Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann

Nude strangers. Icy roads. Brain rot. True love. Class warfare. Queer visibility. Scripted ad libs. Sociologist, professor, author of the book “True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us,” and straight up Reality TV Sociologist, Dr. Danielle Lindemann studies human behavior through the lens of pop culture and reality TV. Dr. Lindemann lays out the history of the medium, the complexities of why we watch, the effect on society at large, who signs up to be on these shows, how our reactions change to it over time, political consequences of reality TV, and what these shows can teach us about ourselves and each other. Also: the Jackie & Shadow show.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alie Ward?

  How's your ponytail looking? Maybe like a little thinner than it used to? We've talked about this in our menopause episode. At some point, it's bound to happen to all of us. So if you're ready for thicker, fuller hair, start your free online visit today at forhers.com/ologies for personalized care. So that's F O R H E R S dot com slash ologies. Individual results may vary. Featured products include compounded drug products, which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality. Prescription required. Price varies based on product and subscription plan. See website for full details, restrictions, and important safety information.

• 0:35Speaker 01

  After a long day of work, you can't wait to get home. Cue rush hour. Luckily, you've got easy weeknight recipes using Land O' Lakes Cheese and Butter that bring delicious restaurant taste right to your family's home. Now, if only there was an easy recipe for washing dishes. Land O' Lakes dairy products. Find it in the dairy aisle. Visit landolakes.com/reцепes for easy weeknight dinners.

• 1:02Alie Ward?

  This podcast is brought to you by Aura. Your body has a lot going on. Sleep, stress, recovery. You would be surprised how connected it all is. Aura Ring tracks more than 50 metrics from your finger, and the Aura app brings that information together to help you see patterns across your sleep and stress, activity, and more. So you can start connecting the dots and figure out what works for you. Learn more at aura ring dot com. Wear your best life with Aura. Oh, hey, it's the new leaf on your, what you thought was a dying house plant. Ali Ward, this is Ologies. We're going to get real about sociology. It's everywhere humans are, including in your television. And by that, I mean probably your laptop in bed

• 1:47Alie Ward?

  or your phone on the toilet. Now, reality TV sociology, it's a real thing. And as proof, we're going to meet a professor of sociology at Lehigh University, who is part of the core faculty of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, who's also an author of the books, Dominatrix: Gender, eroticism, and Control in the Dungeon, and her highly lauded 2022 release, True Story: What Reality TV Says About And she studied creative writing at Princeton and then got a PhD in sociology from Columbia and has spent her career analyzing and writing about non-normative or deviant behaviors and how they shed light on how we relate to each other. Now, months back, a tweet of hers went viral and it was a snapshot of the list of presentations

• 2:29Alie Ward?

  some of her students were giving, and among them were the sociology of body image and self-worth in The Biggest Loser, the sociology of work and inequality in Below Deck, the sociology of lesbian relationships in The Ultimatum: Queer Love, the sociology of perfectionism in Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. So we will dive into a lot of that and more in a sec, but first, thank you to patrons at patreon.com/ologies for supporting the show for a dollar a month or more and submitting questions before we record. Thanks to everyone out there in Ologies merch from ologiesmerch.com. Thank you to everyone who leaves reviews, which help the show so much. I read them all and I read you one. So thank you to Sarzi Gray, who wrote, "In the world of severance, Ali Ward is the Audi Helly R deserves."

• 3:14Alie Ward?

  Sarzi Gray, thank you for that. I hope I wouldn't do that to myself. You know what? Either way, cut bangs. Don't sever your crush. Also, thank you, T-Spin32, for saying all the right things. Okay, so, reality TV sociology, off we go. Stay tuned for queer culture making it to the mainstream, what is real in reality TV, who signs up to be on reality TV, what effect could it have on young brains, primetime catfights, class warfare, passive aggression, what reality can teach us about ourselves, eating hamburgers with a camera in your face. Good examples, bad examples, race, wealth, and so much more with sociologist, author, professor, and straight-up professional reality TV sociologist, Dr. Danielle Lindeman.

• 4:17Alie Ward?

  So many people were like, get her on now. And I was like, I didn't know this was anology.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  My name is Danielle Lindeman. She, her, hers.

• 4:26Alie Ward?

  Great. Reality TV. Did you start off watching it? Or did you start out so interested in sociology that you realized this was like the perfect cauldron of places to find interesting things about humanity?

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Oh, that's such a good question. I sometimes say that my love of sociology actually stemmed from my early love of reality TV. So I was definitely a fan of reality TV even before I knew what sociology was. You know, watching episodes of The Real World back in high school. And I was just hooked, you know?

• 5:01Alie Ward?

  The year was 1992 and the network was MTV. A camera crew composed the first shots of a media revolution.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  This is the true story. True story.

• 5:14Speaker 04

  Of seven strangers picked to live in a loft. And have their lives taped. To find out what happens. What?

• 5:21Speaker 02

  When people stop being polite. Could you get the phone? And start getting real. The real world. And I think the same kinds of social dynamics that I saw on those shows are the same things that excite me about sociology. So then, when I became a sociologist, I was like, well, I obviously have to teach a class on sociology of reality TV because there's so much there. So it was just an amazing dovetail of my two loves, sociology and reality TV.

• 5:51Alie Ward?

  Are there a lot of sociologists and sociology professors that work with reality TV? Or did you find that this was like a hard sell for the education board?

• 6:02Speaker 02

  That's a good question. I would not say there are a lot of sociologists who work on reality TV. And I do think there's a lot of stigma around studying something that people see as frivolous, like reality TV. But at the same time, a lot of sociologists have sort of come out of the woodwork or come out to me as people who love reality TV because of what I study. And so that's really exciting to see. But there definitely is still a kind of stigma around it in academia.

• 6:33Alie Ward?

  Well, there's such a variation in smut level. You know, I feel like you could find highbrow and you can find lowbrow. Like, is there reality TV that is more respected? And is there some that's like, this is just straight exploitation or scripted? Are there tiers where it gets closer to documentary? And then others that get closer to like Jerry Springer?

• 6:58Speaker 05

  Because he's not mine. Look at that baby, Drew. She's not mine. Look at this baby. You're telling me you have this baby in New York? She's my head, my head.

• 7:05Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, for sure. There are tiers in terms of this kind of ladder of respectability. In fact, there are a lot of people who tell me that they don't watch reality TV. And for the most part, they do. It just turns out they watch things like HGTV or The Great British Bake, you know? They feel more wholesome because they're kind of trying to teach you something. They're less conflict driven. Although I would still classify those shows as reality, like House Hunters, I would still say is reality TV. But I think there's a sense of some shows that are maybe more education, overtly educational, less conflict driven, people see as more kind of wholesome and acceptable.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  And it's kind of interesting because when people tell me they don't watch reality TV, oftentimes they'll say, well, I mean, I don't watch The Kardashians. I don't watch Real Housewives. That's what they think of when they think of reality TV. But most people are watching reality TV in some form.

• 8:04Alie Ward?

  When does it become a documentary? When does it cross that line? Does it depend on how much producers sort of prod people or nudge them into different directions? Is it talking head, confessional booths? Like, when is it a documentary and when is it reality TV?

• 8:18Speaker 02

  So it's kind of an unsatisfying answer, but as a sociologist, I often say reality TV is a social construct. And so there isn't any one definition of it. So it's kind of messy as a construct. The definition that I use, there's two things, basically, is people behaving as themselves rather than as characters. And you can already see how that's kind of messy, right? If there's some scripting involved, you know, it's all kind of performative. People are still performing. But basically, it's, you know, Kim Kardashian is being Kim Kardashian. She's not playing a character.

• 8:50Alie Ward?

  Although, just in the last year, the Socialite star of The Simple Life alongside Nicole Richie.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  That's hot.

• 8:58Alie Ward?

  That's hot. That's hot. And now, media mogul and DJ Paris Hilton has given more of the backstory of the persona the world has known and mocked for decades.

• 9:09Speaker 06

  The producers said, we want you to play the dumb, rich, spoiled airhead. So I played that character. I had no idea that I would have to continue that on for five seasons and then going around the world, doing all the talk shows and interviews, and then continuing with the character because that's what everyone knew me for.

• 9:29Alie Ward?

  And while Paris Hilton has been bravely outspoken at revealing the trauma she endured over her life, in one recent interview with her, she explained that a reason she took on that persona as this vapid, materialistic, rich girl was because that was what the media at the time glorified. However, she was the media at the time. But did she have enough power to be authentic? How much is coercion? So, the first of many murky factors is, is someone being themselves? Secondly, what's the point of this show? Specifically, a reality show?

