WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.459 it is monday february 2nd 2026 and today we are 00:00:05.459 --> 00:00:08.460 doing something well something a little dangerous 00:00:08.460 --> 00:00:12.410 we are taking a genre that let's be honest Most 00:00:12.410 --> 00:00:15.029 people dismiss as trash. You know, the guilty 00:00:15.029 --> 00:00:17.670 pleasure, the background noise while you fold 00:00:17.670 --> 00:00:19.829 laundry. Yeah, the stuff you don't admit to watching 00:00:19.829 --> 00:00:21.969 at a dinner party. Exactly. And we're going to 00:00:21.969 --> 00:00:24.190 argue that it is actually the most significant 00:00:24.190 --> 00:00:28.429 cultural shift of the last 50 years. The bold 00:00:28.429 --> 00:00:30.510 claim. I can already hear people rolling their 00:00:30.510 --> 00:00:33.450 eyes thinking, oh great, an hour on people throwing 00:00:33.450 --> 00:00:36.009 wine at each other. Right. But that's the thing. 00:00:36.229 --> 00:00:38.229 But when you actually look at the stack of research 00:00:38.229 --> 00:00:41.840 we have today, it's... It's a hard argument to 00:00:41.840 --> 00:00:44.380 refute. We aren't just talking about entertainment 00:00:44.380 --> 00:00:47.280 anymore. We're talking about a fundamental change 00:00:47.280 --> 00:00:51.039 in how human beings perceive reality itself, 00:00:51.280 --> 00:00:54.380 how we perceive truth. Exactly. We are diving 00:00:54.380 --> 00:00:56.859 deep into reality television. And look, if you're 00:00:56.859 --> 00:00:58.619 listening to this thinking, I don't watch The 00:00:58.619 --> 00:01:00.179 Bachelor, I don't watch The Housewives, this 00:01:00.179 --> 00:01:02.520 doesn't apply to me, you are wrong. You're absolutely 00:01:02.520 --> 00:01:05.359 wrong. Because the mechanics invented by reality 00:01:05.359 --> 00:01:09.180 TV, the confessionals, the editing of truth, 00:01:09.439 --> 00:01:13.340 the commodification of the self, they've escaped 00:01:13.340 --> 00:01:14.859 the television screen. Oh, they've completely 00:01:14.859 --> 00:01:16.859 broken containment. They've run our social media 00:01:16.859 --> 00:01:18.700 now. They're starting to run our politics. You 00:01:18.700 --> 00:01:20.519 know, it's funny you put it that way. We've essentially 00:01:20.519 --> 00:01:23.680 built a society that operates on the rules of 00:01:23.680 --> 00:01:26.739 Survivor. It's true. Yes. The genre has moved 00:01:26.739 --> 00:01:29.140 from being a fad, which is what everyone called 00:01:29.140 --> 00:01:32.950 it in 2001, to being, well. the operating system 00:01:32.950 --> 00:01:35.409 of modern culture. So our mission today is to 00:01:35.409 --> 00:01:38.670 figure out how on earth that happened. We are 00:01:38.670 --> 00:01:41.790 going to dig up the absolute roots of this, which 00:01:41.790 --> 00:01:45.049 go back way, way further than the 1990s. Much 00:01:45.049 --> 00:01:47.689 further. We're talking Nazi Germany. We're talking 00:01:47.689 --> 00:01:50.930 the 1988 Writers Guild strike. We are going to 00:01:50.930 --> 00:01:53.730 break down what the industry calls soft scripting. 00:01:53.810 --> 00:01:56.099 And I think... We need to answer that really 00:01:56.099 --> 00:01:58.840 big central question. Right. Did reality TV just 00:01:58.840 --> 00:02:00.700 hold up a mirror and reflect who we were already? 00:02:00.879 --> 00:02:02.980 Or did it actually train us? Or did it train 00:02:02.980 --> 00:02:04.879 us to be who we are now? That's the real question. 00:02:05.079 --> 00:02:07.579 OK, so let's start with the basics. Before we 00:02:07.579 --> 00:02:11.300 get into the the wild history, we need a working 00:02:11.300 --> 00:02:15.430 definition because reality TV is this. massive 00:02:15.430 --> 00:02:18.090 umbrella that's huge it covers everything from 00:02:18.090 --> 00:02:21.090 a singing competition to you know a documentary 00:02:21.090 --> 00:02:24.069 about crab fishing and the Bering Sea right and 00:02:24.069 --> 00:02:26.229 they're totally different experiences so if you 00:02:26.229 --> 00:02:28.210 look at the academic definitions the thing they 00:02:28.210 --> 00:02:32.169 all have in common is it boils down to a genre 00:02:32.169 --> 00:02:36.870 of programming that documents purportedly unscripted 00:02:36.870 --> 00:02:40.069 real life situations. Purportedly. Purportedly 00:02:40.069 --> 00:02:42.629 is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. 00:02:42.830 --> 00:02:46.009 It's doing all the work. Starring ordinary people, 00:02:46.090 --> 00:02:48.310 or at least they start as ordinary people rather 00:02:48.310 --> 00:02:51.080 than professional actors. Okay, so. unscripted 00:02:51.080 --> 00:02:53.340 and ordinary people. But that could also describe 00:02:53.340 --> 00:02:55.699 a Ken Burns documentary. What's the difference? 00:02:55.900 --> 00:02:58.039 Well, there are structural markers. Right. Things 00:02:58.039 --> 00:03:00.080 that separate it. The biggest one is the confessional. 00:03:00.099 --> 00:03:01.879 Right. The interview. The interview segments, 00:03:02.099 --> 00:03:03.699 you know, where the action freezes and the cast 00:03:03.699 --> 00:03:07.000 member sits down, looks just off camera and narrates 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:09.050 their inner monologue to us. I couldn't believe 00:03:09.050 --> 00:03:11.229 she said that. It gives you the internal thoughts 00:03:11.229 --> 00:03:13.110 that a documentary would usually just let you 00:03:13.110 --> 00:03:15.770 infer. Exactly. It removes all subtext. Yeah. 00:03:15.849 --> 00:03:17.650 Then you often have an elimination format, which 00:03:17.650 --> 00:03:19.789 is key. Yeah. And probably the biggest thing 00:03:19.789 --> 00:03:22.930 is a deliberate blurring of the line between 00:03:22.930 --> 00:03:25.409 observing reality and creating entertainment. 00:03:26.110 --> 00:03:29.729 A documentarian's goal is to observe. A reality 00:03:29.729 --> 00:03:32.349 producer's goal is to make a good TV show. And 00:03:32.349 --> 00:03:35.969 if reality is boring, you goose it a little bit. 00:03:36.009 --> 00:03:37.900 You goose it. You produce it. That's the key. 00:03:37.979 --> 00:03:40.400 Okay. So with that in mind, let's jump into the 00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:42.719 history. Because the timeline in these notes, 00:03:42.860 --> 00:03:45.500 it just blew my mind. I think most of us, myself 00:03:45.500 --> 00:03:48.240 included, assume this all started with the real 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:50.439 world or maybe candid camera. That's the common 00:03:50.439 --> 00:03:54.219 wisdom. But you found something much, much darker 00:03:54.219 --> 00:03:57.819 and older. It is controversial and some media 00:03:57.819 --> 00:04:00.620 historians debate it. But if we are looking for 00:04:00.620 --> 00:04:04.080 the absolute first instance of observing ordinary 00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:07.469 people in a domestic setting for... We have to 00:04:07.469 --> 00:04:10.870 look at Germany. When? In the 1940s. Wow. During 00:04:10.870 --> 00:04:13.009 the Nazi regime. Yes. There was a show called 00:04:13.009 --> 00:04:15.490 Familienkroniken. It translates to A Night with 00:04:15.490 --> 00:04:17.790 Hans and Jelly. And it featured a young couple. 00:04:18.310 --> 00:04:21.089 Now, here's the thing. They weren't actors playing 00:04:21.089 --> 00:04:24.329 a role. They were presented as themselves, acting 00:04:24.329 --> 00:04:28.009 as model Aryans. So it was aspirational. This 00:04:28.009 --> 00:04:30.089 is how you should live. It was pure propaganda. 