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SMNTY Classics: Can I be a feminist and still enjoy trashy reality TV shows? · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and all the stuff
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I ever told you production by Heart Radio, and today
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: we are bringing back a classic about which I know
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: little about, just reality TV.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: I have decided we need to come back when revisit
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: this conversation because the growth, the up and down of
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: reality TV has been a lot, especially in this time
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: of influencers, tik talkers and ads like Meta, which we
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: just recently talked about with Bridget. And speaking of Bridget,
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: she is with Emily. This is one of those classics
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: where they talk about can you be a feminist?
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: And also like reality TV?
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: And that's a great question, and I think Bridget does
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: a pretty good job in kind of having internal conversation atward.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: I love it and I think it's important. But I
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: do want to come back and have this conversation because
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: it's been a long time since I've watched reality TV,
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: but in actuality we tink about it, like with the
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: videos that I watch on YouTube that's technically reality TV
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: in a different format. But with that, I think it's
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: time to have that conversation again and might as well
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: start with revisiting this classic.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: So we hope you enjoyed this classic.
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: Hey, this is bridget and and you're listening to stuff
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: Mom never told you. And today I'm pretty excited to
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: talk through one of my favorite topics, reality TV.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Not just any reality TV, trashy reality TV. I'm talking shows.
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: Like The Cards, keeping Up with Them, keeping up with Them,
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: not just Kim, but Kim, Chloe, Kylie, the entire crew
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: crewk Crew with the k of course, I'm talking shows
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: like Basketball Wives.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: I'm talking shows.
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: Like Real Housewives, which is everywhere, Real Housewives of Everywhere,
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: particularly Atlanta, because it's my very favorite one.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Basically, if you're anything like.
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: Me, you love love, love love love kicking back with
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: a good trashy reality TV show. Sometimes, I'm not gonna lie,
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: it's pretty fun that just turn off your brain and
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: just watch people have really inane conversations and have arguments
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: about things that are super trivial that really don't matter,
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: and you know, throw drinks in each other's faces.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Sometimes that's fun. Right.
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: First of all, I feel like reality TV is more
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: nuanced than it seems.
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: Oh, as a kinnoisseur of reality TV, I could one
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: hundred percent vouch for that. It absolutely is probably my
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: favorite thing about reality TV is how campy and over
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: the time it is. There are things that come up
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: on reality TV shows that are so over the top
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: you can't believe they've actually happened, And of course they're
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: scripted in YadA YadA.
• 3:08
  Speaker 6: YadA, but right, they didn't actually happen.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: I can't beieve that happened because it's fake.
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: But that's why I love it so much, is that
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: it's sort of this hyper reality that imagine.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: If this was the actual world that we lived in.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: It's not, but imagine if it was.
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there's almost this need to like suspend belief for
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: a moment. To really enjoy reality TV, you have to
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: suspend belief and not to mention, suspend your feminist ideology,
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: which I think The Onion parodied so perfect in their
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: article satirical article obviously titled woman takes short half hour
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: break from being feminist to enjoy TV show.
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: That article is basically my life when I come home
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: from a long day of being mired and feminist politics
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: and super depressed. Sometimes I just want to come home
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: and watch my dang shows right and turn off my
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: brain and not think about things for a while. The
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: article says, saying that she just wanted a little time
• 4:02
  Speaker 4: to relax and not even think about confining gender stereotypes.
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: Local healthcare industry consultant Natalie Jenkins reportedly took a thirty
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: minute break from being a feminist last night to kick
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: back and enjoy a television program. Jenkins told reporters that
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: after a long and tiring day at the office, all
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: she wanted to do was return home, sit down on
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: her couch, and turn on an episode of TC's reality
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: show Say Yes to the Dress, and treat herself to
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: a brief half hour where she could look past all
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: the various and near constant ways popular culture undermines the
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: progress of women.
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: There's a quote from said women in this article saying
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: between nine and nine thirty, I'm not even going to
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: take notice of all the two dimensional portrayals of women
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  Speaker 5: as fashion and shopping obsessed prima donnas.
• 4:43
  Speaker 6: That part of my brain will just be switched off.
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  Speaker 4: You're here, Natalie, I am right there with you. And
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: it's funny, but it's also true and fictional. Natalie and
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  Speaker 4: I are not alone. Women watch more reality TV than men.
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: According to Civic Science, a market research firm, women are
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: ten percent sant more likely than men to be what
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: they call super fans of reality TV.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: That's people who watch more than five hours a week.
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  Speaker 6: Would you say that you're a super fan.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: I'm a super super fan.
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: If you look at my DVR, my DVR is all
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: Judge Judy, Law and Order, criminal Intent.
• 5:13
  Speaker 6: Well, that's not reality TV. I mean it's inspired by
• 5:16
  Speaker 6: real events. Yeah, I love Mysonalan ar Oh.