• 10:02Speaker 02

  And then, the main intent is to entertain rather than educate. So, like, the news wouldn't be considered reality TV, although, again, that gets messy, right? Because we pick what stories to tell in the news, to entertain. But the main purpose of a documentary, allegedly, is to educate. But again, a lot of messiness, right? You can probably think of a lot of exceptions, right? What side of the line a certain thing goes on?

• 10:28Alie Ward?

  Yeah, like, The Great British Bake Off. I feel like when I watch it, I'm learning how to make a pastry. Reality is, I'm never gonna make those pastries.

• 10:37Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And again, I think you nailed it when you said the closer to documentary it is, people see it as more kind of legitimate. I think you used the word smut, right? Like, less smutty, if it's overtly trying to teach us something. Although, of course, I argue that all reality TV is actually can be educational for us if we know where to look.

• 10:57Alie Ward?

  Yeah, I mean, I think when people tune into any media, they're looking to get something to put in their pocket to live their life a little bit differently, whether it's aspirational wealth or whether it's...

• 11:10Speaker 02

  Maybe feeling better about their relationship dynamics because it's not as messy as what they see on TV or something like, why, the huge question, why do we love reality TV? Let's be honest.

• 11:23Alie Ward?

  Because while you might not watch Vanderpump Rules, or Toddlers and Tiaras, or Married at First Sight, you may still be a reality watchers, like Mythbusters, West Coast Choppers, Brain Games, maybe even the 2020 Netflix series 100 Humans, or Jersey Shore, or Beast Games, or the one with Alec Baldwin, Seven of His Children and One Semi-Spanish Wife. What is reality?

• 11:47Speaker 02

  And so people tune into different shows for different reasons, right? And there probably are people who are watching like Bake Off or Top Chef to like learn how to sous vide meat or make a souffle, right? I also cannot do those things. So there is that educational element, but there's a lot of research that looks at why people tune in. One of the things is that kind of voyeurism element where you're watching the train wreck to remind yourself that you are not of the train wreck, to feel slightly superior, right? Like, well, my life might be messed up in some ways, but at least I'm not like competing on The Bachelor or eating bugs for the camera. So there definitely is that. You know, there's also that sort of community, but you know, we can come into

• 12:29Speaker 02

  community with people, you know, from a wide demographic array just by saying, you know, I like The Real Housewives. And we can have conversations around the water cooler online. So we have, there's that community aspect to it as well. But also, paradoxically, even though we watch it to remind ourselves that we are not of the train wreck, oftentimes the people on the shows kind of resonate with us, or we feel a connection with them, because reality TV tends to traffic in these broad archetypes, right? Like, there's the shy one, there's the bossy one, there's the smart one. So usually, there's like someone you can grab on to and say, well, I'm not exactly like this person, but you know, I'm more of a Chloe than a Kim.

• 13:11Speaker 04

  I think we need to do some soul searching.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  Or you can kind of grab on to and feel that kinship with the people on the shows. That's by design.

• 13:20Alie Ward?

  Are the worst people on a reality show actually that bad? They always come out later and say that producers tweak things, they edited it, they asked them questions, they prodded them. But if you're the worst on a show, are you actually the worst? Or is that all post-production?

• 13:39Speaker 02

  I think somewhere in the middle. Right? I mean, it also speaks to the question of is reality TV reality? Right? And I think most people at this point don't think reality TV is 100% reality. Like, we're pretty savvy. We know that people are being cast to fit these particular archetypes. And anything that falls outside of the realm of that storyline, of that archetype, is cut out. So we don't really see people as kind of whole people oftentimes, right? If there's someone who is the worst 5% of the time, then we're going to see that 5%, right? We're not going to see that, like, the other 95% of the wonderful things that they do. And then, you know, they're prodded with producer questions, free-flowing alcohol,

• 14:22Speaker 02

  and sleep deprivation and all that stuff. So are they 100% the worst? Probably not. But they do use the kernel of something that's there.

• 14:33Alie Ward?

  And in her book, True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us, she explores race, sexuality, and gender with chapters like "Don't Be All Like Uncool" about the self, "Here for the Right Reasons," which explores couple dynamics in reality TV, "Not Here to Make Friends" is about group sociology. And there's a chapter titled "I Question Your Taste Level" about class. And even "Bad Boys, Bad Boys on the Sociology of Deviance on Our Screens." And her students get to write papers like "The Sociology of Age Stereotyping in The Golden Bachelor", "The Sociology of Women's Work in Wife Swap", "The Sociology of Social Media in The Circle." So for every reality show, there are like 10 papers you could write. It just gives me butterflies that this is a possibility. This is anology.

• 15:18Alie Ward?

  This stuff deserves to be looked at in an obsessive academic fashion. When you're designing your syllabus for the next semester or when papers are coming in from your students, can you describe some of the topics that get covered? And how you decide on those?

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Well, actually, I had the syllabus before I started writing my book. But it was basically like the sub areas of sociology. So we would have sociology of gender and we would read a classical sociology piece about gender and then we would watch RuPaul's Drag Race. And we would talk about how those principles were being played out on RuPaul's Drag Race, like performing gender, on the difference between biological sex and gender, those types of things. So it's basically kind of a tour of sociology through the lens of reality TV. So like sociology of gender, sexuality, we have the sociology of work, sociology of race and intersectionality. And then for their final projects, what the students have to do, which is the thing

• 16:21Speaker 02

  that I posted on Twitter that probably led you to me that went viral, was then I have the students say, I tell them, pick a realm of sociology that we have not talked about in this class and write about that in a particular TV show. Someone did the sociology of work hierarchies in Below Deck. So that was something we hadn't covered in class and we hadn't looked at that show in class. So we had a lot of angry people who were like, why didn't you do this show or this topic? It's because we had already done those. We had already done, for instance, Real, I love Real Housewives. I'd love to see a presentation on Real Housewives, but we had already covered Real Housewives in class.

• 16:56Speaker 05

  You came after me in the house. I was sitting there having a lovely moment with the ladies and you came in in your Herman Munster shoes.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  They're Louis Vuitton shoes, you know?

• 17:06Speaker 05

  Well, even Louis Vuitton makes mistakes.

• 17:08Alie Ward?

  When your students are coming up with these papers and they're researching it, do you find that they are typically drawn toward things that have a lot of relevance for their own life? And does that mirror why we tune into some shows and not others?

• 17:23Speaker 02

  That's interesting. Do they pick topics that are relevant to their own life? I mean, some of them pick topics about kind of young 20-somethings partying. There was a great presentation on Flora Bama Shore this semester.

• 17:37Alie Ward?

  The presentation was sociology of alcohol in Flora Bama Shore, which examines the MTV show, which bills itself as nine roommates hit the Gulf Coast to party, hook up, fight, and stir up plenty of other Southern fried shenanigans.

• 17:55Speaker 07

  I don't know, but it's gonna get us [BLEEP] up. I'm doing shots and I don't care what I'm taking shots of.

• 18:01Alie Ward?

  I watched some clips. I felt like I could smell the clips.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  Which was super interesting.

• 18:05Alie Ward?

  Niche.

• 18:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, like southern, yeah, southern etiquette or lack thereof. So that was interesting. And this person actually was from that area, too. So I could see that. There is that resonance there.

• 18:16Alie Ward?

  You know, you mentioned The Real World and I watched The Real World when it came out, when I was in high school. And it was revolutionary to be like, wait, we're just in these people's house. They're just being themselves in their houses? This one got in a fight? What is going on? Are they gonna kiss? These are real people. And Survivor, I feel like, was a really big moment for competitive TV, for competition-based television. Did they wire younger brains to be like, I really am more drawn towards seeing actual emotions? You know?

• 18:49Speaker 02

  Oh, that's a really good point. There's a reason why so many social media influencers are reality TV personalities. I think they paved the way for us kind of making these, we call parasocial connections, right? We feel like we know the people on our screens. And it's, that's heightened, right? When it's people who are behaving as themselves ostensibly versus playing characters. And so those connections that we feel online, right? Like on Instagram or whatever with celebrities.

• 19:19Alie Ward?

  Okay, let's go back in time now. Although Jen Alpha may not know, the road to reality has been paved with classics, like the Panopta iconic Big Brother and the delicate balance of being wealthy and attractive, but upset at the same time. When it comes to Real Housewives.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 19:36Alie Ward?

  Tell me why that has a spot in your heart? And is it only certain areas? Are there certain cities that are more attractive to you? Or what do you love about it?

