Speaker 2: people to maybe spend money on Gucci belt bags they

1113
01:06:51,600 --> 01:06:54,560
Speaker 2: can't really afford because they want to look like a Kardashian.

1114
01:06:55,000 --> 01:06:57,880
Speaker 2: You know, it is in the best interest of the

1115
01:06:57,960 --> 01:07:01,920
Speaker 2: economy and of those power making lots of money for

1116
01:07:02,040 --> 01:07:05,880
Speaker 2: these shows to promote those kind of ideals and not

1117
01:07:06,080 --> 01:07:08,680
Speaker 2: this the ones that the British shows promote about helping

1118
01:07:08,720 --> 01:07:13,480
Speaker 2: your neighbor and collaborating and working together to make society

1119
01:07:13,520 --> 01:07:16,320
Speaker 2: better for everyone, because there are people with the vested

1120
01:07:16,400 --> 01:07:18,960
Speaker 2: interest in society not being better for everyone.

1121
01:07:19,200 --> 01:07:24,560
Speaker 1: Compete, don't collaborate, appeer to be like the way you

1122
01:07:24,640 --> 01:07:29,320
Speaker 1: look is more important than who you are, and people

1123
01:07:29,440 --> 01:07:35,680
Speaker 1: who have talent are irrelevant unless they look good doing it.

1124
01:07:36,160 --> 01:07:38,320
Speaker 1: This is very dangerous.

1125
01:07:37,920 --> 01:07:41,760
Speaker 4: Stuff well, and that dovetails ray into two things that

1126
01:07:41,880 --> 01:07:43,800
Speaker 4: I just want to talk about. We're talking about this

1127
01:07:43,920 --> 01:07:47,520
Speaker 4: being a cultural danger. I think this is more of

1128
01:07:47,600 --> 01:07:51,480
Speaker 4: a personal danger because, and this is just my opinion,

1129
01:07:52,080 --> 01:07:56,600
Speaker 4: I think reality television normalized the concept of needing a

1130
01:07:56,680 --> 01:08:01,360
Speaker 4: camera for mundane things to be recorded, which then went

1131
01:08:01,440 --> 01:08:06,360
Speaker 4: directly into social media, which then created within ourselves, each

1132
01:08:06,400 --> 01:08:09,720
Speaker 4: of us, the belief that it is worth taking a

1133
01:08:09,760 --> 01:08:12,360
Speaker 4: picture of the food you're about to take and then

1134
01:08:12,400 --> 01:08:16,600
Speaker 4: sharing it with everyone and placing your hopes on the

1135
01:08:16,960 --> 01:08:20,560
Speaker 4: possibility that somebody else might tell you that that was

1136
01:08:20,600 --> 01:08:21,360
Speaker 4: a great thing.

1137
01:08:21,760 --> 01:08:24,800
Speaker 2: Well, social media just made us all reality stars, made

1138
01:08:25,000 --> 01:08:27,360
Speaker 2: in our own minds, in our own minds, Matt, you

1139
01:08:27,439 --> 01:08:27,800
Speaker 2: know what I mean?

1140
01:08:27,840 --> 01:08:30,120
Speaker 1: That was my big Yeah, that was my big inter review.

1141
01:08:30,200 --> 01:08:31,639
Speaker 1: I'm glad we're on the same page.

1142
01:08:31,760 --> 01:08:32,439
Speaker 2: That's what happened.

1143
01:08:32,479 --> 01:08:35,479
Speaker 1: Sorry, that's what happened. No, No, you're right, that's the

1144
01:08:35,520 --> 01:08:38,880
Speaker 1: big God, I know, I would hate to feel like

1145
01:08:39,479 --> 01:08:42,599
Speaker 1: we're doing anything other than collaborating like this is. That's

1146
01:08:42,680 --> 01:08:46,120
Speaker 1: that's the big point, you know, because reality TV would

1147
01:08:46,120 --> 01:08:49,920
Speaker 1: have began again when cameras were more expensive, right, and

1148
01:08:49,960 --> 01:08:53,360
Speaker 1: the average person probably wouldn't afford wouldn't be able to

1149
01:08:53,400 --> 01:08:58,759
Speaker 1: afford a camera that could film moving pictures. And now

1150
01:08:58,880 --> 01:09:07,320
Speaker 1: everyone is told you should be a reality TV star,

1151
01:09:07,640 --> 01:09:11,400
Speaker 1: like you should be quote unquote on camera or on

1152
01:09:11,479 --> 01:09:15,280
Speaker 1: air all the time. This goes into the social dilemma,