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: I could if I my dream of dreams is to
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: host a podcast spit off that's just law and order focused.
• 5:24
  Speaker 6: Yes, you need to pitch that right away.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: I love that. Networks call me. No, it's real.
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  Speaker 5: I mean, you're a Kim Kardashian selfie book owning reality
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  Speaker 5: TV fan, are you not?
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: Can I say people gave Kim Kardashian a lot of
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: crap about that selfie book. If her name were Andy Warhol,
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: it would be on the top ten best art book
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: lists of the year it came out.
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  Speaker 2: I agree.
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  Speaker 5: I think the I mean, for me, I'm not a
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: reality TV super fan, but I am a Kardashian super fan,
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: So we really should devote an entire episode to them
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: on another day. But I think the Kardashians have shown
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: how much reality TV can be a platform for your business,
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: that is your whole life, and they've turned their lives
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: into business machines, into money making machines.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: Definitely.
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: So I mentioned earlier in the show that I'm obsessed
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: with the show Real Housewives of Atlanta. Nini Leaks is
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: someone who I quote often.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: She's great.
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: Fun fact, her picture is hanging in the African American
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: Cultural Museum here in DC. If you go to that museum,
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: they have a wall dedicated to black gestures and her
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: iconic point is in the museum as an iconic black gesture.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so fun fast.
• 6:40
  Speaker 6: She's the most giffable person, Nimi Leaks. Oh, Jeff, pardon me.
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: She's a very highly referenced jiff On, Jiffy or Giffy
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: she is.
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: She is as much as I love Real Housewives of
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: Atlanta as this light, fluffy, mindless entertainment. Recently, I've had
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: to sort of contend with the fact that they're entertainment
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: might not just be for entertainment value.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Actually it can be kind of heavy.
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: I'm talking about the controversy earlier this week that one
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: of the characters on the show, Kenya, was found making
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: some pretty transphobic statements on the show, And even before that,
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: Kenny had a situation on the show where she was
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: actually the victim of intimate partner abuse, and rather than
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: showing this as the serious and very scary thing that
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: it was on the show, it was more handled like
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: a juicy plot line, which I found very, very upsetting
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: and troubling. I actually wrote a piece on Huffing and
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: Post and I just wondered, why is this not being
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: treated as very.
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  Speaker 2: Very serious abuse.
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  Speaker 4: Why are Bravo executives putting a camera in this woman's
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  Speaker 4: face and having her talk about.
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  Speaker 2: Her situation as if it's a.
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  Speaker 4: Juicy, you know, argument at a party, when in fact
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: it's really.
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  Speaker 6: Scary, really scary.
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  Speaker 5: I think the same sort of reality TV washing over
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  Speaker 5: serious issues happens again and again on Real Housewives. I'm
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: not the most avid watcher of the Real Housewives empire,
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: but I do recall that The Real Housewives of Beverly
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: Hills featured some really scary footage of Kim Richards dealing
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: with drug and alcohol abuse issues, or purported drug and
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: alcohol abuse issues, and keeping the cameras rolling when this
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: is a woman who's experiencing a medical low point in
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: her life, who needs serious intervention and help and support. Instead,
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  Speaker 5: they're making money off of her spectacle, which I just
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  Speaker 5: thought was really not okay exactly.
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  Speaker 4: And even furthermore, when Russell Armstrong killed himself, he was
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: a husband of one of the characters on our Real
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: Housewives franchise, it was later revealed that he was abusive
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  Speaker 4: towards his wife.
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  Speaker 2: And I like reality.
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  Speaker 4: TV, but that's scary and serious, and I don't feel
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  Speaker 4: good about promoting people's darkest moments as a spectacle.
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's pretty gross actually if you think about the
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: fact that, like, they're using your attention to sell ads,
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  Speaker 5: and they're using someone's very real crisis as drama that
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: is being commercialized.
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  Speaker 6: I just find that really gross.
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  Speaker 4: And I think back to one of the earliest reality
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: TV shows, The Real World. I remember the character Ruthie,
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  Speaker 4: who have actually met in real life.
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  Speaker 2: When I was in college.
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  Speaker 4: She came to give a talk at my college about
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: safe sex and healthy choices. So shout out to Ruthie.
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: But I don't know if you guys remember I'm kind
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: of dating myself here. Reality TV didn't used to be
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: the spectacle of people making dangerous and abusive decisions. It
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: was just showing people what they were doing. And it
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: was Ruthie drunk driving outside of a nightclub one night.