00:04:30.629 --> 00:04:32.930 They were presenting their everyday lives to 00:04:32.930 --> 00:04:35.800 the camera. supposedly without a script, to show 00:04:35.800 --> 00:04:38.160 the ideal German home life. That is absolutely 00:04:38.160 --> 00:04:41.160 chilling. It's reality TV as a tool of the state. 00:04:41.319 --> 00:04:43.980 From its very inception. It was heavily censored, 00:04:44.019 --> 00:04:46.759 obviously, curated to present a very specific 00:04:46.759 --> 00:04:49.540 image. But structurally, if you look at the core 00:04:49.540 --> 00:04:52.600 components, it fits the definition. It's the 00:04:52.600 --> 00:04:55.459 weaponization of the ordinary. Precisely. It 00:04:55.459 --> 00:04:58.600 established from day one that this genre was 00:04:58.600 --> 00:05:01.339 not about capturing truth. It was about manufacturing 00:05:01.339 --> 00:05:03.959 a specific version of it. So from the very beginning, 00:05:04.139 --> 00:05:06.620 the genre was about manipulation. That sets a 00:05:06.620 --> 00:05:08.699 dark precedent. OK, so let's fast forward a bit. 00:05:08.740 --> 00:05:10.600 Let's move into the post -war era. This is where 00:05:10.600 --> 00:05:12.160 we get the stuff that looks a lot more familiar 00:05:12.160 --> 00:05:15.959 to American audiences. Right. 1948. This is the 00:05:15.959 --> 00:05:18.420 name everyone knows. Alan Funt. Candid Camera. 00:05:18.620 --> 00:05:21.120 Candid Camera. This is the prototype for a huge 00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:24.259 branch of the reality tree. He actually started 00:05:24.259 --> 00:05:28.519 it on radio as The Candid Microphone, which is 00:05:28.519 --> 00:05:30.959 a fascinating idea in itself. A prank show on 00:05:30.959 --> 00:05:33.279 the radio. Yeah, but moving it to television 00:05:33.279 --> 00:05:35.279 where you could see the faces, that changed the 00:05:35.279 --> 00:05:38.000 game. It was pranks, sure. You know, the talking 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:40.879 mailbox, the car with no engine. But the core 00:05:40.879 --> 00:05:43.459 appeal wasn't actually the prank itself. It was 00:05:43.459 --> 00:05:45.779 the reaction. It was the reaction. It was watching 00:05:45.779 --> 00:05:49.199 a normal person's face go from confusion to anger 00:05:49.199 --> 00:05:52.980 to laughter when they realized what was happening. 00:05:53.230 --> 00:05:55.329 It was the first time a mass audience was asked 00:05:55.329 --> 00:05:57.829 to find entertainment in the raw, unpolished, 00:05:57.870 --> 00:06:00.529 unscripted reactions of regular people. And that 00:06:00.529 --> 00:06:03.129 hunger for realness just kept growing. I mean, 00:06:03.129 --> 00:06:04.889 throughout the 50s, you had all these weird early 00:06:04.889 --> 00:06:07.069 experiments. It was like Queen for a Day, which 00:06:07.069 --> 00:06:09.829 was just brutal. Oh, that show was something 00:06:09.829 --> 00:06:12.269 else. Women competing over who had the most tragic 00:06:12.269 --> 00:06:15.990 life to win a washing machine. Exactly. Or Confession, 00:06:16.050 --> 00:06:18.449 a show from 1958 where they just interviewed 00:06:18.449 --> 00:06:21.629 criminals. Like a precursor to all the true crime 00:06:21.629 --> 00:06:23.689 stuff we see now. So the seeds are there. But 00:06:23.689 --> 00:06:27.509 the next major evolution, the shift from it being 00:06:27.509 --> 00:06:30.029 a gimmick to something more like a documentary, 00:06:30.370 --> 00:06:32.790 that happens across the pond. It happens in the 00:06:32.790 --> 00:06:36.730 UK in 1964. This is the Up series. Seven Up. 00:06:36.889 --> 00:06:39.350 A masterpiece. I mean, truly one of the greatest 00:06:39.350 --> 00:06:42.290 achievements in television history, reality or 00:06:42.290 --> 00:06:44.230 otherwise. Explain the concept for anyone who 00:06:44.230 --> 00:06:46.829 hasn't seen it. So Granada Television, a British 00:06:46.829 --> 00:06:49.769 network. They interviewed 14 seven -year -olds 00:06:49.769 --> 00:06:52.050 from wildly different social backgrounds in the 00:06:52.050 --> 00:06:55.550 UK. You had kids from the absolute upper crust, 00:06:55.649 --> 00:06:57.750 you know, boarding schools, and kids from the 00:06:57.750 --> 00:07:00.569 east end of London from poverty. And the premise 00:07:00.569 --> 00:07:02.850 was based on that Jesuit motto, right? Exactly. 00:07:02.850 --> 00:07:05.290 Give me a child until he's seven and I will give 00:07:05.290 --> 00:07:08.110 you the man. The idea was to see if England's 00:07:08.110 --> 00:07:10.889 rigid class structure in the 60s predetermined 00:07:10.889 --> 00:07:13.730 their lives. A fascinating sociological experiment. 00:07:13.970 --> 00:07:17.170 But the key is... They didn't stop. They didn't 00:07:17.170 --> 00:07:19.629 stop. They went back every seven years, 14 up, 00:07:19.709 --> 00:07:23.509 21 up, 28 up, all the way to 63 up a few years 00:07:23.509 --> 00:07:25.389 ago. You watch these people live their entire 00:07:25.389 --> 00:07:27.209 lives. You see them fall in love, get divorced, 00:07:27.389 --> 00:07:29.790 have kids, face illnesses. And think about what 00:07:29.790 --> 00:07:33.310 that did culturally. These weren't actors. They 00:07:33.310 --> 00:07:35.550 were just regular kids who signed up for a documentary. 00:07:36.069 --> 00:07:38.810 But through the simple act of sustained observation. 00:07:39.480 --> 00:07:41.519 They became celebrities. They became celebrities. 00:07:41.740 --> 00:07:44.399 The audience felt they knew them. We have a relationship 00:07:44.399 --> 00:07:47.000 with Tony the cab driver or Neil the politician. 00:07:47.420 --> 00:07:50.139 That is the direct ancestor of the parasocial 00:07:50.139 --> 00:07:52.139 relationships we have with Instagram influencers 00:07:52.139 --> 00:07:55.019 today. It's that same mechanism. It proved that 00:07:55.019 --> 00:07:57.000 an ordinary life, if you zoom in close enough 00:07:57.000 --> 00:07:59.019 and you stick with it, is incredibly compelling. 00:07:59.279 --> 00:08:01.399 More compelling than fiction sometimes. So if 00:08:01.399 --> 00:08:05.879 7 Up was the sort of highbrow, respectable documentary 00:08:05.879 --> 00:08:11.439 ancestor. The 1970s gave us the messy, dramatic 00:08:11.439 --> 00:08:14.500 soap opera Ancestors. Oh, yeah. An American Family, 00:08:14.779 --> 00:08:18.100 1973, on PBS of all places. This show is legendary. 00:08:18.160 --> 00:08:20.139 People still talk about it. It was a 12 -part 00:08:20.139 --> 00:08:22.040 series. The filmmakers moved in with the Loud 00:08:22.040 --> 00:08:24.579 family, a wealthy family in Santa Barbara, California. 00:08:24.839 --> 00:08:27.680 It was intended to be, again, a serious anthropological 00:08:27.680 --> 00:08:30.180 study of the American nuclear family at a time 00:08:30.180 --> 00:08:33.279 of great change. But reality intervened. Reality 00:08:33.279 --> 00:08:35.860 had other plans. During the filming, the parents, 00:08:36.039 --> 00:08:40.500 Pat and Bill Loud, Their marriage just, it crumbled. 00:08:40.860 --> 00:08:43.639 And they decided to divorce. On camera. Pat asks 00:08:43.639 --> 00:08:46.379 Bill for a divorce on camera. It's an incredibly 00:08:46.379 --> 00:08:48.759 raw, uncomfortable moment. I can't even imagine. 00:08:48.820 --> 00:08:50.860 And that wasn't the only thing. Not at all. Yeah. 00:08:50.940 --> 00:08:53.919 Their oldest son, Lance Loud, he came out as 00:08:53.919 --> 00:08:58.039 gay. And in 1973, having an openly gay man on 00:08:58.039 --> 00:09:01.000 television who wasn't a stereotype, who was just 00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:03.159 living his life in New York's counterculture. 