1153
01:09:16,120 --> 01:09:20,480
Speaker 1: the stuff that documentary explores, the dopamine rush, the neurochemistry

1154
01:09:20,560 --> 01:09:24,519
Speaker 1: at play. But you know, very soon, I mean we're

1155
01:09:24,520 --> 01:09:28,519
Speaker 1: already past the point right of no return. Very soon,

1156
01:09:28,760 --> 01:09:33,000
Speaker 1: It is going to be uncommon for someone growing up

1157
01:09:33,200 --> 01:09:36,799
Speaker 1: in the age of information flood and ubiquitous media to

1158
01:09:36,840 --> 01:09:41,400
Speaker 1: not have some kind of nearly twenty four to seven

1159
01:09:42,160 --> 01:09:49,600
Speaker 1: data stream information about them. And then it will become recursive, increasingly,

1160
01:09:49,720 --> 01:09:54,880
Speaker 1: the concept of perception and creation and what is or

1161
01:09:54,960 --> 01:09:58,719
Speaker 1: is not the real It becomes an argument, It becomes

1162
01:09:58,720 --> 01:10:03,200
Speaker 1: a metaphor of two mirror facing each other with nothing

1163
01:10:03,280 --> 01:10:07,760
Speaker 1: between them, reflecting only themselves into infinity, and that's I

1164
01:10:07,760 --> 01:10:09,360
Speaker 1: don't know about you. That's not a world I want

1165
01:10:09,360 --> 01:10:09,680
Speaker 1: to live in.

1166
01:10:10,120 --> 01:10:13,320
Speaker 4: No, no, thank you, no thank you. That's infinite black mirror,

1167
01:10:13,400 --> 01:10:14,559
Speaker 4: and that sounds awful.

1168
01:10:15,120 --> 01:10:17,720
Speaker 2: It's the same as the echo chamber of effect we

1169
01:10:17,800 --> 01:10:20,639
Speaker 2: talked about on a recent news episode, and we're talking

1170
01:10:20,640 --> 01:10:25,760
Speaker 2: about Facebook and polarization of people's opinions because we're all

1171
01:10:25,760 --> 01:10:28,760
Speaker 2: just looking at ourselves. We're not looking at others, we're

1172
01:10:28,760 --> 01:10:33,920
Speaker 2: not listening to other perspectives. We're so self centered, both

1173
01:10:34,439 --> 01:10:39,439
Speaker 2: ideologically and aesthetically that we just who cares what anyone else?

1174
01:10:39,439 --> 01:10:41,439
Speaker 2: I mean? But we do look at others, but we

1175
01:10:41,479 --> 01:10:43,280
Speaker 2: only look at it through the mirror and the lens

1176
01:10:43,320 --> 01:10:47,559
Speaker 2: of ourselves. And why am I not that pretty? Why

1177
01:10:47,560 --> 01:10:50,599
Speaker 2: am I not that you know, rich or whatever. We're

1178
01:10:50,640 --> 01:10:53,479
Speaker 2: not thinking about those people as people. They just represent

1179
01:10:53,560 --> 01:10:55,480
Speaker 2: something that we want for ourselves.

1180
01:10:55,720 --> 01:11:00,320
Speaker 4: Well, I think in the end it's it's an insidious thing,

1181
01:11:00,960 --> 01:11:04,439
Speaker 4: But I don't think it's I personally don't think it's

1182
01:11:04,520 --> 01:11:07,800
Speaker 4: like they some specific they that wants us to be

1183
01:11:07,960 --> 01:11:16,240
Speaker 4: this way. Besides just overall consumerism and large, maybe it

1184
01:11:16,320 --> 01:11:20,040
Speaker 4: is just capitalism with a giant sea that anyone who

1185
01:11:20,080 --> 01:11:25,360
Speaker 4: benefits from selling goods and services and you know, massive

1186
01:11:25,439 --> 01:11:28,280
Speaker 4: global economies. Maybe it's just the global economy that we

1187
01:11:28,320 --> 01:11:31,320
Speaker 4: could blame for it, where where they need they need

1188
01:11:31,400 --> 01:11:34,640
Speaker 4: us to be thinking about things and stuff that we

1189
01:11:34,720 --> 01:11:37,720
Speaker 4: can buy and when we're sharing all that stuff. It's

1190
01:11:37,760 --> 01:11:41,720
Speaker 4: no there's no secret that there are ads. If you're

1191
01:11:41,760 --> 01:11:44,360
Speaker 4: scrolling through Instagram or whatever you're using, there's an ad

1192
01:11:44,400 --> 01:11:47,519
Speaker 4: every three or four spaces that you're scrolling past, and

1193
01:11:47,560 --> 01:11:51,320
Speaker 4: that is very I mean, there's a reason for that.