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  Speaker 4: That was kind of a turning point where you actually
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: saw MTV producers in real time trying to figure out
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  Speaker 4: what to do. Do they let her drive home and
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: film it? Do they stop her? And it was really
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: for me a turning point of Oh, one, reality TV
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  Speaker 4: is going to be a big part of our culture. Two,
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: what is the responsibility of the people who produce this
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  Speaker 4: kind of programming to make sure they're putting out content
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  Speaker 4: that is responsible.
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  Speaker 5: Or just to make sure that the people who are
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: in front of the camera are safe, playing and simple.
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: And when abuse and sort of spectacle is made the norm,
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: then we end up with reality TV that's not just
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  Speaker 5: harmful for the people on it, but it's harmful for
• 10:09
  Speaker 5: the people viewing it. It normalizes behavior that should not
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  Speaker 5: be normalized.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: Absolutely so, even though I'm someone who is a huge
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: advocate for coming home after a hard day, putting your
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: feet up and just watching four hours of Jersey Shore,
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: you have to ask yourself, am I actually contributing to
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: something negative and harmful? Can you really just turn off
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: your brain and consume this entertainment mindlessly or is something
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: else going on.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: We're going to dive into that after this quick break
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: ed we're back.
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: I've been just admitting some of my favorite guilty pleasure
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: TV and thinking about whether it is a guilty pleasure,
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: if I should feel guilty about it, or if I'm
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: contributing to something a little more harmful than I might realize.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: So one thing that you talked about is the people
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: in front of the camera, whether or not they are
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: being treated in a way that is safe and healthy.
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: But it's a it's important to think about those who
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: are in front of the TV consuming this programming as well.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: It probably isn't a surprise to y'all.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: Reality programming isn't really that helpful when it comes to
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: young girls.
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: It's not good for young girls. It's probably not good
• 11:12
  Speaker 5: for all of us. But there's been a lot of
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: research done by the Girl Scouts Institute on the rise
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: of reality TV and how it has some troubling consequences
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: for young girls consuming it. Forty seven percent of girls
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: and young women say that they're regular viewers.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: That's a lot.
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: That's almost fifty percent of the population, with thirty percent
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: saying that they sometimes watch so that's almost eighty percent
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: of girls and young women saying that they sometimes or
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: regularly view reality TV. Eighty six percent of girls believe
• 11:42
  Speaker 5: these shows quote often pit girls against each other to
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: make the shows more exciting, and another seventy percent say
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: that these shows make people think it's okay to treat
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: each other badly.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: That makes me so sad, because if all of these
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: young girls are consuming this media and a lot of
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: them are agreeing that it makes people think it's okay
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: to treat each other in a way that's not nice,
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: you would just have to ask, like, what are they consuming,
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: what are they learning about. I'm a big proponent in
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: reminding folks that some kind of content is only suited
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: for adults, and I think reality TV might fall in
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: that category. But according to a study by Parent Television Council,
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: a lot of young folks are consuming reality TV, particularly
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: on MTV. And what's kind of interesting is that MTV
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: reality TV programming is actually some of the most harmful
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: out there.
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we're talking about things like teen Mom and Jersey Shore,
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: and I'm surprised to hear that teen Mom falls into
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: that category of being sort of slammed as being bad
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: for children and especially young girls watching it. A study
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: actually released by the National Bureau of Economic Research says
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: that Sixteen and Pregnant ultimately led to a five point
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: seven percent reduction in teen births in the eighteen months
• 12:53
  Speaker 5: after its premiere on TV.
• 12:55
  Speaker 6: That actually postulates that this.
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: Show alone accounts for a third of the overall decline
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: in teen births in the United States during that period.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's really something.
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: So full disclosure, I'm a big watcher of teen Mom
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: and Sixteen and Pregnant, but I always wondered if the show,
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: even though it makes teen motherhood look very difficult and
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: look very stressful and look like something that's not a
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: walk in the park for sure, part of me always thought, well,
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: if I'm a teenager watching this, even if this looks
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: stressful and difficult and hard to do, it's still on TV.
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: And so I wonder if some young people watch this
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: and say, gee, this doesn't look fun at all.
• 13:32
  Speaker 6: But if she can do it, I can do it.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: If she can do it, I can do it. And
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: she's in magazines and I'm watching on MTV right now, so.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: It can't be all bad.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: And now she's an influencer, and now she's getting plastic surgery,
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: and now what's happening beyond the show.
• 13:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it definitely.
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: Has long term harmful consequences, even if the short term
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: impact was a positive one, if you want to put.
• 13:51
  Speaker 6: It that way. I just think it's complicated.
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: And what's worse is that even shows like teen Mom
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: or sixteen and Pregnant, like Jersey Shore, like The Real
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: Housewives pit women against each other. It reduces women to
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: caddy stereotypes that are not positive depictions of all that
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: women can be exactly.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: Going back to that Parent Television Council study for a minute,
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: one of the things they found in that study is
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: that shows like Teen Mom, you might think of it
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: as being really sexist in terms of men making sexist,
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: harmful comments to women. Actually, the study found that you're
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: more likely to see women making negative comments toward other
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: women or to.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Themselves than men.