00:09:03.980 --> 00:09:06.419 It was revolutionary. And the audience went absolutely 00:09:06.419 --> 00:09:09.379 nuts. It got huge ratings for PBS. It was on 00:09:09.379 --> 00:09:11.980 the cover of Newsweek. It had the slow observational 00:09:11.980 --> 00:09:14.559 pacing of a documentary, but it had the plot 00:09:14.559 --> 00:09:17.539 twists of a soap opera. Yeah. Divorce, betrayal, 00:09:17.799 --> 00:09:20.620 a son breaking societal norms. That's the secret 00:09:20.620 --> 00:09:22.460 sauce, isn't it? That's the secret sauce. The 00:09:22.460 --> 00:09:24.799 producers of MTV's The Real World, the show we'll 00:09:24.799 --> 00:09:27.539 get to, explicitly cited an American family as 00:09:27.539 --> 00:09:29.419 their number one inspiration. They saw the formula. 00:09:29.480 --> 00:09:31.240 They realized that if you just put cameras on 00:09:31.240 --> 00:09:33.370 people long enough. The cracks will eventually 00:09:33.370 --> 00:09:35.350 show. And the cracks are where the entertainment 00:09:35.350 --> 00:09:37.909 is. Okay, so we're building the creative lineage 00:09:37.909 --> 00:09:40.330 here. We have the pranks, the long -form documentary, 00:09:40.690 --> 00:09:43.070 the family drama. But I want to pause on the 00:09:43.070 --> 00:09:47.090 1980s. Because we often think about art and creativity 00:09:47.090 --> 00:09:49.710 driving culture. But more often than not, it's 00:09:49.710 --> 00:09:53.570 money. It's economics. Always. And in 1988, there 00:09:53.570 --> 00:09:56.169 was a specific event that I think explains exactly 00:09:56.169 --> 00:10:00.149 why reality TV took over the world. It wasn't 00:10:00.149 --> 00:10:01.970 a show. You're talking about the Writers Guild 00:10:01.970 --> 00:10:04.429 Strike of 88. The Writers Strike. This is such 00:10:04.429 --> 00:10:06.210 a crucial piece of context that I think most 00:10:06.210 --> 00:10:08.330 people miss. It's everything. You see this pattern 00:10:08.330 --> 00:10:12.309 again and again. Reality TV thrives when scripted 00:10:12.309 --> 00:10:15.370 TV is in crisis. Explain what happened. So the 00:10:15.370 --> 00:10:17.309 writers go on strike. All the scripted shows, 00:10:17.490 --> 00:10:20.169 your sitcoms, your dramas, they shut down production. 00:10:20.429 --> 00:10:23.149 Right. And for the big networks, CBS, NBC, ABC, 00:10:23.389 --> 00:10:25.850 it's a panic. They have empty slots in their 00:10:25.850 --> 00:10:28.330 primetime schedule. No new scripts coming in 00:10:28.330 --> 00:10:30.070 and ad revenue on the line. They're scrambling, 00:10:30.110 --> 00:10:32.049 showing reruns. But there is a new player in 00:10:32.049 --> 00:10:34.190 town. There's the new kid on the block, the Fox 00:10:34.190 --> 00:10:37.330 Network. They were the scrappy upstart. They 00:10:37.330 --> 00:10:39.870 needed content and crucially, they needed it 00:10:39.870 --> 00:10:42.690 cheap. They couldn't afford a big Tom Selleck 00:10:42.690 --> 00:10:45.990 drama. No way. So they looked at the strike not 00:10:45.990 --> 00:10:48.269 as a crisis, but as an opportunity. Yeah. They 00:10:48.269 --> 00:10:50.230 realized, wait a minute, if you just follow police 00:10:50.230 --> 00:10:51.850 officers around with a camera. You don't need 00:10:51.850 --> 00:10:53.610 a writer. You don't need a writer. You don't 00:10:53.610 --> 00:10:55.110 need expensive actors. You don't need to build 00:10:55.110 --> 00:10:57.850 sets. The street is your set. The cops are your 00:10:57.850 --> 00:11:01.330 actors. The crime is your script. And Cop P .S. 00:11:01.350 --> 00:11:05.639 premiered in 1989. Bad boys, bad boys, what is 00:11:05.639 --> 00:11:08.000 he going to do? It wasn't just a creative choice. 00:11:08.200 --> 00:11:10.820 It was a strike -breaking weapon. It was the 00:11:10.820 --> 00:11:13.320 ultimate strike -proof format. And it introduced 00:11:13.320 --> 00:11:17.340 that aesthetic, that shaky, handheld cinema verite 00:11:17.340 --> 00:11:19.700 look that our brains now instantly associate 00:11:19.700 --> 00:11:24.039 with truth and authenticity. Yes, but... And 00:11:24.039 --> 00:11:26.419 this is the key insight from the research. The 00:11:26.419 --> 00:11:29.200 real game changer copy S and the reality boom 00:11:29.200 --> 00:11:31.320 that followed wouldn't have been sustainable 00:11:31.320 --> 00:11:33.899 on a mass scale without a specific piece of technology 00:11:33.899 --> 00:11:36.899 that arrived the very same year in 1989. You're 00:11:36.899 --> 00:11:39.299 talking about avid the editing software. Avid 00:11:39.299 --> 00:11:41.519 technology. I think for people who don't work 00:11:41.519 --> 00:11:44.720 in media, it's hard to grasp why a piece of software 00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:47.659 could change the content of television so dramatically. 00:11:48.620 --> 00:11:50.200 Can you break that down? Why does this matter 00:11:50.200 --> 00:11:52.360 so much? Okay, think about the logistics before 00:11:52.360 --> 00:11:56.919 this. Before 1989, editing was linear. You were 00:11:56.919 --> 00:11:59.039 either physically cutting and taping strips of 00:11:59.039 --> 00:12:01.659 film together, or you were working with massive, 00:12:01.740 --> 00:12:04.720 clunky tape decks. So if you wanted to move a 00:12:04.720 --> 00:12:06.460 scene from the end of the show to the beginning, 00:12:06.639 --> 00:12:09.000 it was a huge physical process. A nightmare. 00:12:09.340 --> 00:12:11.480 You had to reassemble everything that came after 00:12:11.480 --> 00:12:14.059 it. Now imagine you're making a reality show. 00:12:14.139 --> 00:12:16.639 You shoot 100 hours of footage of a family just 00:12:16.639 --> 00:12:20.559 living. Arguing, eating dinner, watching TV, 00:12:20.740 --> 00:12:23.019 turning that mountain of tape into a watchable 00:12:23.019 --> 00:12:25.759 22 -minute episode was an economic and logistical 00:12:25.759 --> 00:12:27.580 impossibility. It would take forever. It would 00:12:27.580 --> 00:12:29.179 cost a fortune. So you couldn't just let the 00:12:29.179 --> 00:12:31.659 cameras roll 247. You couldn't. It was too much 00:12:31.659 --> 00:12:35.200 raw material to handle. But Avid changed everything. 00:12:35.259 --> 00:12:37.919 It was nonlinear digital editing. What does that 00:12:37.919 --> 00:12:40.240 mean, nonlinear? It means you could digitize 00:12:40.240 --> 00:12:42.679 all that footage, turn it into computer files, 00:12:42.899 --> 00:12:45.970 then on a screen. You could just drag and drop 00:12:45.970 --> 00:12:48.909 clips. You could take a reaction shot from Tuesday 00:12:48.909 --> 00:12:51.990 and paste it onto a comment that was made on 00:12:51.990 --> 00:12:54.190 Friday. You could try a thousand different versions 00:12:54.190 --> 00:12:56.509 of a scene in an hour. So the technology allowed 00:12:56.509 --> 00:12:58.950 the editors to become the primary storytellers. 