1194
01:11:51,560 --> 01:11:54,479
Speaker 4: It's because you're consuming and consuming, consuming, and there's another

1195
01:11:54,520 --> 01:11:56,240
Speaker 4: thing that you can consume and it's so easy you

1196
01:11:56,280 --> 01:11:58,880
Speaker 4: just click on it. And I think the real danger

1197
01:11:58,880 --> 01:12:03,080
Speaker 4: here it's there's a the common phrase of dumbing down society,

1198
01:12:03,160 --> 01:12:06,200
Speaker 4: right that we and that is to an extent correct,

1199
01:12:06,240 --> 01:12:09,200
Speaker 4: But I think the biggest thing is that it's decreasing

1200
01:12:09,439 --> 01:12:14,639
Speaker 4: mindfulness and self awareness and and the awareness of others.

1201
01:12:14,920 --> 01:12:17,080
Speaker 4: It's kind of what you're hitting on there, guys. It's

1202
01:12:17,120 --> 01:12:19,680
Speaker 4: just I think that's the danger, and that's the real

1203
01:12:19,760 --> 01:12:24,040
Speaker 4: insidious thing. And a lot of the people that are

1204
01:12:24,120 --> 01:12:26,599
Speaker 4: creating this stuff, the reality television and all these things

1205
01:12:26,600 --> 01:12:28,799
Speaker 4: that come together, they don't even realize that they're working,

1206
01:12:29,320 --> 01:12:32,400
Speaker 4: you know, towards that end goal. They're just as we

1207
01:12:32,439 --> 01:12:35,439
Speaker 4: outlined earlier, they're doing all of these they're doing it

1208
01:12:35,479 --> 01:12:37,400
Speaker 4: for all the reasons that we outlined. Right.

1209
01:12:37,800 --> 01:12:41,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's not Look, it's not like it's not

1210
01:12:41,800 --> 01:12:46,000
Speaker 1: as if there is some sort of shadowy cupball of

1211
01:12:46,160 --> 01:12:49,720
Speaker 1: people who secretly, through a series of front organizations, own

1212
01:12:50,200 --> 01:12:53,639
Speaker 1: the entirety of media and want everybody to turn into

1213
01:12:53,720 --> 01:12:58,000
Speaker 1: an increasingly your person. It's it's instead, it's a matter

1214
01:12:58,160 --> 01:13:01,160
Speaker 1: of how much profit can we make, how quickly can

1215
01:13:01,200 --> 01:13:04,639
Speaker 1: we make it. Consequences be damned, And that's like that's

1216
01:13:05,280 --> 01:13:08,720
Speaker 1: I know that's maybe a harsh, a harsh way to

1217
01:13:08,760 --> 01:13:12,720
Speaker 1: say it, but also we have to be we have

1218
01:13:12,800 --> 01:13:16,040
Speaker 1: to be very clear with this We're not saying that

1219
01:13:16,080 --> 01:13:20,439
Speaker 1: the people who are making reality TV or participating in

1220
01:13:20,479 --> 01:13:25,720
Speaker 1: it are somehow across the board terrible, terrible people. We're

1221
01:13:25,760 --> 01:13:29,200
Speaker 1: also we're also not accusing anybody in the production of

1222
01:13:29,280 --> 01:13:36,840
Speaker 1: reality TV of being some super brilliant, evil mastermind purposely

1223
01:13:37,840 --> 01:13:42,439
Speaker 1: driving us away from the contemplation of reality off the screen.

1224
01:13:43,160 --> 01:13:46,880
Speaker 1: We're saying, that's what happened. This is again, again, again, again, again,

1225
01:13:47,240 --> 01:13:52,680
Speaker 1: This is Mickey Mouse SORCER's Apprentice Fantasia. We automated some brooms,

1226
01:13:52,960 --> 01:13:57,000
Speaker 1: the brooms, automated more brooms, and now the house is flooding,

1227
01:13:57,320 --> 01:14:01,599
Speaker 1: and there is not an easy way. That is just clear.

1228
01:14:01,760 --> 01:14:04,880
Speaker 1: But there are also maybe positive impacts of reality TV.