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: And so I think if you're a young person watching this,
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: that might normalize this idea that as a young woman,
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: it's okay to be negative toward your female peers and it's.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Also okay to be negative toward yourself.
• 14:45
  Speaker 6: Oh, that is so depressing.
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: And the other part of this research that I found
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: really frustrating and reductive was the fact that this cool
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: girl narrative seems to be very popular and common in
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: reality TV. Males tended to refer to females as quote
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: cool and view them more favorably when females displayed characteristics
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: that males considered more male, like basically not caring about
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: having an emotional connection with the people that you're sleeping with,
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: and not viewing sex as an indication of a greater commitment,
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: not requiring romance prior to intercourse, not being jealous when
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: the males were sexual with other females, That cool girl
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: who's emotionally detached.
• 15:29
  Speaker 6: That sort of trope plays out.
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: Over and over again. What is that teaching girls watching?
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: What is that teaching girls watching like about how they
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: should respect themselves or what they should emotionally require for
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: partners and equally respectful relationships that they choose to enter into.
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's nothing wrong if you're an adult woman who
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: is getting into consensual sexual relationships and you don't feel
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: very emotionally attached. But I don't think that we should
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: be telling young teenage girls that.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: That is the way for boys to think that you're cool,
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: That you're cool if you're this kind of person.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: Girls should be figuring out what kind of person they
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: want to be and what kind of sexual relationships feel
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: right and healthy and respectful for them if they're getting
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: this message that the only kinds of sexual relationships you
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: can have and still be considered quote cool are ones
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: that are detached and icy and all of that.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's good.
• 16:17
  Speaker 6: No, it's not.
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: And not to mention, reality TV shows like The Real
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: Housewives tend to portray women not as nuanced characters with
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: full careers and lives and interests, but instead they really
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: reduce women to these oversimplified stereotypes that aren't just based
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: on gender but race too.
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: Exactly Emily, and we're gonna hear more on that topic
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: and how reality TV shows can really treat women of
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: color in some nasty, toxic ways, and hear from a
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: guest who pretty much wrote the book on how that happens.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: After a quick break, and we're back and.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: For more on reality TV whether or not it is
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: just a harmless, guilty pleasure or if it can be
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: a little bit more harmful. We're joined by Jennifer Posner.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: Jennifer Posner is a media critics, speaker, and founder of
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: Women in Media and News. Her book Reality Bites Back,
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: The Troubling Truth about Guilty Pleasure TV exposes how reality
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: TV functions as a backlash against gender and racial justice.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: She's been published in The New York Times, Newsweek, Bitch,
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: Miss the Nation, Politico, among others, and has appeared as
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: a commentator on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox,
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: among many others. Jennifer, we are so glad to have
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: you here today.
• 17:34
  Speaker 7: Thank you. I'm glad to be with you.
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: So, Jennifer, we started today's episode with me talking about
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: my love of reality TV and sort of it. Being
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: a guilty pleasure writer is turn off my brain and
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: watch it. Can you really consume reality TV in this way?
• 17:47
  Speaker 7: Do you think? Well, it's not so much, can you?
• 17:51
  Speaker 7: It's more should you?
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 17:53
  Speaker 7: And it's not even only should you consume reality TV
• 17:59
  Speaker 7: this way? Should you engage with any kind of media
• 18:02
  Speaker 7: that way? So, as a media literacy educator, my main
• 18:06
  Speaker 7: goal when I wrote the book Reality Bites Back, just
• 18:10
  Speaker 7: as when I do media literacy talks or workshops on
• 18:13
  Speaker 7: how to engage with journalistic media, my goal is not
• 18:18
  Speaker 7: to get people to stop watching reality TV or to stop,
• 18:25
  Speaker 7: you know, watching a particular news show that they enjoy.
• 18:28
  Speaker 7: The goal is to just be able to arm yourself
• 18:33
  Speaker 7: with a critical deconstruction tools that will allow you to
• 18:37
  Speaker 7: watch these shows if you really want to still have
• 18:41
  Speaker 7: fun with it, but not subtly take in all the
• 18:45
  Speaker 7: really damaging messages that are always beaming out from so
• 18:51
  Speaker 7: many of these so many of these programs in the
• 18:54
  Speaker 7: genre that really get you when you're in the state
• 18:59
  Speaker 7: of turning your brain. That's the one thing that I
• 19:02
  Speaker 7: really hope that people don't do is continue to think
• 19:07
  Speaker 7: that it's okay for us, that we won't be harmed
• 19:12
  Speaker 7: if we turn our brain off. Is really tempting to
• 19:15
  Speaker 7: want to though. Look, I mean, I'm human. I'm a
• 19:17
  Speaker 7: huge TV fan, right, I grew up. I grew up
• 19:20
  Speaker 7: in the eighties. I was the quote unquote latchkey kid.