• 19:47Speaker 02

  What do I love about? Well, Real Housewives definitely has a special place in my heart. I first encountered by accident Real Housewives of Orange County in like 2010 or something. And I just remember I had broken up with my boyfriend and moved out of our apartment. And I was like in my new apartment and this show comes on and Vicky Gumbelson gets beaned in the head by a football and I was like, yes.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  Yes, and I was like, this is what I need in my life right now. And this is also one of the draws of reality TV. And she was fine, right? It wasn't, right? Otherwise, I would not be, yeah, acting this way about it. But this is one of the draws of reality TV too, right? Is that the stakes are pretty low. And in so much of scripted TV now, and so much of life, obviously, the stakes are so high. And you can just tune into Real Housewives. And the biggest conflict is like, will Bethany invite Ramona to her barbecue on Labor Day? And there's something soothing about watching something that's so low stakes. And it's interesting because when things get high stakes on Real Housewives shows, you'll see the fans react negatively to it. Like, this is too real. This is not what I want to be seeing.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  I want to see like, silly, rich ladies hitting each other with their Gucci bags and fighting over stupid stuff.

• 21:06Alie Ward?

  You know, the term "brain rot" is, I feel like, something that we use where we just need to turn our brains off from thinking about something that is too terrible. I'm wondering how much human brains are actually capable of taking in the horrors of the world on a global scale from an anthropological standpoint? And if there is some need as we learn more and more about what's happening globally with suffering, global warming, if we are more drawn towards something that's low stakes, do you feel like reality TV is doing something to our brains where it's a respite?

• 21:44Speaker 02

  I think on an individual level, I definitely experience that, right? Where I just want to tune into something that I can just let wash over me. Although, of course, it's paradoxical because I can't just let it wash over me because I'm analyzing all of the sociological dimensions of it, right? All the like, microdynamics and gender, race, class. Because it's such a rich text that can teach us so much about ourselves sociologically. So I'm kind of watching it on these dual levels where on the one level, it's like, okay, Ramona's barbecue, right? That can wash over me in an aesthetic wave. On the other hand, I'm like, oh, but like, what does that say about, you know? Their interactions as a dyad and gender and race, right?

• 22:26Alie Ward?

  And for decades, scholars wondered about the causes and effects of reality shows. There was this one 2001 paper, it's now vintage, I suppose. Psychological escapism: Predicting the Amount of Television Viewing by Need for Cognition in the Journal Communication. And it found that if a person's need to think is lower, they feel less pleasant when they have nothing to do, because there's nothing left to do but think. And the easiest way for individuals to escape this pressure to think is by watching TV. So if we're wondering why we sit and scroll for hours looking at videos of people we will never meet, who are blending their contour, or sharpening a camping hatchet, or demoing their guest bathroom, that might be why.

• 23:10Alie Ward?

  In tough times, no thinky feels good. But can reality TV as a construct deliver that anymore? There was this one New York Times critic who called reality shows, quote, "a theater of cruelty," citing that the casualties of these on-screen conflicts are too real, with reality TV personalities dying by suicide and suffering other stark readjustments to their new life under scrutiny. So now that we know the behind the scenes, reality TV might be too dark to lean on for escapism. Or maybe as a culture, we're just getting more mean. What are some things that you feel like your students or you have learned about human interactions and human dynamics?

• 23:54Alie Ward?

  Has it changed any of the ways that you interact with people in your life, or the way that your students interact? Do you end up learning how to be a person, or how not to be a person, from hours of watching?

• 24:07Speaker 02

  I think, actually, it might be the reverse. I think sometimes, I mean, reality TV is potent, right? Because we're watching so much of it. And there is some research that shows that people who watch reality TV tend to think relationships are more conflict-driven than they actually are.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  And I kind of was like, oh, that's interesting. And then recently, I spent a lot of time marathoning The Traitors, which is a very like conflict driven show. I would like be in faculty meetings, department meetings and be like, feel like a level of tension that was not there. And so I can see, right, like how reality TV can really affect us. Maybe sometimes in a negative way if we're thinking that things involve more conflict than they actually do.

• 24:52Alie Ward?

  You know, I've always wondered too, I grew up watching Discovery Channel. I loved like nature documentaries and animal documentaries. And then as time went on, it became like Pawn Stars or like Ice Road Truckers. It became a lot of Blue Collar Hero. And is there something economic there where it's cheaper to make the shows? Or the demographic tends to want to see themselves reflected? Do we know why some media has kind of turned over to reality TV type of shows? That are more people based than maybe nature based?

• 25:29Speaker 02

  More people are going to tune into more conflict driven shows, right? Like you see TLC, which was originally the Learning Channel.

• 25:35Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Right? And now has been referred to as like a latter day freak show. Right? You have, you know, the families with a million kids and what have you.

• 25:44Alie Ward?

  Alec Baldwin and Hilarious new show with their seven kids, that's on TLC. Now, one 2021 paper in the journal Media and Communication is titled, quote, "Here Come My 600 Pound Quintuplets: A Discussion of Reality Television as a Freak Discourse", which explains that from gorgons and mermaids to bearded ladies and elephant men, people have for centuries been fascinated by those who deviate from physical and mental social norms. However, as science and medicine progressed and the protection of human rights became more important, freak shows and traveling sideshows dwindled. The article looks at how reality television programming as a genre

• 26:26Alie Ward?

  uses a narrative formula that can be likened to 19th century freak shows to enhance its storylines and produce a human spectacle. Hmm. Wow. But why?

• 26:39Speaker 02

  So, yeah, I mean, like, it's economical, right? It's like a cost-benefit analysis. People, they want things that are going to bring in viewers and that are relatively cheap to make. And that's kind of the history and the story of reality TV in general, is that it's relatively cheap to make because, for the most part, you don't have to pay the people who go on it, right? You don't have to pay the crew union wages sometimes, and you don't have to build sets. So there's a lot of reasons, right, like, from the production side, why you'd want to create them. And then, from the demand side, more people are going to watch The Duggars than they're going to watch a show about orcas. You know, whether or not we want that to be true is another question, but that's just the reality.

• 27:21Alie Ward?

  So, yeah, like a drive-through on a road trip. It's cheap and it's easy. And unlike trained actors with SAG and AFTRA union protections, the documentary nature of reality means longer shoot days, no overtime penalties, or missed or late meal penalties, no mandatory eight-hour turnaround between shoots to sleep. And we covered the importance of unionizing the labor force with a ton of great history in the entertainment industry in a field trip episode from the WGA strike, during which we talk about how the literal richest company on earth exploits union loopholes to pay its crew low-budget film rates. And we'll link that episode in the show notes.

• 28:05Alie Ward?

  But even 10, 20 years ago, this was well-established in the industry, as detailed in this paper titled "Reality TV's Low-Wage and No-Wage Workforce," which covers how reality TV's classification as non-scripted programming lets the studios exploit this non-unionized workforce, and how duping someone into being a contestant on a show means you don't have to pay for the participation. It's a gamble for contestants, but the house always wins. Speaking of wealth and houses. How do you feel, as someone who loves The Real Housewives, how do you feel about the title?

• 28:39Speaker 02

  Oh, The Real Housewives title. I mean, we could write a dissertation about the title.

• 28:42Alie Ward?

  I know.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  Fascinating. First of all, none of them are housewives, right?

• 28:45Alie Ward?

  Right.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  I'm not the first to point this out. But this idea that they're kind of being defined through their relationships with men is super fascinating. The fact that that still resonates in our culture, that they're housewives, is super interesting, that they would be defined that way. And then, like, on top of that, they're not housewives. They have jobs. Well, they all have jobs because they're all in the show.

• 29:09Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  Which is another dimension of it. And now, more and more, they're bringing down the fourth wall. This is a really interesting transition in reality TV now, and really interesting development, is that like, more and more, we're like, tearing down the fourth wall. And they're talking about themselves as reality TV personae, as Real Housewives. Because most of the conflicts now that they have are about things that happened because of the show, like, happened at BravoCon, or someone tweeted something about the show. And so that's been really fascinating to see as well.

• 29:40Alie Ward?

  When it comes to what you study for reality TV, do you dip into things like YouTube and TikTok? Or where is the line for you, educationally, where you're focusing on this medium, but not this one?

• 29:51Speaker 02

  Listen, that's a good question, right? Again, it's a super messy construct. I would consider like YouTube and TikTok to be forms of reality TV. And there are people who study those genres specifically. But that's just an arbitrary, like, guardrail. Like, I consider those things to be reality TV as well.

• 30:10Alie Ward?

  Can I launch into some questions from listeners?

• 30:12Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 30:13Alie Ward?

  Okay. I'm just gonna get into it, because they have so many good ones. But before we do, let's highlight and donate to a charity. And this week, it's going to the Pedro Zamora Scholarship via aidsmemorial.com, which is dedicated to continuing the legacy of the late AIDS educator and health and social justice activist Pedro Zamora, by awarding $5,000 scholarships to those making a difference in the fight against HIV/AIDS and/or advancing public and reproductive health, racial, environmental, and immigration justice, and more. So for more on those scholarships, or to donate, you can see the link in the show notes, which will take you to the aidsmemorial.org's page. About it. Thank you to sponsors of the show for making these donations possible. How's your ponytail looking? Maybe like a little thinner than it used to?