00:12:58.990 --> 00:13:01.149 They became the writers. They could construct 00:13:01.149 --> 00:13:03.549 a narrative from thousands of hours of disconnected 00:13:03.549 --> 00:13:05.950 moments. It made it financially viable to shoot 00:13:05.950 --> 00:13:09.110 Turbo 477. It created the economic model. It 00:13:09.110 --> 00:13:11.669 created the entire economic model that made the 00:13:11.669 --> 00:13:15.590 genre explode. It suddenly made reality TV significantly 00:13:15.590 --> 00:13:19.610 cheaper to produce than scripted TV. And in Hollywood, 00:13:19.809 --> 00:13:22.289 cheaper always wins. So now we have the format, 00:13:22.490 --> 00:13:24.750 we have the economic incentive from the strike, 00:13:24.850 --> 00:13:26.690 and we have the technology to make it all work. 00:13:26.990 --> 00:13:30.029 The perfect storm. And now we enter the 90s, 00:13:30.049 --> 00:13:33.090 the explosion, and it all really kicks off with 00:13:33.090 --> 00:13:35.649 this simple concept, strangers in a house. Which, 00:13:35.730 --> 00:13:37.169 you know, we have to give credit where it's due. 00:13:37.590 --> 00:13:39.490 It didn't start in America. How did it start? 00:13:39.750 --> 00:13:41.750 It started in the Netherlands, a show called 00:13:41.750 --> 00:13:45.269 Number 28 in 1991. Never heard of it. Most people 00:13:45.269 --> 00:13:47.629 haven't. But it had all the elements. It put 00:13:47.629 --> 00:13:49.450 a group of young strangers together in a house. 00:13:49.850 --> 00:13:52.750 It used pop music on the soundtrack to heighten 00:13:52.750 --> 00:13:55.730 emotion. And it pioneered the use of the confessional, 00:13:55.850 --> 00:13:58.470 having the cast members look directly into a 00:13:58.470 --> 00:14:01.009 camera in a separate room and spill their guts. 00:14:01.250 --> 00:14:04.509 So MTV basically lifted the whole format. Well, 00:14:04.669 --> 00:14:08.070 The Real World launched in 1992, and there's 00:14:08.070 --> 00:14:10.350 a longstanding dispute. The creator of number 00:14:10.350 --> 00:14:13.269 28 claims they ripped them off. The Real World 00:14:13.269 --> 00:14:15.190 producers claim they were just inspired by an 00:14:15.190 --> 00:14:17.690 American family. The truth is probably somewhere 00:14:17.690 --> 00:14:20.399 in the middle. Probably. But the real world is 00:14:20.399 --> 00:14:21.799 the one that codified the language in the United 00:14:21.799 --> 00:14:25.700 States. This is the true story of seven strangers 00:14:25.700 --> 00:14:28.620 picked to live in a house. And have their lives 00:14:28.620 --> 00:14:31.679 taped. It became the template, the absolute blueprint. 00:14:31.840 --> 00:14:34.700 But even with the real world on MTV, it was still 00:14:34.700 --> 00:14:37.620 a niche youth culture thing. We needed a spark 00:14:37.620 --> 00:14:40.340 to train the mass audience. And looking at the 00:14:40.340 --> 00:14:42.820 timeline, the mid -90s gave us a reality show 00:14:42.820 --> 00:14:45.139 that wasn't technically a show at all. You're 00:14:45.139 --> 00:14:47.080 talking about the white bronco. I'm talking about 00:14:47.080 --> 00:14:51.809 the O .J. Simpson trial. From 1994 to 1995. Reading 00:14:51.809 --> 00:14:53.830 through the analysis on this, it really does 00:14:53.830 --> 00:14:56.590 tick every single box of a modern reality franchise, 00:14:56.889 --> 00:14:59.710 doesn't it? It's uncanny. You have a cast of 00:14:59.710 --> 00:15:03.309 bizarre, memorable characters. You have Cato 00:15:03.309 --> 00:15:06.330 Kaelin, the houseguest. You have the dream team 00:15:06.330 --> 00:15:08.690 of lawyers, F. Lee Bailey, Robert Shapiro. You 00:15:08.690 --> 00:15:11.049 have a central villain or hero, depending on 00:15:11.049 --> 00:15:12.830 your perspective. You have the confessionals, 00:15:12.830 --> 00:15:14.730 which were the daily press conferences on the 00:15:14.730 --> 00:15:17.919 courthouse steps. And crucially. It disrupted 00:15:17.919 --> 00:15:20.139 the broadcast schedule. That's the key part. 00:15:20.340 --> 00:15:23.080 News networks preempted the daytime soap operas 00:15:23.080 --> 00:15:25.480 to show the live trial coverage. And millions 00:15:25.480 --> 00:15:27.700 of people who are used to watching actors pretend 00:15:27.700 --> 00:15:30.100 to have drama on General Hospital suddenly realized. 00:15:30.279 --> 00:15:33.460 This is better. This has real stakes, real people, 00:15:33.679 --> 00:15:36.059 real life or death consequences. It completely 00:15:36.059 --> 00:15:39.559 addicted the American public to serialized real 00:15:39.559 --> 00:15:42.480 life drama. It was the nation's first big binge 00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:44.679 watch. And the irony, of course, is the cast 00:15:44.679 --> 00:15:46.820 list. It's almost too on the nose for a script 00:15:46.820 --> 00:15:49.360 writer. Robert Kardashian, one of the key defense 00:15:49.360 --> 00:15:52.519 attorneys. It's unbelievable. The defense attorney 00:15:52.519 --> 00:15:55.299 for the original reality show fathered the family 00:15:55.299 --> 00:15:58.159 that would come to define the entire genre a 00:15:58.159 --> 00:16:01.309 decade later. It connects the dots perfectly 00:16:01.309 --> 00:16:04.009 from the 90s to now. It absolutely primed the 00:16:04.009 --> 00:16:06.690 pump. The audience was ready. They had the taste 00:16:06.690 --> 00:16:08.950 for it. And then right at the turn of the millennium, 00:16:08.970 --> 00:16:12.129 the genre went nuclear. It went global. Yeah. 00:16:12.370 --> 00:16:14.450 And we got the competition format. Survivor. 00:16:14.629 --> 00:16:16.990 Survivor changed everything. Full stop. Again, 00:16:17.049 --> 00:16:18.970 it didn't start in the U .S. No, the format was 00:16:18.970 --> 00:16:21.370 created in Sweden. It was called Expedition Robinson. 00:16:21.769 --> 00:16:25.240 And it first aired in 1997. But when the U .S. 00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:27.399 version, Survivor, hit the air in the summer 00:16:27.399 --> 00:16:30.360 of 2000, it was a cultural atom bomb. Because 00:16:30.360 --> 00:16:32.440 it added a game engine. It wasn't just observing 00:16:32.440 --> 00:16:34.759 people coexisting. It was an elimination sport. 00:16:35.240 --> 00:16:38.460 The tribe has spoken. That added a layer of strategy 00:16:38.460 --> 00:16:40.519 and gameplay that was completely new. You weren't 00:16:40.519 --> 00:16:42.940 just living. You were competing. And that brought 00:16:42.940 --> 00:16:44.940 in the strategy element. Alliances, betrayal, 00:16:45.419 --> 00:16:48.460 backstabbing. And crucially, it introduced the 00:16:48.460 --> 00:16:51.200 immunity mechanic. Right. Which is a fascinating 00:16:51.200 --> 00:16:54.059 concept. The idea that in a game of social elimination, 00:16:54.419 --> 00:16:56.919 where it's all about being liked, you can perform 00:16:56.919 --> 00:16:59.940 a purely physical or mental task that makes you 00:16:59.940 --> 00:17:02.179 untouchable. It doesn't matter if everyone hates 00:17:02.179 --> 00:17:05.359 you. If you win immunity, you're safe. That adds 00:17:05.359 --> 00:17:07.940 a layer of game theory that separates it from 00:17:07.940 --> 00:17:10.779 just a simple popularity contest. It made it 00:17:10.779 --> 00:17:13.440 acceptable for smart people to watch and analyze 00:17:13.440 --> 00:17:16.559 reality TV. It wasn't just drama. It was a sport. 00:17:17.019 --> 00:17:19.279 And the ratings were astronomical. Then we had 00:17:19.279 --> 00:17:22.440 American Idol launch in 2002, which dominated 00:17:22.440 --> 00:17:24.660 U .S. television ratings for nearly a decade 00:17:24.660 --> 00:17:27.299 straight. The genre was on top of the world. 00:17:27.460 --> 00:17:30.319 Right. But there was a wobble, wasn't there? 