• 19:23
  Speaker 7: You know. I didn't have siblings. TV with my sister,
• 19:27
  Speaker 7: you know, and it's texting. We have hard lives now.
• 19:31
  Speaker 7: We go to work, we go to school. It's difficult,
• 19:34
  Speaker 7: the world of the dumpster fire. We want to come
• 19:37
  Speaker 7: home not think about things. But when we don't think,
• 19:41
  Speaker 7: when we are in a passive state. That is when advertisers,
• 19:47
  Speaker 7: and that is when media producers have us at our
• 19:52
  Speaker 7: most intellectually and emotionally vulnerable. That's when the deep seated
• 19:56
  Speaker 7: messages around gender, around race, around class, around secual reality
• 20:01
  Speaker 7: can sort of subtly sink in in ways that can
• 20:04
  Speaker 7: do us damage.
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: It sounds like you're advocating for conscious consumption of really
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: trashy TV, Is that right?
• 20:12
  Speaker 6: Well, like, if you're going like almost, if you're.
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: Going to go there, if you're going to consume it,
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: consume it actively with a critical I right, I mean,
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: what are those harmful messages that you see over and
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: over again in this genre, and specifically messages that are
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: harmful for women and girls and women of color.
• 20:33
  Speaker 7: Well, it's it's so incredibly.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Dense.
• 20:38
  Speaker 7: The amount of misogyny and racism in reality TV has
• 20:45
  Speaker 7: been it's almost incalculable. Although I did my best document
• 20:50
  Speaker 7: ten years of it, the first ten years on network
• 20:52
  Speaker 7: and cable TV, the first ten years on network TV,
• 20:55
  Speaker 7: and the sort of proliferation of it on cable from
• 20:58
  Speaker 7: two thousand to twenty ten, and.
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: I can tell.
• 21:02
  Speaker 7: You that there are a number of incredibly damaging tropes,
• 21:06
  Speaker 7: including the idea that women in general are caddy bitchy,
• 21:13
  Speaker 7: not to be trusted, especially not by other women.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: That women are.
• 21:18
  Speaker 7: Stupid, ditsy bimbos intellectually inferior to uh two men. That
• 21:28
  Speaker 7: they can't get ahead unless they trade on their sexuality.
• 21:32
  Speaker 7: That women are sort of overly emotional and over sensitive
• 21:39
  Speaker 7: to things that are so not a big deal, you know,
• 21:43
  Speaker 7: like violence against women. Yeah, And that that women are incompetence. Also,
• 21:51
  Speaker 7: they're incompetent at work, but they're also incompetent at home.
• 21:54
  Speaker 7: They're bad moms, they're bad wives, they're bad girlfriends. It's
• 21:59
  Speaker 7: very very rare that women are portrayed in reality TV
• 22:04
  Speaker 7: as doing anything right. And there's also, of course the
• 22:09
  Speaker 7: notion that women are tello greedy gold diggers, that women
• 22:13
  Speaker 7: are mercenary and only interested in love for what it
• 22:17
  Speaker 7: can give them financially. And finally, that women are in
• 22:23
  Speaker 7: general in particular single women are in general they're pathetic, desperate,
• 22:28
  Speaker 7: man hungry losers who can never possibly live full, happy
• 22:32
  Speaker 7: or successful lives without husbands. And I should say they
• 22:38
  Speaker 7: don't have to even be good husbands. They can be
• 22:42
  Speaker 7: sort of chauvinistic and disrespectful and not loyal cheaters and
• 22:48
  Speaker 7: even abusive to them. But if their husbands then maybe
• 22:52
  Speaker 7: those women can live you know, acceptable lives. But otherwise
• 22:57
  Speaker 7: they're going to be losers forever.
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: And those tropes.
• 23:02
  Speaker 7: That I mentioned apply to all women in reality TV
• 23:07
  Speaker 7: across the board. In and I'm not just talking about
• 23:11
  Speaker 7: dating shows. I'm talking about dating shows, makeover shows, lifestyle shows,
• 23:17
  Speaker 7: even some of the you know, the talent competition shows,
• 23:22
  Speaker 7: the how to Change your house and you know, flip
• 23:27
  Speaker 7: it shows, the Dior shows, cooking shows. I've seen these
• 23:33
  Speaker 7: tropes across the genre. Let's talk in another question about
• 23:37
  Speaker 7: the apprentice and business shows. But even as all women
• 23:44
  Speaker 7: are represented in those kinds of ways, women of color
• 23:49
  Speaker 7: face even more extreme stereotyping and discrimination and bias in
• 23:55
  Speaker 7: reality TV. So in addition to the stupidity and the
• 23:59
  Speaker 7: loser and the gold diggers and et cetera, you have
• 24:05
  Speaker 7: the idea that black women are incurably angry, belligerent, uneducated, ignorance, violence,
• 24:15
  Speaker 7: ready to pop off verbally or physically at.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: The drop of a hat.