• 30:57Alie Ward?

  We've talked about this in our menopause episode. At some point, it's bound to happen to all of us. So if you're ready for thicker, fuller hair, start your free online visit today at forhers.com/ologies for personalized care. So that's F O R H E R S dot com slash ologies. Individual results may vary. Featured products include compounded drug products which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality. Prescription required. Price varies based on product and subscription plan. See website for full details, restrictions, and important safety information. Ologies with Ally Ward is sponsored by Sylvania. It's time to upgrade your nighttime drive with Sylvania LED Ultra Fog and Powersport Lights. These powerful lights deliver cool white clarity and crisp visibility that's built to last.

• 31:42Alie Ward?

  And thanks to their compact design, Sylvania LED Ultra Fog and Powersport Lights are engineered for a DIY install. No mechanic required. They're also backed by a limited lifetime warranty and 125 years of lighting expertise, bringing you LED Ultra Night Vision to help you see better at night. Switch today and see better tonight with Sylvania LED Ultra Fog and Powersport Lights. Being safer on the road starts with the person behind the wheel. That's Mazda's philosophy when designing every vehicle. Their proactive safety features help keep you more aware, connected, and engaged during every drive, which means your car does more than help protect you. It makes you a safer driver, which helps protect everyone.

• 32:24Alie Ward?

  That's why Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. To learn more, visit MazdaUSA.com. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services.

• 32:37Alie Ward?

  Listen, sometimes you get out of your routine. That happened to me recently when I went out of town and I realized I forgot my Ritual Essential for Women 18+ It's a multi that I've been taking for years. And guess who landed in another country without them? Me? Didn't feel right. They contain nine key nutrients, two delayed-release capsules designed for optimal absorption, but Ritual

• 32:59Alie Ward?

  Why do I love them so much? They have a team of scientists. They poured over thousands of studies to figure out what are common gaps that people need in their diet, but they don't actually consume. It's also designed to be gentle on the stomach. You can take it with or without food, which I love. Plus, I like that it looks like a tiny lava lamp. I tell you that every time, but it has these beads and oil and it tastes like mint, easy down the hatch. I usually take them in the morning. And the reason why I've stuck with Ritual for so many years is because my schedule's all over the place. Sometimes I'm eating breakfast. Sometimes I'm running through an airport with one shoe. So instead of striving for perfect health, aim for supporting foundational health. Save 25% on your first month at ritual.com/ologies. That's ritual.com/ologies for 25% off your first month.

• 33:44Alie Ward?

  Every time I record a Quince ad, I'm like, look at me wearing head to toe Quince. I feel like this is enough of an ad. I can just stop here. But if you're like, huh, what is that? Quince sells clothes and shoes and bags, even stuff for your house that are classic, well-made and priced at 50 to 80% less than similar brands because they've cut out the middleman. They work directly with ethical factories. So you have luxury quality pieces without a luxury price tag. Perhaps this holiday season, do you know what it feels like to get a cashmere sweater as a gift? I don't because I'm the one getting them for people. And so can you, and they're affordable too. They also have 14 karat gold earrings, high-quality down outerwear, cozy gloves made of cashmere, leather bags, they have great bedding, cookware luggage.

• 34:28Alie Ward?

  So whether you're giving that to you or to someone else, you can give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or you can go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, just let them know it was Ologies. It's the best way to support the show. Okay, on to your questions sent in by the patrons via patreon.com/ologies. First one comes from Oliver Callis, Sarah Mans, and Darren Bush, who noted that in working with primates in grad school, Darren said, "When there's a physical conflict, every

• 35:10Alie Ward?

  monkey watches with interest. Maybe we're wired to be voyeurs," Darren said, as well as... Okay, Jennifer Dorsett says,

• 35:18Speaker 04

  "Hi, Ali. This is Jennifer from Florida. My question isn't so much about those on reality TV, but why we as a society are so fascinated by watching other people. What is that? Is that voyeurism? Is that jealousy? Or is it something else? Thanks, Ali."

• 35:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, so there's literature on this, right? So again, there is that voyeurism, right, where we want to watch the train wreck to feel superior to the train wreck. There are a lot of different subgenres of reality TV, and people might tune into different shows for a different reason. Like, probably we're not watching Top Chef for the train wreck. We might be watching it because we feel that it's educational in some ways. We're enjoying the conflicts that we're watching. And again, there is that paradox where, at the same time that we're watching to feel smugly superior, we're also making connections with the people on the show, right? Saying like, "Oh, I'm more of a Bethany," or "I'm more of a Carol." And kind of, we all kind of have one character that we can kind of grab on to, even if we don't support everything they do, or we're unlike them in a lot of

• 36:24Speaker 02

  ways, and say, you know, "That's my character."

• 36:27Alie Ward?

  Patron, The Lady is a Geek, asked, "Rather than these shows reflecting the reality of courtship, how much do they shift expectations to something unrealistic? Reality TV seems to romance what porn is to sex," The Lady is a Geek said. It reminds me of that definition of pornography or obscenity, where I can't define it, but I know when I see it.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:49Alie Ward?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 36:50Speaker 02

  I think part of the time is people trying to convince themselves that what they watch is not reality TV. It's almost like challenging, "Well, I watch House Hunters. That's not reality TV, is it? Is it?" Because they want to feel superior to the people who watch reality TV.

• 37:03Alie Ward?

  Right. Also, I understand that in House Hunters, and House Hunters International, and all of the franchise, that they absolutely already bought the house before they shot it. Is that true?

• 37:14Speaker 02

  I mean, that's what I've heard. Yeah.

• 37:16Alie Ward?

  Yeah. Yeah, no, sorry, everyone. On those house hunting shows, they usually already bought the house. And according to many publications, like House Beautiful's article, "Here's the shocking truth about HGTV's house hunters." Usually, you're watching someone who already purchased a place tour their own empty home. And then the producers find a few other places to tour. Like, according to reports from people who have been on the show, they might be filmed walking through an Airbnb or even a friend's house, places that are sometimes not even on the market, as if they were considering living and dying in it. Now, filming can take place over a few days, and you might get paid like 500 bucks to do it. But for like Lynn and Gary looking for a Myrtle Beach summer house,

• 38:01Alie Ward?

  I guess the clout and the cash like isn't bad for people who are not classically trained thespians. But then, is that acting? If someone's like, "I don't know, Roger. I really don't want to live this close to the freeway." Is that acting? Are they playing themselves?

• 38:19Speaker 02

  Well, I guess the sociology answer is we are all playing ourselves all of the time. Right? We are like all performing for audiences of others. So, yeah, my criterion is not, are they acting? Because that's, I mean, how do you parse that? Right? Are they acting or are they not? But are they basically playing themselves? Whether or not there's any scripting involved.

• 38:41Alie Ward?

  Well, this was on the minds of a lot of listeners. Jamie Hannah asked, "Reality TV's often make me think of the Stanford Prison Experiment, which is really interesting because so many of these questions are about ethics. Does a person's behavior change while in an extreme situation?" Ellie Lopez, first time question asker, asked the same thing. "Curious how the presence of the camera in and of itself influences, amplifies, changes how people on reality TV act versus how they would have handled similar situations while not on display." So, does the presence of the camera change the reality of it? And how would we know?

• 39:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's interesting because if you talk to people who are on long, who are like longtime reality TV personalities, they'll say that they eventually forget about the camera. Yeah. Right. I can't imagine forgetting about the camera, but I mean, that's what they will say. Yeah, I mean, but obviously, right, like the presence of a camera is going to change the social dynamics of a situation. Now, is it going to kind of amplify what was already there? It's interesting because I think a lot of people don't realize the psychological stressors that reality TV, or maybe don't even care, right? Because they'll just say, well, you shouldn't have gone on the show then, right? You knew what you were getting into. There's kind of that lack of sympathy there. I mean, there are multiple psychological stressors that these people are being pinged

• 40:01Speaker 02

  with on these shows. So, I mean, you could argue that like, under these conditions, any of us would behave badly.

• 40:08Alie Ward?

  How much does it pay? When it comes to cash prizes, how does that influence the way that a show is shot or the outcome? Like Jamie Hannah wanted to know, can you discuss coercion and cash prizes? I'm thinking of someone like Alone, who has a half a million dollar cash prize. Win Constantine says, I've noticed that reality TV shows have a really different vibe when there is or is not a cash prize, like The Great British Bake Off versus those crazy, stressful Food Network shows. And I remember seeing some meme about, like, The Great British Bake Off is like, well, it's quite good for a fundant, but you could use some work. And then American cooking shows are like, I need to win this or my child doesn't get cancer care, you know?

• 40:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:53Alie Ward?