1229
01:14:05,240 --> 01:14:09,479
Speaker 1: People really do win millions of dollars. People maybe have

1230
01:14:09,680 --> 01:14:14,680
Speaker 1: really found genuine romantic love. People's lives may have been

1231
01:14:14,760 --> 01:14:18,240
Speaker 1: changed for the better. But I mean, what do you think, Like,

1232
01:14:18,320 --> 01:14:21,280
Speaker 1: I was thinking of positive examples, and I can only

1233
01:14:21,720 --> 01:14:23,360
Speaker 1: they're outweighed by the negatives.

1234
01:14:23,760 --> 01:14:26,439
Speaker 4: I am now aware of what an ice road trucker is. Okay,

1235
01:14:26,479 --> 01:14:30,280
Speaker 4: I didn't know that was a potential job route for anybody,

1236
01:14:30,320 --> 01:14:31,479
Speaker 4: but now I know it's there.

1237
01:14:31,640 --> 01:14:34,640
Speaker 2: There are also shows like Queer Eye, for example, like

1238
01:14:35,080 --> 01:14:38,200
Speaker 2: that is a very important way of I don't know,

1239
01:14:38,280 --> 01:14:42,160
Speaker 2: normalizing a lifestyle and a type of people that some

1240
01:14:42,200 --> 01:14:46,639
Speaker 2: people in Middle America never see or some present representation exactly.

1241
01:14:46,680 --> 01:14:49,080
Speaker 2: And I think that's important. And Queer Eye, especially the

1242
01:14:49,120 --> 01:14:52,439
Speaker 2: new season, is much more like that great British Baking

1243
01:14:52,560 --> 01:14:56,679
Speaker 2: show style of programming, where they're here to help people.

1244
01:14:57,040 --> 01:14:59,840
Speaker 2: They are very it's all about inclusivity and about making

1245
01:14:59,840 --> 01:15:03,200
Speaker 2: pe people feel good about themselves and empowering people, you know.

1246
01:15:03,720 --> 01:15:07,000
Speaker 2: But again it's also it really is important in its

1247
01:15:07,040 --> 01:15:11,800
Speaker 2: representation of the gay and queer community in places that

1248
01:15:11,920 --> 01:15:14,960
Speaker 2: just don't see that and maybe have a negative idea

1249
01:15:14,960 --> 01:15:17,840
Speaker 2: of what that means. And this can kind of normalize

1250
01:15:17,840 --> 01:15:21,320
Speaker 2: that in a very important way. And also it's something

1251
01:15:21,320 --> 01:15:23,799
Speaker 2: that kids grow up seeing and it makes them feel

1252
01:15:23,960 --> 01:15:26,519
Speaker 2: if they end up deciding that that's how they feel

1253
01:15:26,680 --> 01:15:29,720
Speaker 2: in terms of their how they identify, it gives them

1254
01:15:29,960 --> 01:15:33,080
Speaker 2: something that they've seen since they were little that lets

1255
01:15:33,120 --> 01:15:35,479
Speaker 2: them know that they're, you know, not alone. No one

1256
01:15:35,520 --> 01:15:37,640
Speaker 2: has to struggle with those kinds of things anymore, the

1257
01:15:37,680 --> 01:15:40,519
Speaker 2: idea of coming out because you have all these stories

1258
01:15:40,600 --> 01:15:43,400
Speaker 2: on shows like that. So I think that's that's that's

1259
01:15:43,400 --> 01:15:44,519
Speaker 2: a positive, agreed.

1260
01:15:45,080 --> 01:15:51,120
Speaker 1: So a question we end on today is we've outlined

1261
01:15:51,600 --> 01:15:55,400
Speaker 1: the dangers, the potential, the trends, the history, the present,

1262
01:15:55,479 --> 01:15:59,080
Speaker 1: the past and the future, and what we think about it.

1263
01:15:59,600 --> 01:16:02,479
Speaker 1: But as always the most important part is to hear

1264
01:16:02,560 --> 01:16:06,880
Speaker 1: what you think about it. Specifically, you what are the

1265
01:16:07,000 --> 01:16:14,040
Speaker 1: positive impacts of reality TV? Are they outweighed by the negative?