• 24:21
  Speaker 7: That hypersexual, of course, very much going between the Mammy
• 24:29
  Speaker 7: and the Jezebel stereotypes from back from minstrel days. And
• 24:33
  Speaker 7: then when it comes to Latina women, there's been this
• 24:39
  Speaker 7: very consistent stereotype of the sort of trope of the feisty,
• 24:46
  Speaker 7: hot latina, the quote unquote houci the very much focused
• 24:53
  Speaker 7: around sex and sexuality, but in an exploited way, not
• 24:57
  Speaker 7: in a way that assumes that that woman has agency,
• 25:03
  Speaker 7: not in a sex positive way, more in a sexploitative way.
• 25:09
  Speaker 7: And with Asian women, there's who have appeared very rarely
• 25:12
  Speaker 7: on reality TV. There's a lot more invisibility. But when
• 25:16
  Speaker 7: Asian women have not been completely invisible, they've been portrayed
• 25:22
  Speaker 7: as very much the sort of dragon lady stereotype or
• 25:27
  Speaker 7: the kind of geisha stereotype.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: It's really base.
• 25:30
  Speaker 7: A lot of the stereotypes about women in particular, women
• 25:35
  Speaker 7: in general and women of color in particular are incredibly
• 25:39
  Speaker 7: venal base regressive ideas about who we are as people.
• 25:46
  Speaker 7: And men too have been portrayed in these negative, in
• 25:51
  Speaker 7: negative and limiting ways. Men are portrayed as basically mister
• 25:56
  Speaker 7: wright as long as they have a firm ass and
• 25:58
  Speaker 7: a firm financial portfolio and the only you know, like.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: That's all you need.
• 26:04
  Speaker 8: Boys, you know, make it big on Wall Street and
• 26:08
  Speaker 8: you can you know, you can do anything, you can
• 26:10
  Speaker 8: grab it by the Oh wait, I think we've seen
• 26:14
  Speaker 8: what reality TV tells us is mister Wright right in
• 26:17
  Speaker 8: the most grand, world threatening sense.
• 26:20
  Speaker 7: And in a very This is part of why I
• 26:23
  Speaker 7: have not been surprised by Trump, because I monitored the
• 26:26
  Speaker 7: genre for ten years, I analyzed, I transcribed personally every
• 26:34
  Speaker 7: episode of The Apprentice for like a decade. None of
• 26:39
  Speaker 7: this was surprising to me because I saw it all
• 26:42
  Speaker 7: on TV and we all did too, but not in
• 26:45
  Speaker 7: a critical way. And that goes back to why I
• 26:47
  Speaker 7: think it's really important to watch in a critical, active
• 26:51
  Speaker 7: way so that we understand what's coming at us.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: So, Jennifer, in addition to our president, what are some
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: others with the examples that you've seen this play out
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: on TV?
• 27:03
  Speaker 7: Well, let's see what do we want to talk about.
• 27:05
  Speaker 6: First.
• 27:06
  Speaker 9: Let's let's talk about Everybody's one of everybody's favorites sort
• 27:12
  Speaker 9: of either actual favorites or hate watch favorites, The Bachelor
• 27:18
  Speaker 9: and The Bachelorette.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Because one of.
• 27:21
  Speaker 7: The reasons I start out with that a lot of
• 27:23
  Speaker 7: the time is because a it's one of the very
• 27:25
  Speaker 7: first major reality shows that ever hit network television, and
• 27:29
  Speaker 7: it's the longest running dating franchise on TV, but it's
• 27:32
  Speaker 7: also the franchise that started, or at least revived for
• 27:38
  Speaker 7: contemporary audiences. Many of these tropes about women, many of
• 27:44
  Speaker 7: made many of these stereotypes about women and about gender
• 27:48
  Speaker 7: roles in general, sort of Derrek Gurr across the board
• 27:53
  Speaker 7: in the burgeoning reality TV genre that it was at
• 27:57
  Speaker 7: the birth of. And so you look at the way
• 28:01
  Speaker 7: that The Bachelor was set up in the beginning as
• 28:05
  Speaker 7: a cattle call, basically to portray women as having so
• 28:10
  Speaker 7: little self respect and so little prospect, so few prospects
• 28:16
  Speaker 7: in life, that they would subject themselves to live in
• 28:23
  Speaker 7: a house with zero access to outside information or phone
• 28:28
  Speaker 7: calls to their kids or their friends, or newspapers or
• 28:32
  Speaker 7: magazines or Internet, just so that some dude they've never
• 28:37
  Speaker 7: met before, who they don't know from Adam, who could
• 28:40
  Speaker 7: be anyone. He could be a rapist, he could be
• 28:42
  Speaker 7: a loser. Who knows, But ABC says he's great and oh,
• 28:46
  Speaker 7: he has a great ass, so let's marry him, ladies
• 28:49
  Speaker 7: otherwise will die alone? That the phrase die alone was
• 28:55
  Speaker 7: a constant since the beginning of that franchise, One after
• 29:00
  Speaker 7: another after another, woman in her early twenties to early thirties,
• 29:06
  Speaker 7: constantly saying I don't want to die alone? What's wrong
• 29:09
  Speaker 7: with me? Why can't anybody love me for who I am?