  What is the difference there when cash is involved? Patrons Lisa Khan, Scott Sheldon, Lilly B., Brittany Corrigan, Jesse, all asked in Lisa's dismayed words, "Why are American reality shows so awful and cruel? Great British Bake Off has proven that watching lovely people be kind and wonderful to each other is popular," Jesse says. So is it the lack of safety nets and the fear of getting like a stress-induced disease that will bankrupt you? Is that what drives American reality TV to be a gladiatorial sport? Like, what's happening?

• 41:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's that issue of coercion in reality TV. I do think there's more of an understanding about that, the sort of coercion dynamics of reality TV now. I think that's slightly starting to change with people realizing like, oh, like, hey, maybe these drunk people who have had no sleep, right, cannot consent to being filmed. Or what about these kids who are on these reality shows who have no choice but to film, right? Like, is that ethical? Is that coercive? And of course, then they cast people who really need the money.

• 41:57Alie Ward?

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:58Speaker 02

  So, yeah, I think the dynamics do change.

• 42:03Alie Ward?

  Even if there's not a cash prize, you might end up as a co-host on The View. You might have your own hosting gig on

• 42:10Speaker 02

  Right.

• 42:10Alie Ward?

  E! News. And so there is always that promise, perhaps, of using that to make a career and make some wealth, especially if you're not from a wealthy background.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  Right. And that's one of the major ways that reality TV has changed over time. More and more now, we have people who already have influencer followings, right, and are going on these shows in order to increase their number of followers or get a hosting gig, become the kind of a personality.

• 42:39Alie Ward?

  And a lot of people wanted to know why. As much as we like to watch reality TV, it's a real small percentage of people that would be like, sign me up for it, right? Because it could be so brutal psychologically to see yourself portrayed, or just you might get your heart broken, or you might have to eat a deer penis, depending on what the show is.

• 43:02Speaker 07

  You have a real bad gag reflex? Is that true?

• 43:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, when I have too much toothpaste in my mouth, I gag.

• 43:07Speaker 07

  How are you gonna get through a buffalo penis?

• 43:09Speaker 04

  This is $50,000.

• 43:11Alie Ward?

  Side note, if you're like, the host who's barking at a woman to deep-throat a bull penis, sounds familiar. Yes. He's now America's chief cultural arbiter, Joseph Rogan, and his previous job did involve gulping pick dicks. But on the less juicy side of the mic, "Who Does That?" is a great question, asked by Angelica Stanley, Ally B., Hope J., Rene Wagner, Alia Myers, Rachel Nelson, who was almost cast on Dance Moms, but her mother was too emotionally stable, Cooper Michael, and Coximber, first time question asker, asked, "I get why we love to watch it, but why do people want to be on it?" That was Lee, first time question asker. And Annabelle wants to know if there are studies of people who decide to be on a reality show?

• 43:55Alie Ward?

  Like, what types of people get cast in it? And what are they looking for?

• 44:01Speaker 02

  A lot of people will say, "Well, you have to have narcissistic personality to go on the shows." I don't know if that's necessarily true. Well, I think part of it is people wanting to increase their number of followers, right? The whole famous for being famous thing. But at the same time, I also think people don't necessarily know what they're getting into, which might seem naive, right? We should know what we're getting into at this point. Reality TV's been around a while. We kind of understand. I mean, having never been on a reality TV show, I don't really know. But I would imagine it's one of those things where you think you know what it's like, and then you get in there and you realize it's so much worse than you thought that it was.

• 44:38Alie Ward?

  Yeah. OK, but who does gravitate? Of course, there are studies, such as this 2016 paper from the journal Current Psychology, titled "The Dark Triad Traits and Fame Interest: Do Dark Personalities Desire Stardom?", which explains that although the fascination with fame is not a new phenomenon, the emergence of YouTube and reality television has led to the perception that fame is something that seemingly anyone can achieve. They write, "Researchers have examined the characteristics that are associated with the desire for fame and have found that narcissism is one of the most consistent predictors of fame interest." But while psychopathy and narcissism were associated with fame interest, the third dark trait, machiavellianism, was negatively associated with desiring fame.

• 45:22Alie Ward?

  It continues that "the perceived ease of achieving fame may be motivating large numbers of individuals." Especially younger individuals to strive for celebrity status. And it also cites a 2012 study that found 40% of children between the ages of 10 and 12 reported that becoming famous is their biggest goal in life, with kindness toward others and achievement taking second and third place, respectively. But honestly, in this economy, I don't know. Another 2016 paper, Narcissism on the Jersey Shore. Exposure to narcissistic reality TV characters can increase narcissism levels in viewers. That one's pretty self-explanatory.

• 46:03Alie Ward?

  And then a 2022 paper in Psychology of Popular Media titled, Linking Adolescents' Exposure to and Identification with Reality TV to Materialism, Narcissism, and Entitlement, reported that though previous research found a link between adolescents' reality TV viewing and their level of materialism, narcissism, and entitlement, those earlier studies did not stand the test of time. Because current adolescents had lower traits of narcissism and materialism because, quote, "Reality TV mainly portrays negative consequences of entitled and narcissistic behavior, causing viewers to refrain from copying this behavior." So that's good news.

• 46:45Alie Ward?

  You may not have to lose sleep over your child growing up to hit someone with a purse or slamming an empty margarita glass onto a mansion patio. What would you do if your child was on a reality show? I don't know. Ask my mom. I just realized in talking to you that I've been on a reality TV show.

• 47:04Speaker 02

  What was it?

• 47:05Alie Ward?

  Well, I mean, it's not really, but I mean, I had a Food Network show where I went around and ate stuff.

• 47:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. Why do you say that's not really?

• 47:12Alie Ward?

  I never even, I never even thought of it that way. I mean, there is a discomfort, for sure, of having to perform emotions or having to have an emotion that's interesting enough to be Camera-worthy. So it's interesting for me to delve into it because I wouldn't have considered it reality TV, but it was very much eating hamburgers and stuff on camera for entertainment. So the weird.

• 47:39Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 47:40Alie Ward?

  I'm gonna have to go down a whole spiral of being like, what, what, what did that serve in my life? I'm really surprised that you've mentioned sleep deprivation. I had never considered that, but Anna Wolf, Deviancee and Kyla C. want to know a little bit about like the conditions where there are maybe not a lot of sleep breaks or not a lot of rest and stuff like that. Is that just partly filming schedule? Or is that something that it really does sort of take down your filters and guards?

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Oh, is it by design? I mean, I guess I can't really speak to the motivations of the people who create the shows, but it seems like it's both, right? Like, some of the things, like, they need to have bright lights on at all times, and that's not, you know, that's constraints of filming, but that's also something that's gonna be like a psychological torture device. They certainly cast for people with certain psychological profiles. Sometimes they'll say that's to weed out people who are not fit for the show, probably, but also, right, it's to, you know, put people together who are gonna trigger other people because these shows are conflict-driven. I can't speak to what's in the producers' minds or the showrunners' minds, but it seems like that's the bread and butter of reality TV, right?

• 48:55Speaker 02

  Is this kind of like these psychological manipulative tricks? Not every show, but a lot of the shows.

• 49:01Alie Ward?

  But who among us hasn't been a little bitchy when we're hungry or after a red-eye broke down crying in an Uber? You know what I mean? Like, if you had a camera on me when I've missed a flight in an airport and have cried in the bathroom. If you don't want to lose all your marbles on camera or in a stall that smells like diapers, you may find the acronym HALT helpful. It stands for hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. So again, HALT. Hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. And if you're any or all of those things... I don't know. You're dancing too close to the edge, my friend, and I know I've fallen off it.

• 49:42Alie Ward?

  Conditions affect our resilience so much, but Greg Wallach wanted to know how you feel that reality TV has influenced shifts in cultural attitudes like Project Runway or RuPaul's Drag Race, queer culture, attitudes toward race, things like gender. Like, do you think that it's moved things forward to feeling like I have a friend who is queer or trans from watching TV, even if people might not be exposed to them in their actual lives?

• 50:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I really appreciate that question because oftentimes when people are talking about the impact of reality TV on our culture, it's negative impact, which I think is absolutely there, especially because reality TV traffics in stereotypes, right? So like, if the only black people you come in contact with are people who are being stereotyped on reality TV, that's going to be a negative impact. But at the same time, if you look at, you know, for instance, queer representation, and reality TV has not been perfect in terms of queer representation. There's stereotyping there, too. But I mean, even going back to the real world, like, people probably too young now to remember Pedro Zamora, who was this gay man on the Real World San Francisco.

• 50:53Speaker 07

  You know, even as growing up, I never had anybody on TV that I said, oh, you know, he's a gay man like me, I could relate to.