00:17:30.680 --> 00:17:33.380 The research mentions a dip around 9 -11. There 00:17:33.380 --> 00:17:36.039 was. After the attacks in 2001, the mood of the 00:17:36.039 --> 00:17:38.720 country shifted dramatically. People wanted comfort, 00:17:38.839 --> 00:17:40.880 they wanted connection, or they wanted hard news. 00:17:41.119 --> 00:17:43.480 And watching people scheme to win a million dollars 00:17:43.480 --> 00:17:46.519 felt frivolous. It felt trivial. Interest in 00:17:46.519 --> 00:17:48.779 shows like The Amazing Race and The Mole waned 00:17:48.779 --> 00:17:50.579 for a bit. There was a moment where the industry 00:17:50.579 --> 00:17:53.180 thought, OK, the fad is over. It was a fun ride, 00:17:53.299 --> 00:17:55.500 but we're done with this. But the cable networks 00:17:55.500 --> 00:17:58.039 had other ideas. The cable networks looked at 00:17:58.039 --> 00:18:00.160 the numbers. The economics were just too good 00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:05.559 to ignore. Networks like Bravo, AE, E. VH1. They 00:18:05.559 --> 00:18:07.700 realized they could fill 24 hours of programming 00:18:07.700 --> 00:18:10.019 for pennies on the dollar compared to producing 00:18:10.019 --> 00:18:12.220 one episode of a scripted drama. And this is 00:18:12.220 --> 00:18:14.099 where we get the celeb -reality era. Exactly. 00:18:14.160 --> 00:18:17.400 The first big hit was The Osbournes on MTV in 00:18:17.400 --> 00:18:20.880 2002, following a washed -up heavy metal star 00:18:21.349 --> 00:18:23.630 and his family. It was hilarious and bizarre 00:18:23.630 --> 00:18:26.069 and surprisingly heartfelt. And it led to this 00:18:26.069 --> 00:18:28.710 flood of shows. The Anna Nicole Show, Flavor 00:18:28.710 --> 00:18:31.009 of Love on VH1. They took the strangers in a 00:18:31.009 --> 00:18:33.589 house format and applied it to D -list celebrity. 00:18:33.950 --> 00:18:36.630 Which brings us to the absolute zoo of subgenres 00:18:36.630 --> 00:18:38.890 we have today. It's not just one thing anymore. 00:18:38.990 --> 00:18:40.410 I want to break these down because it really 00:18:40.410 --> 00:18:43.630 shows how incredibly adaptable this format is. 00:18:43.710 --> 00:18:46.150 Like a virus, it can mutate to fit any host environment. 00:18:46.589 --> 00:18:48.309 Let's start with the direct descendant of the 00:18:48.309 --> 00:18:50.869 real world, the docu -soap. Right, so the next 00:18:50.869 --> 00:18:53.250 big evolution here was a show called Deguna Beach, 00:18:53.509 --> 00:18:57.349 the real Orange County on MTV in 2004. I remember 00:18:57.349 --> 00:19:00.450 this. It was positioned as the real version of 00:19:00.450 --> 00:19:03.569 the hit scripted drama, The O .C. And it looked 00:19:03.569 --> 00:19:07.019 like it. Unlike the gritty handheld look of copy 00:19:07.019 --> 00:19:10.599 S or early real world, Laguna Beach was shot 00:19:10.599 --> 00:19:14.339 beautifully. It had slow motion. It had a pop 00:19:14.339 --> 00:19:16.380 punk soundtrack. It looked like a movie. And 00:19:16.380 --> 00:19:18.700 it had no confessionals. No confessionals, which 00:19:18.700 --> 00:19:21.019 blurred the lines even further. You watched it 00:19:21.019 --> 00:19:23.380 and you thought, is this written? How did they 00:19:23.380 --> 00:19:25.420 get that perfect shot of them looking sadly out 00:19:25.420 --> 00:19:27.859 at the ocean? And that burst the hills, which 00:19:27.859 --> 00:19:30.599 was even more polished. And eventually the 800 00:19:30.599 --> 00:19:33.839 pound gorilla of the subgenre, the real housewife. 00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:36.099 Which is just the daytime soap opera structure 00:19:36.099 --> 00:19:39.579 alliances, rivalries, gossip applied to the lives 00:19:39.579 --> 00:19:41.799 of wealthy women in different cities. It's all 00:19:41.799 --> 00:19:44.279 about conflict, status, and lifestyle porn. Looking 00:19:44.279 --> 00:19:46.759 at mansions you'll never afford. OK, so that's 00:19:46.759 --> 00:19:48.720 one branch. What about the subculture shows? 00:19:48.859 --> 00:19:51.299 This seems to be a huge category. It is. This 00:19:51.299 --> 00:19:54.099 is the cultural tourism branch. You take a specific, 00:19:54.319 --> 00:19:57.299 often misunderstood or isolated group. Like the 00:19:57.299 --> 00:19:59.599 Guidos of Jersey Shore. Or the polygamists of 00:19:59.599 --> 00:20:02.380 Sister Wives or the Amish kids on Breaking Amish 00:20:02.380 --> 00:20:05.099 or the family on Duck Dynasty. Which became a 00:20:05.099 --> 00:20:08.480 monster hit. In 2013, Duck Dynasty became the 00:20:08.480 --> 00:20:10.859 most popular reality series in cable television 00:20:10.859 --> 00:20:13.660 history. More people were watching that than 00:20:13.660 --> 00:20:16.190 most scripted shows. It's fascinating because 00:20:16.190 --> 00:20:19.009 it allows you as the viewer to sit on your couch 00:20:19.009 --> 00:20:22.009 and get a window into a world that is completely 00:20:22.009 --> 00:20:25.190 alien to your own. You can judge it, you can 00:20:25.190 --> 00:20:27.910 admire it, but you get to observe it from a safe 00:20:27.910 --> 00:20:29.849 distance. And you have the occupational shows, 00:20:30.069 --> 00:20:34.009 Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers, Axemen. High 00:20:34.009 --> 00:20:37.289 stakes, blue collar, mostly male dominated jobs. 00:20:37.529 --> 00:20:40.029 Right. Very different demographic. And then there's 00:20:40.029 --> 00:20:41.990 a subcategory of that, the transactional shows. 00:20:42.250 --> 00:20:44.829 Pawn Stars is the perfect example. That format 00:20:44.829 --> 00:20:47.509 is genius. It's brilliant. Because every segment 00:20:47.509 --> 00:20:49.589 has a self -contained story. Someone brings in 00:20:49.589 --> 00:20:51.309 an item. You get a little history lesson about 00:20:51.309 --> 00:20:53.990 the item. There's negotiation. A deal is made 00:20:53.990 --> 00:20:56.349 or not made. It's clean. It's simple. And it 00:20:56.349 --> 00:20:58.730 mixes history, finance, and character drama. 00:20:58.970 --> 00:21:01.609 And we can't forget the social experiments. This 00:21:01.609 --> 00:21:03.230 is where things get a little more high concept 00:21:03.230 --> 00:21:06.529 and sometimes a little dark. Y -Swap is the classic 00:21:06.529 --> 00:21:08.910 example of conflict engineering. The premise 00:21:08.910 --> 00:21:11.630 is just built for fireworks. You take two families 00:21:11.630 --> 00:21:15.670 with completely opposing values, a vegan, pacifist, 00:21:15.690 --> 00:21:18.289 homeschooling family, and a hunting, military, 00:21:18.490 --> 00:21:21.470 fast food eating family, and you swap the mothers 00:21:21.470 --> 00:21:24.430 for two weeks. It is literally designed to create 00:21:24.430 --> 00:21:26.869 friction. And we've seen this evolve into things 00:21:26.869 --> 00:21:29.109 like The Traitors recently. Which is a brilliant 00:21:29.109 --> 00:21:31.170 murder mystery format. But then you get the really 00:21:31.170 --> 00:21:34.049 dark stuff from the 2000s. There was a UK show 00:21:34.049 --> 00:21:36.579 called Shattered. where contestants competed 00:21:36.579 --> 00:21:38.339 to see how long they could go without sleep. 00:21:38.440 --> 00:21:40.740 That sounds like torture. They started hallucinating. 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:43.920 Or an American show called Solitary, where people 00:21:43.920 --> 00:21:46.400 were put into solitary confinement pods and had 00:21:46.400 --> 00:21:49.000 to endure these bizarre challenges. It gets pretty 00:21:49.000 --> 00:21:51.359 dystopian pretty fast. It pushes the boundaries 00:21:51.359 --> 00:21:53.599 of ethics, which is a theme we need to come back 00:21:53.599 --> 00:21:55.599 to. But on the lighter side, you also have the 00:21:55.599 --> 00:21:58.140 parodies and hoaxes. Yes, the self -aware shows. 