• 29:12
  Speaker 7: I try to be skinny enough, I try to be
• 29:14
  Speaker 7: beautiful enough, I try to be nice enough. Why would
• 29:17
  Speaker 7: anybody love me? This is my only shot, this is
• 29:20
  Speaker 7: my only chance, This is my only And they'd have
• 29:24
  Speaker 7: these repeated narratives about how women are nothing unless some
• 29:30
  Speaker 7: dude chooses them, and the portrayal of the man is
• 29:34
  Speaker 7: just they're perfect, they don't have to actually be very smart,
• 29:38
  Speaker 7: and they're usually not. They'n't really be very interesting, and
• 29:42
  Speaker 7: there's usually not. All those fantastic vacations and glamorous dinners
• 29:50
  Speaker 7: and very expensive gifts and rings and dresses and cars
• 29:55
  Speaker 7: are a stand in for how dull the man is,
• 30:00
  Speaker 7: and women are kitted against each other in pursuit of
• 30:05
  Speaker 7: that one dude, because they are telling the audience, the producers,
• 30:10
  Speaker 7: I say, I don't mean the women themselves. The producers
• 30:13
  Speaker 7: are telling the audience that one of these women will
• 30:17
  Speaker 7: emerge happy and in love, and being in love is
• 30:21
  Speaker 7: the only successful accomplishment a woman can make in her life,
• 30:26
  Speaker 7: is the implication and all the others are going to
• 30:28
  Speaker 7: go home being losers like they always were. It doesn't
• 30:31
  Speaker 7: matter what they do professionally, It doesn't, you know, they
• 30:34
  Speaker 7: shouldn't have ambition. Ambition has been portrayed on that franchise
• 30:39
  Speaker 7: until very recently. Only in the last couple of seasons
• 30:43
  Speaker 7: have there been exceptions. Ambition was almost always portrayed on
• 30:47
  Speaker 7: that franchise as being extremely unattractive and wrong.
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: So I feel like these examples you're giving are so
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: spot on and also so omnipresent that how is a
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: feminist like me or a reality TV show loving feminists
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: like bridget here, how are you supposed to enter into
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: conscious consumption?
• 31:11
  Speaker 7: Like?
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: Is there a right way to watch reality TV while
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: being conscientious of the messages we're receiving.
• 31:19
  Speaker 7: There absolutely are ways to reduce the home and still
• 31:23
  Speaker 7: be able to get pleasure from your entertainment. I have
• 31:26
  Speaker 7: a whole chapter in the back of the towards the
• 31:29
  Speaker 7: end of my book, Reality writes Back called fun with
• 31:32
  Speaker 7: media Literacy. And the reason that I am really, I'm
• 31:38
  Speaker 7: really passionate about media literacy is because it allows you
• 31:43
  Speaker 7: to sort of strike back at propaganda, strike back at
• 31:48
  Speaker 7: sort of intellectual brainwashing without sacrificing sort of the human
• 31:55
  Speaker 7: need for entertainment without sacrificing on right, So here are
• 32:02
  Speaker 7: some ways when you when you watch a reality TV show,
• 32:08
  Speaker 7: just like when you engage with any other form of media,
• 32:13
  Speaker 7: what are ask yourself some very key questions. Who created
• 32:20
  Speaker 7: this image? And when I say who created it, who
• 32:25
  Speaker 7: owns it? Who is the image for? Who profits from it?
• 32:33
  Speaker 7: What are the are the sort of financial investments in
• 32:39
  Speaker 7: this image? So, for example, reality TV as opposed to
• 32:42
  Speaker 7: a lot of other kinds of media, Reality TV, a
• 32:45
  Speaker 7: lot of the reason that that it's so toxic is
• 32:51
  Speaker 7: it's incredibly cheap to make and it comes because it's
• 32:55
  Speaker 7: you know, they don't use union uh weight, you don't.