• 51:01Speaker 02

  And he was living with AIDS. But not only was he a gay man living with AIDS, but he married his partner, Sean, on the show. They had a commitment ceremony on the show. And he, even though people are often portrayed in unidimensional ways on reality TV, he was really portrayed as like a multi-dimensional person. He wasn't just like that gay guy. And he was really the first, you know, gay person or person living with AIDS that many people kind of got to know. And I would say that had a tremendous impact on the culture. And in terms of queer representation, reality TV has really been at the vanguard. You know, it was telling queer stories before scripted TV really started to catch up, trans stories. But again, in terms of trans representation, there is absolutely some problematic representation in reality TV as well. But just sort of, you know,

• 51:47Speaker 02

  Exposing people to people with queer identities who they might not have otherwise come into contact with, I think that has been a hugely positive impact on our culture.

• 51:56Alie Ward?

  So that's some good news. But Mary Ann asked, do you feel that given today's climate toward women, that we should really be watching stuff like The Bachelor, where it's so degrading to women? And talking about gender, Ruby Gordon and Olivia Rempel wanted to know, why do many men seem to like it less than many women? Olivia asked, why is reality TV typically seen as a feminine activity? I know this isn't always the case, and a lot of masculine people enjoy it, but a lot of what I've experienced, they say, is an aversion to these shows from the male presenting people around me. Is that partly because, you know, tent pole, shows like Kardashians, Real Housewives are focused on more without taking into account how many shows are reality?

• 52:38Speaker 02

  No, I mean, it tends to be a pretty female-driven genre. It's more often women on the shows, women are more likely to tune in than men. I do think there's some effect of men feeling like they are going to be more stigmatized for admitting that they watch the shows. I hear a lot of stories from people who'll be like, oh, my boyfriend or my husband says he doesn't watch, but then he's in the background commenting like, didn't Madison get eliminated last week? So I think, yes, it's definitely a more female-driven genre. And I also think that plays into maybe why it's more stigmatized, because genres related to women and femininity tend to be more stigmatized or kind of looked down on. There was Duck Dynasty, right, Big Two.

• 53:19Speaker 02

  There are some kind of more masculine-driven shows, but yeah, for the most part, it's a pretty feminine genre.

• 53:25Alie Ward?

  Yeah, it is interesting, though, like Ice Road Truckers, Pawn Stars, things like that.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 53:31Alie Ward?

  That blue collar hero, stuff that they might not think of as reality TV, just because people aren't wearing makeup in it, you know?

• 53:37Speaker 02

  Right, that's, yeah, good point.

• 53:38Alie Ward?

  People are asking a little bit about the history and the evolution. Esther Hadak wants to know, how has the genre evolved? And Julia L. and Anajali Himali also wanted to know that. Anajali asked, do you see a change in attitudes or awareness of stereotypes in newer TV shows? Since you've been watching- You know, for 25 years. How have you seen that evolution of different genres?

• 54:03Speaker 02

  Yes, how has it evolved over time? Well, it's certainly become more conflict driven. It's really interesting because if you watch the original Real World, I remember at the time thinking that was very conflict driven. Yeah. Looking back, it's like just Kevin sitting there being, yeah, I'm a little angry, right? Like, it's not. But I think oftentimes people, and this is just in general, like sociologically, people tend to think, want to feel like we're moving towards something or away from something. So I often get asked the question, like, why are these shows more and more outrageous? I don't necessarily think they're more and more outrageous. I think, you know, there were outrageous shows in the year 2000, right, with the world's deadliest beast worms, number five, right? There were like five iterations of that show, or The Swan. There were like these crazy shows that probably wouldn't happen now.

• 54:48Alie Ward?

  Just a side note, if you didn't watch The Swan, or you blacked it out due to secondhand trauma, I got you. It premiered around the turn of the century in 2004. And every episode followed two women who identified as ugly ducklings. And they get sequestered in a nice McMansion and over three months are treated to therapy sessions, personal trainers, dental care, and things like extreme plastic surgery to correct their natural plainness. Wow, you say it can't get much more degrading than that, but hold on. They also have to compete in a beauty contest among all the other contestants, and only one is crowned the swan.

• 55:29Alie Ward?

  Because it's just, it's not enough to be at war with your own body. You also have to go into battle against other people with the same vulnerabilities. It only survived two seasons, but it lives on in our hearts like a tapeworm.

• 55:44Speaker 02

  I don't think it's getting more outrageous. I think it's getting more conflict driven from the early days, for sure. And then there is that connection to social media that we talked about that is really like part and parcel of reality TV now, right? Like, people are going on to increase their followings, or they're going on to have followings. The two of them are really tied together now. I do think in recent years, there has been a more awareness of stereotypes like post George Floyd, post Me Too, moving forward from there. I mean, at least they're like giving lip service to the fact that there are stereotypes involving gender and race on these shows. It'll be interesting to see if that's just like a blip or whether we move forward from

• 56:29Speaker 02

  there. But there are some shows that I would say probably would not air today from, you know, like the early 2000s that just are overtly offensive on the face of them. But then again, I don't know, like a show like Cops, you know, in the wake of George Floyd got canceled, but now is back.

• 56:47Alie Ward?

  Really?

• 56:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, but now is back. So.

• 56:51Alie Ward?

  Bad boys, bad boys. What you gonna do? Yes, after the BLM movement and Me Too, there was a brief era of so-called cancel culture, say the people who were held accountable for their misdeeds. But it's 2025, baby, and we have seen things that have been canceled bounce right back up like a horror movie villain 10 seconds before the final credits. So yeah, Cops is back. It was canceled for four months and resumed shooting in October of 2020. Aired on Fox, it remains one of the longest running shows in America. The more things change, the more they stay the same. You know, you mentioned transformations. Hannah, Marie, Ali B. and Haley Kirby asked about that.

• 57:34Alie Ward?

  Hannah asked, why was Bridalplasty the best reality TV show ever made and why was there only one season? Ali B. asked about The Swan and The Biggest Loser. Were they popular because Americans love to critique hypocritically? Or do we hate ourselves so much that we want to see people suffer to change themselves? Have you seen anything in the body positivity movement change in reaction to shows like that? Or have you seen how those types of shows have declined?

• 58:03Speaker 02

  When I say certain shows probably would not air today, you know, I think a show like Bridal Plasty or a show like The Swan, I don't see a show like that airing today. Some of the more racially stereotypical shows, I don't see airing today. There are some body positive shows like My Big Fat Fabulous Life. Yeah, I mean, The Biggest Loser. Yeah, they're super. There was a study done, this is kind of a divergence, but there's a study done on The Biggest Loser, and it was an experimental study, and it had people watch one episode of The Biggest Loser versus people in a control group who watched like a nature show, one episode, and then coming out of that, the people in the Biggest Loser group had more of a dislike of fat people than the people who watched just one episode of a nature show versus that show.

• 58:47Speaker 02

  So my understanding is that there is kind of more of an awareness of that type of show. Reality TV is always kind of a chameleon and changing and rising like a phoenix. So, you know, I don't know what's around the corner. We might revert to Bridal Plasty next week.

• 59:02Alie Ward?

  I mean, there are elements of Bridal Plasty on TikTok and on Instagram. You know, if you look up a moisturizing cream, the next thing you know, they're like, would you like to get a full facelift at 35? And you're like, what, what? No. So, you know, those things I think are, they find their niche differently. But, you know, you mentioned race too. Mark J. Lerman wanted to know, how are reality TV dating shows racialized? How does race operate in terms of their presentation? Asked by their daughter Jackie.

• 59:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean, it definitely depends on the show. It tends to be like this, we call it like homophilus experience, where people are searching for people who are kind of like them, quote unquote, demographically, not only in terms of race, but also in terms of social class and relative age and where they grew up and religion and political values. And it's interesting because a show like Love is Blind kind of tries to take that away. Although at the same time, how much does it really take away? Because when you hear someone talking, you're already getting clues about their demographic identity. But a show like Love is Blind is fascinating to me from this perspective because the overt point of the show is that it's trying to take away these demographic constraints that we have.

• 1:00:13Speaker 02

  But at the same time, it's showing us that these constraints exist and that we can't actually take them away. Because once the people come out of the bunkers, there are still these barriers that exist that we've put into place in our society. So something like that's really fascinating. And then, of course, notoriously, the Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise has been so white for so long. Not anymore. Finally, there are protagonists of color on these shows, but it took a really long time. And for a really long time, the people of color who are on these shows were not presented as serious contenders. There are a few exceptions. Oftentimes, they fell into that trap of representation where they were just kind of there to lend

• 1:00:54Speaker 02

  an ear to the white people on the shows who were talking about their experiences. So, yeah. I guess that speaks to your other question about are things changing? I mean, yeah, okay, we've had black bachelors and we've had black bachelorettes now. And so we do see a little bit of incremental change in that respect.

• 1:01:15Alie Ward?

  Just heads up, I cannot recommend the reality podcast Two Black Girls, One Rose more highly. Justine and Natasha have the hottest takes on things like Love is Blind and The Bachelor. They're looking at modern love and relationships through popular TV.