00:21:58.400 --> 00:22:00.680 The Joe Schmoe show was one of the first. They 00:22:00.680 --> 00:22:03.140 took one regular guy and surrounded him with 00:22:03.140 --> 00:22:05.839 actors playing every... reality tv archetype 00:22:05.839 --> 00:22:09.440 the villain the dumb blonde the hero and he didn't 00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:12.799 know Or I Want to Marry Harry, where a group 00:22:12.799 --> 00:22:14.880 of American women were tricked into thinking 00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:17.079 they were competing for the affections of Prince 00:22:17.079 --> 00:22:19.400 Harry. He was just a random lookalike. Yeah. 00:22:19.460 --> 00:22:21.359 And then you have the pinnacle of the form, which 00:22:21.359 --> 00:22:23.640 is something like Nathan for You. I love Nathan 00:22:23.640 --> 00:22:27.160 for You. It's brilliant because it uses the deadpan, 00:22:27.339 --> 00:22:30.619 awkward language of reality TV, the long pauses, 00:22:30.619 --> 00:22:33.079 the earnest voiceover, the staged scenarios to 00:22:33.079 --> 00:22:36.539 create incredible comedy. It deconstructs the 00:22:36.539 --> 00:22:39.299 genre while also being a perfect example of it. 00:22:39.359 --> 00:22:41.779 So the format can be anything. It can be a family 00:22:41.779 --> 00:22:44.980 soap, a game show, a workplace doc, a comedy. 00:22:45.400 --> 00:22:47.559 Okay, so now let's bring it up to the present 00:22:47.559 --> 00:22:51.240 day, the 2010s and 2020s. The biggest shift has 00:22:51.240 --> 00:22:54.180 to be streaming. Without a doubt. Netflix entered 00:22:54.180 --> 00:22:56.319 the game late, but they entered it aggressively. 00:22:56.480 --> 00:22:59.000 With shows like Love is Blind. Love is Blind, 00:22:59.119 --> 00:23:01.779 The Circle. Too hot to handle. And these shows 00:23:01.779 --> 00:23:03.480 are designed differently. They're not made for 00:23:03.480 --> 00:23:05.460 week -to -week viewing with a commercial break. 00:23:05.599 --> 00:23:07.859 They're designed for the binge model. They have 00:23:07.859 --> 00:23:09.779 cliffhangers at the end of every episode to keep 00:23:09.779 --> 00:23:12.039 you clicking next. And streaming has globalized 00:23:12.039 --> 00:23:14.319 the format even more, hasn't it? Completely. 00:23:14.640 --> 00:23:17.380 The barrier to watching foreign language reality 00:23:17.380 --> 00:23:20.579 TV has totally dropped. We're seeing this huge 00:23:20.579 --> 00:23:24.319 influx from South Korea. The masked singer. The 00:23:24.319 --> 00:23:26.920 Masked Singer started as a Korean show called 00:23:26.920 --> 00:23:29.200 King of Masked Singer. They hit dating shows, 00:23:29.319 --> 00:23:32.319 singles, Inferno. From Japan, you had Terrace 00:23:32.319 --> 00:23:34.759 House, which was a much quieter, more observational 00:23:34.759 --> 00:23:37.660 style. From India, Indian matchmaking. It's a 00:23:37.660 --> 00:23:39.880 global conversation now. And we have to mention 00:23:39.880 --> 00:23:43.180 the COVID -19 impact because when the world shut 00:23:43.180 --> 00:23:46.400 down in 2020, scripted productions stopped on 00:23:46.400 --> 00:23:48.119 a dime. Everything stopped. You couldn't have 00:23:48.119 --> 00:23:51.119 100 people on a soundstage. But unscripted shows, 00:23:51.400 --> 00:23:53.599 which often has smaller crews, were able to figure 00:23:53.599 --> 00:23:55.640 out bubble productions much faster. So they were 00:23:55.640 --> 00:23:57.420 the first ones back on the air. They filled the 00:23:57.420 --> 00:23:58.980 gaps in the schedule, just like they did during 00:23:58.980 --> 00:24:01.259 the writers' strike. And we also saw a rise in 00:24:01.259 --> 00:24:03.519 what you might call cozy viewing. People were 00:24:03.519 --> 00:24:05.099 stressed. They were scared. They didn't want 00:24:05.099 --> 00:24:06.859 high -conflict drama. They wanted is it cake. 00:24:07.099 --> 00:24:09.019 They wanted is it cake. They wanted the great 00:24:09.019 --> 00:24:11.640 British bake -off. Just gentle, low -stakes, 00:24:11.640 --> 00:24:14.960 comforting content to soothe our pandemic -addled 00:24:14.960 --> 00:24:18.619 brains. Is it cake? The question that truly defined 00:24:18.619 --> 00:24:22.160 a generation. But this brings us, this brings 00:24:22.160 --> 00:24:23.700 us to the elephant in the room. We've been using 00:24:23.700 --> 00:24:26.619 the word reality this whole time. And now we 00:24:26.619 --> 00:24:28.359 need to talk about the lie in the title, the 00:24:28.359 --> 00:24:31.000 reality problem. The big asterisk next to the 00:24:31.000 --> 00:24:34.319 whole genre. Because as we get into the 2000s 00:24:34.319 --> 00:24:36.599 and the era of the hills, the production gets 00:24:36.599 --> 00:24:39.339 so much more sophisticated. And we see this term 00:24:39.339 --> 00:24:42.160 in the notes that the industry uses, soft scripting. 00:24:42.200 --> 00:24:45.019 It's a polite, corporate -friendly term for manipulation. 00:24:45.849 --> 00:24:48.049 Walk us through how this actually works on a 00:24:48.049 --> 00:24:50.210 practical level, because they're not handing 00:24:50.210 --> 00:24:52.230 Lauren Conrad a script with her lines written 00:24:52.230 --> 00:24:54.390 on it, right? That's not how it works. No, that 00:24:54.390 --> 00:24:56.670 would be illegal under certain broadcast rules. 00:24:56.930 --> 00:24:59.329 And besides, most of these people aren't good 00:24:59.329 --> 00:25:02.910 enough actors to pull it off. Instead, you produce 00:25:02.910 --> 00:25:05.869 the environment. You create the conditions for 00:25:05.869 --> 00:25:08.630 drama to happen. Give me an example. OK, let's 00:25:08.630 --> 00:25:10.509 say you're a producer on a Real Housewives show. 00:25:11.309 --> 00:25:13.670 You know that cast member A is angry at cast 00:25:13.670 --> 00:25:16.049 member B because of something that happened last 00:25:16.049 --> 00:25:17.930 week. You don't write them a fight scene. You 00:25:17.930 --> 00:25:20.049 just schedule a group dinner. At a restaurant 00:25:20.049 --> 00:25:22.009 with lots of alcohol. With lots of free -flowing 00:25:22.009 --> 00:25:24.269 alcohol. Yeah. You seat them directly opposite 00:25:24.269 --> 00:25:27.109 each other. And then, maybe right before the 00:25:27.109 --> 00:25:29.690 cameras start rolling, a producer casually goes 00:25:29.690 --> 00:25:33.700 up to cast member A and whispers, Hey. Just so 00:25:33.700 --> 00:25:35.799 you know, I heard Bea was talking about your 00:25:35.799 --> 00:25:38.059 husband's business troubles earlier. You light 00:25:38.059 --> 00:25:40.380 the fuse. You light the fuse, you step back, 00:25:40.440 --> 00:25:42.799 you roll cameras, and you let the explosion happen. 00:25:42.920 --> 00:25:45.240 You didn't make it happen. You just created the 00:25:45.240 --> 00:25:48.039 perfect laboratory conditions for it. It's plausibly 00:25:48.039 --> 00:25:50.519 deniable. And then there's the editing. We touched 00:25:50.519 --> 00:25:52.900 on how Avid made it possible, but let's talk 00:25:52.900 --> 00:25:54.740 about the specific techniques. Let's talk about 00:25:54.740 --> 00:25:58.539 Frankenbiting. This is the one that really gives 00:25:58.539 --> 00:26:01.579 me the chills. It's so common. And it's so deceptive. 00:26:01.619 --> 00:26:03.539 What is it exactly? So it's an audio editing 00:26:03.539 --> 00:26:06.619 technique. Let's say a cast member is in a confessional 00:26:06.619 --> 00:26:10.099 interview. The producer asks, how was your vacation? 