1266
01:16:15,479 --> 01:16:19,240
Speaker 1: What do you feel when you are watching these what

1267
01:16:19,320 --> 01:16:23,800
Speaker 1: reactions are inspired in your mind? What do you think

1268
01:16:23,840 --> 01:16:27,800
Speaker 1: the future of reality television will be? To speaking for

1269
01:16:27,880 --> 01:16:30,599
Speaker 1: myself here, I'd love to hear your take. I also

1270
01:16:30,640 --> 01:16:31,720
Speaker 1: want to know if we're going to live in a

1271
01:16:31,800 --> 01:16:36,439
Speaker 1: dystopian world where having a twenty four to seven stream

1272
01:16:36,960 --> 01:16:40,439
Speaker 1: somehow curated of your life is as important as having

1273
01:16:40,520 --> 01:16:43,920
Speaker 1: a social Security number or something like. I think we're

1274
01:16:43,960 --> 01:16:48,120
Speaker 1: already curating our lives through social media right in one

1275
01:16:48,160 --> 01:16:52,280
Speaker 1: degree or another, We're all becoming a brand. So tell

1276
01:16:52,320 --> 01:16:54,400
Speaker 1: us how far you think it'll go. You can find

1277
01:16:54,479 --> 01:16:59,000
Speaker 1: us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. You can find us on

1278
01:16:59,040 --> 01:17:02,640
Speaker 1: our social media sites right we recommend Here's where it

1279
01:17:02,640 --> 01:17:05,839
Speaker 1: gets crazy. If you're still on Facebook, you can see

1280
01:17:06,240 --> 01:17:09,280
Speaker 1: our favorite part of the show, our fellow listeners. You

1281
01:17:09,280 --> 01:17:12,080
Speaker 1: can also find us if you wish as individuals.

1282
01:17:12,280 --> 01:17:14,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm on Instagram at how Now, Noel Brown.

1283
01:17:15,120 --> 01:17:18,360
Speaker 4: I am Matt Frederick Underscore, iHeart.

1284
01:17:18,560 --> 01:17:21,200
Speaker 1: You can find me at Ben Bullin HSW on Twitter.

1285
01:17:21,240 --> 01:17:25,160
Speaker 1: You can also find me at Ben Bollin on Instagram.

1286
01:17:25,520 --> 01:17:30,080
Speaker 1: And if you think social media is not your cup

1287
01:17:30,080 --> 01:17:32,000
Speaker 1: of hammers or your bag of badgers, I don't know

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01:17:32,000 --> 01:17:32,360
Speaker 1: what a cup.

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Speaker 2: How many hammers can you send a cup?

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01:17:33,840 --> 01:17:35,439
Speaker 1: Then that's the size of the cup.

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01:17:35,600 --> 01:17:37,839
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is the handle, It's really the handle.

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01:17:40,439 --> 01:17:43,720
Speaker 1: We have a way for you to contact us via telephone.

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01:17:43,840 --> 01:17:48,600
Speaker 4: That's right. Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK.

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01:17:48,920 --> 01:17:52,320
Speaker 4: Leave a message, talk to us anything you want to say,

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01:17:52,400 --> 01:17:55,400
Speaker 4: all your thoughts on this episode or anything else. Just

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01:17:55,400 --> 01:17:57,160
Speaker 4: to put it on that line. There you get three

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01:17:57,160 --> 01:17:58,840
Speaker 4: minutes and let us know if you want to be

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01:17:58,920 --> 01:18:00,280
Speaker 4: on air or not. Do you want to to use

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01:18:00,320 --> 01:18:02,840
Speaker 4: your name? Little things like that that's helpful for us.

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01:18:02,920 --> 01:18:05,120
Speaker 4: Otherwise we just say anonymous person called.

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01:18:05,840 --> 01:18:08,360
Speaker 2: Something just flooded back to my memory when I heard

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01:18:08,360 --> 01:18:10,800
Speaker 2: you say that I had a dream last night that

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01:18:10,840 --> 01:18:13,400
Speaker 2: we were all in the same room together recording an

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01:18:13,439 --> 01:18:16,280
Speaker 2: episode for the first time, and it was very important

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01:18:16,320 --> 01:18:20,000
Speaker 2: that we said that phone number together for the first time,

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01:18:20,320 --> 01:18:23,080
Speaker 2: and we talked about how cathartic that was going to be.

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01:18:24,400 --> 01:18:27,880
Speaker 4: It's a spell we will cast again someday soon, Greed.

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01:18:28,240 --> 01:18:29,320
Speaker 2: And if you don't want to do any of that

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01:18:29,320 --> 01:18:30,600
Speaker 2: stuff and you want to just get in touch with

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01:18:30,640 --> 01:18:32,400
Speaker 2: us the old fashioned way, why not just send us

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01:18:32,439 --> 01:18:33,439
Speaker 2: a good old email.

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Speaker 6: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

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01:18:56,040 --> 01:18:58,120
Speaker 4: Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production

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01:18:58,240 --> 01:19:02,760
Speaker 4: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.