• 1:01:30Speaker 03

  He's just six foot five. Doors open and her face. That's when she knew she got the ill set up. You know, the record scratch?

• 1:01:42Alie Ward?

  So they are, in effect, reality TV sociologists, but also hilarious. Two Black Girls, One Rose. Love those ladies. We have a really interesting episode about vocal fry, accents, code switching, and African American vernacular English in the phonology episode with a brilliant Dr. Nicole Holliday, which we'll link in the show notes. Also, Rachel Lindsay, who's an attorney, was the Bachelorette in 2017 and the first

• 1:02:07Alie Ward?

  Black lead in this long running Bachelor franchise. And in a really rare move, did end up married with her pick on the series. For five years, which is pretty good. They separated in late 2023, but she launched a career as a TV personality and a correspondent from it, which honestly, on that show, that's kind of the bigger goal for a lot of contestants. Are there any shows that you feel like have, have really moved the needle more? Like, are there any shows that you're excited about giving voice to people who maybe haven't had them in the past? Anything like that that you feel is, you know, very hopeful that, that might have super positive impacts?

• 1:02:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think about that more in terms of like queer representation. There was like a sexually fluid season of Are You The One on MTV? And that got a lot of press. And I think that I was pretty excited about that, especially because there's like a long history of like people who are bisexual or pansexual being extremely stigmatized. And so having a whole season of people who are like, I'm not like fitting into one box one way or the other was fascinating for me. And also the fact that they were being presented like not in a negative way, just as people on a dating show. But that was kind of a turning point that was, I found really exciting.

• 1:03:25Alie Ward?

  We had someone ask about that. Matt Thompson wanted to know how have shows negatively affected different minority groups like bisexuals with Tila Tequila's Dating Show and LDS with Secret Lives of Mormon Wives? But, you know, you mentioned that there are some other options that are actually kind of illuminating positives, you know, of different queer groups. When it comes to like religious voyeurism, I don't feel as bad with religious voyeurism because I'm like, you're proselytizing all the time anyway, so let's look at how fucked up this is.

• 1:03:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Alie Ward?

  Which, I mean, I came from a Catholic background, so.

• 1:04:02Speaker 02

  Me too. Where's the Catholic reality show?

• 1:04:05Alie Ward?

  Seriously.

• 1:04:06Speaker 02

  Confess all your sins to this old guy. Yeah.

• 1:04:09Alie Ward?

  Literally, we were the first confessional booths. It's like.

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  Literally confessionals, yeah.

• 1:04:15Alie Ward?

  Riot.

• 1:04:17Alie Ward?

  Lisa Khan wanted to know, why are American reality shows so awful and cruel? Great British baking show has proven that watching lovely people be kind and wonderful to each other is popular. Bee Ingberti asked, I'm a fan of reality shows. However, if we watch shows that are from other countries such as Japan, I get to learn about cultural norms as an outsider. Are they very different across different countries? Like, for example, I turned on the TV at a hotel I was in in London, right as room service came up and they brought in a sandwich or whatever, right as everyone's dongs. We're just in full 4K color. There's like a reality TV show in-

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  What show is this?

• 1:04:58Alie Ward?

  It's like they show you fully naked on a reality show.

• 1:05:02Speaker 02

  In England?

• 1:05:03Alie Ward?

  In England. And I was like, what? And I was mortified. And then I told someone that I met about that later and they were like, oh no, those are just like our normal reality shows. But it was like full frontal nudity. And I was like, oh my God, oh my God.

• 1:05:15Speaker 02

  I think we can learn cultural norms from reality TV, but we also have to kind of be wary there, right? Like a bunch of penises out does not represent all of Britain.

• 1:05:23Alie Ward?

  I mean, by the way, Naked Attraction was the name of it.

• 1:05:26Speaker 02

  Naked Attraction. Are they being judged based on the-

• 1:05:30Alie Ward?

  Oh, yes. A clothed person is faced with six naked people who are initially hidden in booths. Their bodies and faces are gradually revealed through successive rounds from the feet up. And at each round, the chooser eliminates one naked person until only two are left. When the chooser also takes off their clothes to make the final choice.

• 1:05:49Speaker 02

  Just because. Why wouldn't you?

• 1:05:53Alie Ward?

  And then they, they pick a person and then they go for a fully clothed date.

• 1:05:56Speaker 02

  Oh, I like that they specified that the date was fully clothed. Okay.

• 1:05:59Alie Ward?

  Fully clothed. And each episode can take up to 12 hours to film.

• 1:06:03Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:06:04Alie Ward?

  It must be so cold.

• 1:06:06Speaker 02

  I mean, what if you're like a grower, not a shower? I mean, there's a lot of problems with this.

• 1:06:10Alie Ward?

  Well, it's on Max in case you want to see naked people seeing naked people. And let's just say the reactions were priceless.

• 1:06:18Speaker 02

  You wrote, "This is the craziest [__] I ever watched on TV." I mean, we do have Naked and Afraid, but-

• 1:06:24Alie Ward?

  That's true.

• 1:06:25Speaker 02

  The privates are blurred out on that.

• 1:06:27Alie Ward?

  Right. And last question about politics, Ali B. and Sidoni S. wanted to know, Ali asked, "Can you correlate the rise of reality TV with world and political events of the early 2000s? 9/11, Bush administration, war on terror, war in Afghanistan? And really, did this start because we cannot face actual reality?" Which we touched on earlier, but Sidoni S. wanted to know, "How did The Apprentice shape America's perspective of Donald Trump? Did reality TV make him our president because of that familiarity? Or what about political and historical influence?"

• 1:07:00Speaker 02

  Well, it's nuanced, because on one hand, people don't want to watch overtly political reality shows, because again, it's supposed to be this kind of escapist realm apart from politics. But there's always been a tie between reality TV and politics, right? Like from Bill Clinton, like tooting his saxophone on a talk show, or Richard Nixon on Laugh-In. That tie has always been there and been a part of it. Did The Apprentice make Donald Trump our president? I mean, I don't, I think that's maybe, maybe too simplistic. It seems like it helped and it aided his rise. And oftentimes, when people talk about like the negative impact of reality TV, that's often what they're referring to.

• 1:07:40Speaker 02

  And so I don't have any like hard data on this, but I mean, there's some like anecdotal evidence. I know people who campaigned for Hillary in the first election. They would go door to door in Pennsylvania and people would say, you know, "No, I'm voting for Trump. I saw him on The Apprentice. I liked him." Right? And it's interesting, because we talk about reality TV being a female-coded genre. And oftentimes, women are represented very stereotypically, very materialistically in this genre. But when men are represented, especially white men, when they're straight, right men on these shows, they're not represented in any kind of negative stereotypical way. I think it also plays into the way that Trump was represented on that show. Because if he had been represented as a kind of like a bozo,

• 1:08:25Speaker 02

  I don't think it would have had that same impact as someone who's being represented as, "I'm a businessman. I'm sitting behind a desk. I'm making important decisions. I'm always right. I'm wearing a suit." And so I think that gets into people's brains as, "Oh, this is a person that I want in charge." So this is a long answer, all to say, did reality TV make Trump our president? I don't know if it's like a one to one correlation, but it certainly seemed to accelerate his rise.

• 1:08:51Alie Ward?

  What are some reality TV shows that you wish existed? Is it really hard not to be driving around and being like, you know what they're doing? You know?

• 1:08:59Speaker 02

  Um, okay, so I wish existed. I always say, so my mother in law is in like a retirement community. And oh my gosh, the stories, because it's like high school, but it's people who DGAF anymore.

• 1:09:12Speaker 07

  I don't give a fuck.

• 1:09:14Speaker 02

  And so it's amazing because they will tell you exactly what they think, and they will tell others exactly what they think. And there's cliques and there's romances. And I think there have been a couple of reality shows that's focused on senior living communities. But I think that's an untapped mark. Plus, seniors would watch those shows as well.

• 1:09:31Alie Ward?

  And who we are, again, can change from our teenage era to our horny golden years. And it can also change Schrodinger style on whether or not we're being observed.

• 1:09:42Speaker 02

  We're all engaged in impression management. We're all performing. Anytime we're in a social situation, we're performing for others to some extent.

• 1:09:49Alie Ward?

  It's so funny to think of how maligned reality TV is because of that. When people don't realize that they're doing their own forms of code switching 10 times a day. You know?

• 1:10:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:01Alie Ward?

  Whether they're talking to their dog or their partner or their boss or their in laws or whatever. So who are we? I feel like is the bigger question that's really, really interesting.