00:26:10.839 --> 00:26:13.819 And they say, I really love going to the beach, 00:26:13.859 --> 00:26:16.039 but I hate when it rains. And unfortunately, 00:26:16.180 --> 00:26:18.859 it rained the whole time. A perfectly normal 00:26:18.859 --> 00:26:21.539 sentence. But the editor needs them to sound 00:26:21.539 --> 00:26:24.140 like they're angry at another person for a fight 00:26:24.140 --> 00:26:26.720 they want to create in the episode. So they take 00:26:26.720 --> 00:26:30.750 the audio of the words, I hate. From that sentence. 00:26:31.369 --> 00:26:33.490 And they take a different interview where that 00:26:33.490 --> 00:26:37.329 person says the name cast member B. Oh, no. And 00:26:37.329 --> 00:26:40.009 they digitally stitch them together. So the audio 00:26:40.009 --> 00:26:42.430 you hear in the show is I hate cast member B, 00:26:42.569 --> 00:26:45.769 a sentence that was never, ever spoken. So they 00:26:45.769 --> 00:26:48.369 literally construct sentences out of thin air. 00:26:48.529 --> 00:26:51.140 Out of individual words. plucked from hours of 00:26:51.140 --> 00:26:53.500 interviews. And because we don't see their mouth 00:26:53.500 --> 00:26:56.539 moving when we hear this line, the editors will 00:26:56.539 --> 00:26:59.119 cut away to a shot of a sunset or a dog or someone 00:26:59.119 --> 00:27:02.019 else's reaction. We, the audience, just accept 00:27:02.019 --> 00:27:04.359 it as truth. That is terrifying. It means you 00:27:04.359 --> 00:27:06.279 can manufacture a villain out of a perfectly 00:27:06.279 --> 00:27:08.720 nice person just by chopping up their words. 00:27:08.920 --> 00:27:10.599 It happens all the time. And then you have shows 00:27:10.599 --> 00:27:12.400 like Keeping Up with the Kardashians and The 00:27:12.400 --> 00:27:14.740 Hills, which have faced numerous accusations, 00:27:15.059 --> 00:27:17.779 and in some cases have even admitted to. Doing 00:27:17.779 --> 00:27:19.680 full reshoots. Like, that scene wasn't dramatic 00:27:19.680 --> 00:27:22.859 enough, let's do it again. Exactly. Hey, the 00:27:22.859 --> 00:27:24.740 lighting wasn't very good when you had that emotional 00:27:24.740 --> 00:27:28.339 breakup conversation. Can we just stage it again 00:27:28.339 --> 00:27:31.460 over by the window? At that point, it's not reality, 00:27:31.660 --> 00:27:34.160 it's just a performance of reality. Which raises 00:27:34.160 --> 00:27:36.299 the massive ethical question. We are watching 00:27:36.299 --> 00:27:38.759 real people, not actors, often in their most 00:27:38.759 --> 00:27:41.140 vulnerable, painful, or humiliating moments. 00:27:41.500 --> 00:27:44.000 And we are often watching people who are specifically 00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:47.950 cast because they're unstable. There is a significant 00:27:47.950 --> 00:27:51.970 and valid criticism that the genre actively exploits 00:27:51.970 --> 00:27:54.809 mental health issues. If you have a cast member 00:27:54.809 --> 00:27:57.130 who is volatile, who drinks too much, who has 00:27:57.130 --> 00:28:00.490 anger management issues, in the real world, the 00:28:00.490 --> 00:28:02.450 responsible thing to do is to get them help. 00:28:02.569 --> 00:28:04.769 In reality TV. You give them a second season 00:28:04.769 --> 00:28:07.250 and more screen time. Because they're good TV. 00:28:07.690 --> 00:28:10.609 The shows are structured to reward the most disruptive, 00:28:10.829 --> 00:28:14.349 chaotic, and often cruel behavior. It normalizes 00:28:14.349 --> 00:28:16.430 cruelty. It makes it seem like screaming at your 00:28:16.430 --> 00:28:18.130 friend over brunch is a normal way to resolve 00:28:18.130 --> 00:28:21.309 conflict. It does. And there is a tragic and 00:28:21.309 --> 00:28:23.710 well -documented pattern of cast members from 00:28:23.710 --> 00:28:26.589 these shows leaving with severe trauma, depression, 00:28:26.910 --> 00:28:30.349 and PTSD. They are chewed up by the machine and 00:28:30.349 --> 00:28:31.930 then discarded the moment their ratings drop. 00:28:32.109 --> 00:28:36.279 And yet, we watch. millions and millions of us. 00:28:36.339 --> 00:28:38.819 What does that say about us as an audience? Well, 00:28:38.900 --> 00:28:40.680 the psychology is pretty fascinating. There's 00:28:40.680 --> 00:28:43.180 the obvious voyeurism, you know, the simple pleasure 00:28:43.180 --> 00:28:45.740 of looking into someone else's life. But there 00:28:45.740 --> 00:28:48.700 are darker forces at play, like schadenfreude, 00:28:48.700 --> 00:28:51.279 a German word for taking pleasure in the misfortune 00:28:51.279 --> 00:28:54.000 of others. We get a little thrill out of watching 00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:56.539 someone else's perfect life fall apart. And then 00:28:56.539 --> 00:28:58.940 there's social comparison. At least I'm not them. 00:28:59.059 --> 00:29:01.359 At least my life isn't that much of a mess. We 00:29:01.359 --> 00:29:03.279 watch an episode of Hoarders or a show about 00:29:03.279 --> 00:29:05.420 a dysfunctional family, and we feel better about 00:29:05.420 --> 00:29:08.380 our own, maybe slightly mediocre, lives in comparison. 00:29:08.819 --> 00:29:12.099 A 2012 survey actually found that regular reality 00:29:12.099 --> 00:29:15.019 viewers tended to be more extroverted, but also 00:29:15.019 --> 00:29:17.539 more neurotic and have lower self -esteem. So 00:29:17.539 --> 00:29:20.700 it's a form of self -soothing. Wow. Okay, I want 00:29:20.700 --> 00:29:22.819 to pivot now to the final section, to the impact. 00:29:23.519 --> 00:29:26.940 Because... You can dismiss reality TV as trash. 00:29:27.059 --> 00:29:29.500 You can critique its ethics, but you absolutely 00:29:29.500 --> 00:29:32.779 cannot ignore its power. You can't. Let's start 00:29:32.779 --> 00:29:35.960 with the most obvious impact. The democratization 00:29:35.960 --> 00:29:38.680 of fame. What do you mean by that? For most of 00:29:38.680 --> 00:29:41.700 the 20th century, you had to have a talent to 00:29:41.700 --> 00:29:44.339 be famous. You had to be a great actor, a great 00:29:44.339 --> 00:29:47.819 singer, a great athlete. Reality TV threw that 00:29:47.819 --> 00:29:49.940 out the window. It created the famous for being 00:29:49.940 --> 00:29:53.470 famous category. The Z -list celebrity. the influencer 00:29:53.470 --> 00:29:57.630 kim kardashian exactly people whose primary talent 00:29:57.630 --> 00:30:00.069 is the performance of their own life and that 00:30:00.069 --> 00:30:03.049 platform that fame it translates directly into 00:30:03.049 --> 00:30:05.650 real world power which is where it gets really 00:30:05.650 --> 00:30:07.789 interesting and really serious. We have to talk 00:30:07.789 --> 00:30:09.789 about The Apprentice. We do, and we should be 00:30:09.789 --> 00:30:11.890 clear, regardless of your personal politics, 00:30:12.009 --> 00:30:14.069 you have to acknowledge the media mechanism that 00:30:14.069 --> 00:30:16.150 was at work there. It's a fascinating case study. 00:30:16.410 --> 00:30:19.809 The Apprentice ran for 14 seasons. Week after 00:30:19.809 --> 00:30:23.309 week, it presented Donald Trump not as a complex 00:30:23.309 --> 00:30:25.869 real estate developer with a mixed record of 00:30:25.869 --> 00:30:28.309 bankruptcies and successes. No, it presented 00:30:28.309 --> 00:30:31.940 him as a mythical authority figure. The decisive 00:30:31.940 --> 00:30:34.220 boss in the high -backed chair in the boardroom. 00:30:34.299 --> 00:30:37.740 The man with the catchphrase. You're fired. It 00:30:37.740 --> 00:30:39.619 edited out all the nuance, all the failures, 00:30:39.759 --> 00:30:42.380 and it created a television character of ultimate 00:30:42.380 --> 00:30:45.140 competence and authority. And many, many political 00:30:45.140 --> 00:30:47.440 analysts credit that show with reviving his public 00:30:47.440 --> 00:30:49.940 image and paving the way for his 2016 presidential 00:30:49.940 --> 00:30:52.619 run. The voters thought they were electing the 00:30:52.619 --> 00:30:54.559 character from the boardroom. They were voting 00:30:54.559 --> 00:30:56.720 for the TV show character. And he's not the only 00:30:56.720 --> 00:30:59.500 one. This isn't an isolated incident. Sean Duffy 00:30:59.500 --> 00:31:02.970 from The Real World. Boston, back in 1997, went 00:31:02.970 --> 00:31:05.289 on to become a multi -term U .S. congressman. 00:31:05.809 --> 00:31:08.410 Investors from Dragon's Den, which is the original 00:31:08.410 --> 00:31:11.269 UK format that Shark Tank is based on, have gone 00:31:11.269 --> 00:31:13.309 on to enter politics in countries like Denmark 00:31:13.309 --> 00:31:16.910 and Israel. Kevin O 'Leary in Canada made a serious 00:31:16.910 --> 00:31:19.349 run for the leadership of his party. So the skill 00:31:19.349 --> 00:31:22.329 set required to be a successful reality PD star, 00:31:22.529 --> 00:31:27.190 the ability to perform authenticity, to handle 00:31:27.190 --> 00:31:30.150 manufactured conflict. to speak in memorable 00:31:30.150 --> 00:31:32.769 sound bites, it translates perfectly to modern 00:31:32.769 --> 00:31:35.230 politics. That's the exact same muscle. But the 00:31:35.230 --> 00:31:38.170 impact goes even further, goes beyond just Western 00:31:38.170 --> 00:31:41.329 politicians. In some authoritarian countries, 00:31:41.569 --> 00:31:44.269 the simple act of voting on a reality show was 00:31:44.269 --> 00:31:46.309 the first time citizens ever got to vote for 00:31:46.309 --> 00:31:48.670 anything. Really? That's incredible. Look at 00:31:48.670 --> 00:31:51.509 China in 2005. They had a show called Supergirl. 00:31:51.670 --> 00:31:53.690 It was basically their version of American Idol. 00:31:53.789 --> 00:31:57.410 It was a sensation. It drew 400 million viewers. 00:31:57.730 --> 00:32:00.259 400 million? But the key was it was democratic. 00:32:01.119 --> 00:32:03.579 The audience voted for the winner via text message. 00:32:03.839 --> 00:32:05.880 They chose their champion. And the government 00:32:05.880 --> 00:32:07.900 did not like that. The Chinese government freaked 00:32:07.900 --> 00:32:09.900 out. They banned the show for being too democratic 00:32:09.900 --> 00:32:12.099 and vulgar. They didn't like the idea of their 00:32:12.099 --> 00:32:13.920 citizens getting used to the concept that their 00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:15.880 collective voice could choose a winner. A singing 00:32:15.880 --> 00:32:18.700 show was seen as a threat to the state. A profound 00:32:18.700 --> 00:32:21.140 threat. Or take another example from the Middle 00:32:21.140 --> 00:32:24.170 East, a show called Millions Poet. It's a poetry 00:32:24.170 --> 00:32:27.190 competition. Huge in the Arab world. Okay. In 00:32:27.190 --> 00:32:30.430 2010, a Saudi housewife named Hisa Hilal went 00:32:30.430 --> 00:32:33.089 on the show. And she didn't just read nice poems 00:32:33.089 --> 00:32:35.710 about flowers and love. She stood on that stage 00:32:35.710 --> 00:32:38.849 and read poems that directly criticized extremist 00:32:38.849 --> 00:32:41.849 Islamic clerics. On live television. In Saudi 00:32:41.849 --> 00:32:44.490 Arabia. On live television broadcast across the 00:32:44.490 --> 00:32:47.569 region. She received death threats. But she also 00:32:47.569 --> 00:32:49.930 received a massive wave of public support. She 00:32:49.930 --> 00:32:52.579 came in third. She used a reality competition 00:32:52.579 --> 00:32:55.220 format to speak truth to power in a way that 00:32:55.220 --> 00:32:57.240 was almost impossible for her to do otherwise. 00:32:57.519 --> 00:32:59.500 That gives me chills. It shows that the format 00:32:59.500 --> 00:33:02.460 itself is neutral. It's a tool. It can be used 00:33:02.460 --> 00:33:04.980 for vanity and narcissism, but it can also be 00:33:04.980 --> 00:33:07.240 used for voice and for change. Absolutely. In 00:33:07.240 --> 00:33:09.319 Indonesia, there was a popular show called Jika 00:33:09.319 --> 00:33:12.059 Aku Menjadi, which means if I were a middle class, 00:33:12.099 --> 00:33:14.019 people would live the life of a poor person for 00:33:14.019 --> 00:33:16.720 a week. It was credited with helping bridge the 00:33:16.720 --> 00:33:19.059 understanding gap between economic classes. It's 00:33:19.059 --> 00:33:21.160 not all just table flipping and drunken fights. 00:33:21.440 --> 00:33:24.140 OK, so let's bring this all home. Let's try to 00:33:24.140 --> 00:33:26.640 sum this up. We've gone from Nazi propaganda 00:33:26.640 --> 00:33:30.980 to candid camera, from a writer's strike creating 00:33:30.980 --> 00:33:34.420 copy S to the Kardashians completely dominating 00:33:34.420 --> 00:33:37.940 the Internet. It's a genre that at its core fills 00:33:37.940 --> 00:33:40.930 the gaps. it fills the gaps in broadcast schedules 00:33:40.930 --> 00:33:43.609 when writers strike it fills the gaps in our 00:33:43.609 --> 00:33:45.890 own lives our need for connection when we feel 00:33:45.890 --> 00:33:49.190 lonely and it fills the gap between who we are 00:33:49.190 --> 00:33:51.509 and the more interesting person we want to be 00:33:51.509 --> 00:33:54.480 we've covered a lot of ground From the high -minded 00:33:54.480 --> 00:33:57.519 sociology of 7 -Up to the glorious trash of The 00:33:57.519 --> 00:33:59.740 Real Housewives. But I keep coming back to that 00:33:59.740 --> 00:34:01.380 idea you mentioned at the beginning, the idea 00:34:01.380 --> 00:34:03.900 of the mirror. The funhouse mirror. Right. It 00:34:03.900 --> 00:34:06.480 reflects us, but it also distorts us. For 40 00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:08.460 years now, we have been watching people perform 00:34:08.460 --> 00:34:11.239 a version of authenticity. We've watched people 00:34:11.239 --> 00:34:13.280 learn that flipping a table gets you more screen 00:34:13.280 --> 00:34:15.500 time. We've watched people learn that betraying 00:34:15.500 --> 00:34:17.800 your friends is a valid strategy to win immunity. 00:34:18.059 --> 00:34:20.039 We've made a spectator sport out of the worst 00:34:20.039 --> 00:34:22.460 aspects of human behavior. And the really scary 00:34:22.460 --> 00:34:24.969 final... question isn't why do they do it the 00:34:24.969 --> 00:34:27.289 scary question is have we started doing it too 00:34:27.289 --> 00:34:30.500 has the audience started performing For the cameras 00:34:30.500 --> 00:34:33.000 that are now everywhere. Exactly. Look at your 00:34:33.000 --> 00:34:35.920 own Instagram stories. Look at how we argue on 00:34:35.920 --> 00:34:38.699 Twitter or Facebook. We are all editing our own 00:34:38.699 --> 00:34:41.679 lives now. We are all creating story arcs. We 00:34:41.679 --> 00:34:44.079 are all performing for an invisible audience, 00:34:44.380 --> 00:34:46.659 hoping to get the likes, hoping to not get voted 00:34:46.659 --> 00:34:48.820 off the island. We are all cast members in our 00:34:48.820 --> 00:34:51.179 own reality show now. That is something to chew 00:34:51.179 --> 00:34:53.139 on the next time you're about to post. Thanks 00:34:53.139 --> 00:34:55.300 for diving deep with us. My pleasure. See you 00:34:55.300 --> 00:34:55.559 next time.