• 1:10:12Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah, we're all, I mean, we're all social selves inextricably, right? We can't. And it's interesting because reality TV also oftentimes the people on the show are like, this is my authentic self or be authentic, be real, right? But there is no real authentic self divorced from our social contacts, right? From the moment we're born, we're being socialized. So it's impossible to kind of extract some authentic self that's untouched by our socialization. Unless we're raised by wolves, which almost never happens.

• 1:10:40Alie Ward?

  I could have spent hours chatting with Danielle, like she was a new pal. But that is not why I'm doing this. Megan Ratcliffe, Ali B, Maya and Kim Granier had questions about that. In Kim's words, can we talk about the phrase, I didn't come here to make friends? Also, Kim writes, if I were on a reality show, I would totally want to make friends with everyone. I'm not here to make friends.

• 1:11:00Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:11:00Alie Ward?

  About that phrase, I'm not here to make friends. Do you feel like when people are on a reality show or they're making a reality show, we are there for the parasocial relationships and? Is there friendship? Are we becoming friends with the people that we're seeing?

• 1:11:18Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting. So the viewer, okay. So I thought you were going to ask about the nuances of the people on the shows who say, "I'm not here to make friends." But the viewer, that's interesting, is kind of there to make friends in a way.

• 1:11:29Alie Ward?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:30Speaker 02

  Studies have shown this, right? That that's part of our attachment to reality TV is that. And also, reality TV, as we've talked about, influencing, right? Functions on multiple platforms simultaneously. So it's like, not just, "I'm going to watch Kim Kardashian on the show," but also, I can like tweet at Kim Kardashian, follow her Insta, and maybe she'll even comment on my comment, right? And I'll actually have that back and forth with her. And then I can buy her beauty products and her clothes and her skims. And so I can enter and play her video games, right? And so I can interact with her on these multiple dimensions, which is why these parasocial relationships are much more potent with reality TV personalities, because we are interacting with them as themselves versus, you know,

• 1:12:12Speaker 02

  "I watch Sex and the City and I'm more of a Miranda than I am a Carrie." Who's a Carrie? I don't know, she's awful, right? But it's not like I'm feeling a, and so I can kind of feel a parasocial relationship with Miranda, but it's not like I can then like go off the show and interact with Miranda in various domains. Miranda?

• 1:12:31Alie Ward?

  What's the hardest thing about what you do and study? What's the biggest challenge?

• 1:12:36Speaker 02

  I mean, I love what I do and study. I do think there is that that stigmatization aspect where people, academics, but also non-academics, will just say, "Why?" You know, I remember like one time I was in a bookstore and I was doing a reading for my book, and this woman came up and she was like, "What's this about?" And I was like, "Oh, it's a book about reality TV." And she goes, "Ugh, why?" And she walks away. And I think that really summarizes how a lot of people feel about what I study. So it's interesting, right? Because studies show that more people than not are watching reality TV, even if they don't think they're watching reality TV. And I often say I'm an evangelist for reality TV, not in the sense of, "I think everyone should watch it." I have no stake in that or whether they enjoy it.

• 1:13:21Speaker 02

  You can find it problematic. I find it problematic in many ways, but I think it's really important to study reality TV because I think people think of it as this kind of, a lot of people think of it as this kind of like sideshow, right? This kind of frivolous thing, you know, but as we've talked about here, right, there are really huge consequences to our consumptions of these shows. And also, these shows can really teach us a lot about a lot of dynamics of our social lives. So whether people watch or enjoy the shows or like them, I mean, I have no stake in that. But I do think it's really important to actually like, look at this thing that's a cultural juggernaut and that really has a vast potential to change the ways that we live our lives.

• 1:14:04Alie Ward?

  What about the best part of your job? Is there anything that just really lights you up that you get butterflies about? Is there anything where you're like, oh, I love doing this?

• 1:14:14Speaker 02

  I mean, certainly teaching. I love, I mean, I love teaching in general, but I just love when students make their own connections between these shows and, you know, like the dynamics of our social experiences and ways that I'm like, oh, yeah, Florabama Shore is doing that. Or Four Weddings is totally like showing us how weddings are stratified by class. And, and so like these, the connections that the students make, especially when there are connections that I wouldn't have thought of are super exciting to me.

• 1:14:44Alie Ward?

  Just seeing the list of papers that your students were working on made me see reality TV in so many more dimensions that it is a very fertile ground for exploration of, obviously, sociology that we just don't think of. We take it for granted because it is entertainment. But, you know, studying film in school is there to teach you about social relationships and the art of it. So it's, it's no different than being a scholar in film. I think it's so fascinating.

• 1:15:15Speaker 02

  Thank you. I think people often think that, you know, if you're studying reality TV, then that's kind of a tacit support of everything that goes on on reality TV. When it's just, you know, I'm just looking at the sociological nuances of the genre. And yes, I am a fan, right? I position myself as a fan. I like a lot of these shows. But I also see a lot of these shows as deeply problematic. So I think studying the genre is not endorsing everything that goes on within the genre.

• 1:15:41Alie Ward?

  Yeah, this makes me want to look at everything that I watch with using more of my brain.

• 1:15:46Speaker 02

  Yes. Amazing.

• 1:15:48Alie Ward?

  Thank you so much for doing this.

• 1:15:50Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me on. This was so fun.

• 1:15:54Alie Ward?

  So ask real people real not smart questions because they would not dedicate their life to it if they didn't care about the subject. So thank you so, so, so much to Dr. Danielle Lineman for that tweet that led to this conversation and for all the context on things happening right under our noses, on our phones, usually. Now, we have links to Danielle's work in the show notes, also a link to the Pedro Zamora Scholarship, and so many links to clips and research is linked in the show notes. We are at Ologies on Blue Sky. Please give us a follow there. And on Instagram, I'm at Ally Ward on both. And we have shorter, kid-friendly episodes called Smologies. Those are available in their own feed every week, wherever you get podcasts. S-M-O-L-O-G-I-E-S. Ologies merch is available at ologiesmerch.com.

• 1:16:37Alie Ward?

  You can join our Patreon for as little as a dollar a month at patreon.com/ologies. A whole bouquet of roses goes out to the people who make this show every week. Erin Talbert admins the Ologies Podcast Facebook group. Aveline Malek makes our professional transcripts. Callie Ardweire does the website. Newell Dilworth is scheduling producer. Susan Hale is our managing director. Jake Chaffee edits. And lead editor is Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio. And also, thank you, Jarrett Sleeper of Mindjam Media for some finishing touches on this one. I guess you get the final rose because legally, we are married. Nick Thorburn made the theme music. And now is the time when I whisper, confess something. And I will tell you that my reality TV vices usually involve... Building a weird cabin, or watching someone surviving in the woods without a cabin,

• 1:17:18Alie Ward?

  or restoring old cars. This week, the reality program I'm most glued to is this couple. The lady is Jackie, and her partner, I don't, I don't even think they're married, goes by Shadow. Okay. And they had a kid in 2022, but have been going through some infertility stuff. And a few of their kids were killed and eaten on camera by ravens. But just today, two new offspring hatched. They are birds.

• 1:17:56Alie Ward?

  They're bald eagles. Jackie and Shadow are bald eagles who live 14 stories at the top of a Jeffrey pine tree overlooking Big Bear Lake in Southern California, which isn't too far from where I live in LA. And for months and years, people have been hoping this pair of eagles will be on the other side of their heartbreak. And now, today, with 60,000 people watching the YouTube livestream of their nest, their fuzzy little eaglets made their debut. They have two. There's one egg that hasn't hatched yet. So all day and all night, you can watch them sit on the babies. You can see them weathering gusts as their home kind of bends in the wind. They're rearranging sticks, sometimes

• 1:18:38Alie Ward?

  while bickering, or they're tearing up a duck into shreds to drip into their babies' mouths. They're on the YouTube Friends of Big Bear Lake livestream. Jackie and Shadow, they're eagles. They are here to make friends. You are the friend. And bonus, also, the livestream kind of doubles as an ASMR channel. If you like the sounds of sticks, and bird song, and gentle winds, and tiny squawking, I do want to muddle my life after them and just sit and look at a view for most of the day. I do not want to sit on birds, though. Okay, bye bye.

• 1:19:33Speaker 07

  I still think about our night down by the beach when we decided we wanted to be together. Every word you said to me sank to the bottom of my heart. And we've walked through fire together and it hasn't been easy. And I know I don't always make it easy, but I still believe in that same feeling. I still believe in you and me. So will you accept this, Ruth? No. Traditional home security only alerts you after a break-in, and that's too late. SimpliSafe is changing that. Stop. This is SimpliSafe. Police are on the way. We don't just alert. We help stop crime before it starts. Plans starting around a dollar a day.

• 1:20:14Speaker 07

  Right now, get 70% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplisafe.com/sxm. SimpliSafe: Ahead of Crime in Real Time. Outdoor deterrence plans start at $49.99 a month. Visit simplisafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.