• 32:58
  Speaker 7: They don't pay union wages, they don't workers. But they
• 33:01
  Speaker 7: also come in before the show is ever on the air,
• 33:05
  Speaker 7: they have sold usually some of these big franchises like
• 33:09
  Speaker 7: American Idol or The Bachelor or The Voice, etc. They've
• 33:12
  Speaker 7: sold millions upon millions of dollars of product placement advertising
• 33:17
  Speaker 7: before the show has ever gotten to air, So they
• 33:19
  Speaker 7: don't even have to get the really high ratings. They
• 33:22
  Speaker 7: can stay on the air with much lower ratings than
• 33:24
  Speaker 7: a scripted show because they've already made half their money already, right,
• 33:29
  Speaker 7: and advertisers have been notoriously sexist and racist.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: As we know.
• 33:34
  Speaker 7: If we've ever studied any kind of media literacy before,
• 33:38
  Speaker 7: one of the things you want to be conscious of
• 33:40
  Speaker 7: is whether or not you're being sold something, whether that
• 33:45
  Speaker 7: thing you're being sold is commercial or ideological. So what
• 33:49
  Speaker 7: are the messages you're being sold alongside this entertainment? What
• 33:54
  Speaker 7: is the master narrative? Right? How have the producers and
• 33:59
  Speaker 7: the edits worked in conjunction with each other behind the
• 34:04
  Speaker 7: scenes to get you to think and feel certain things
• 34:09
  Speaker 7: about characters, about people, about scenarios, And if you believe
• 34:17
  Speaker 7: most people, let's be frank, if I said to most people,
• 34:22
  Speaker 7: you don't even like you love reality. See if I
• 34:24
  Speaker 7: said to you, do you think it's real?
• 34:25
  Speaker 6: What would you say?
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: I would say it's I would say it's probably not real.
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: If I had to say, I know it's not real.
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: I watch it and pretend that it's real, but I
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: know it's not.
• 34:33
  Speaker 7: And you know, I think most people at this point
• 34:36
  Speaker 7: in the beginning of the genre, when I would do
• 34:38
  Speaker 7: media literacy workshops or talks with students in like two
• 34:42
  Speaker 7: thousand and three two thousand and four, they really did
• 34:45
  Speaker 7: think it was real. But in the last ten years
• 34:48
  Speaker 7: or so, people have started to get hip to it
• 34:50
  Speaker 7: and they understand it's not real, or at least they
• 34:52
  Speaker 7: think they do. So they'd mostly say exactly what you
• 34:56
  Speaker 7: just said, or some version of it.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: But if I then asked.
• 35:00
  Speaker 7: People, and I've done this so many times, it always
• 35:04
  Speaker 7: works out the same way. If I then ask people
• 35:06
  Speaker 7: about a character on their favorite reality show and I say,
• 35:09
  Speaker 7: what do you think about that person? I get back, oh, so,
• 35:13
  Speaker 7: oh she's a oh he's told oh.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: She's such a sweet girl.
• 35:17
  Speaker 7: Oh. But if you believe you know a person who
• 35:21
  Speaker 7: you've seen on reality TV and what you think they're
• 35:24
  Speaker 7: really like, you don't really know reality TV is not
• 35:27
  Speaker 7: real because you don't know what frank invite editing can do.
• 35:30
  Speaker 7: Frank invite editings is the lifeblood of a genre, and
• 35:34
  Speaker 7: what it does is it can take little bits and
• 35:36
  Speaker 7: pieces of conversations that people have had with entirely different
• 35:40
  Speaker 7: people on entirely different days about entirely different subjects, splice
• 35:45
  Speaker 7: them together and make it seem like somebody who was
• 35:48
  Speaker 7: talking about their puppy is actually in love with the Bachelor,
• 35:52
  Speaker 7: or somebody who was crying about their father getting a
• 35:56
  Speaker 7: phone call that their father's in the hospital was actually
• 36:00
  Speaker 7: crying on the job. So there are a bad candidates
• 36:03
  Speaker 7: at The Apprentice or et cetera. The manipulations that go
• 36:09
  Speaker 7: on behind the scenes from producers, both in the in
• 36:12
  Speaker 7: the editing, and structurally in many other ways often are
• 36:18
  Speaker 7: aims at selling you some very specific ideas about individual characters,
• 36:24
  Speaker 7: but also about women and men, people of color, trans people,
• 36:28
  Speaker 7: queer people, straight people, you know, poor people, rich people,
• 36:31
  Speaker 7: et cetera, and you know, white people, black people, and
• 36:37
  Speaker 7: we need to be really conscious to break of that
• 36:40
  Speaker 7: selling process. To break it down, we also need to
• 36:43
  Speaker 7: be conscious of when a product itself is being sold
• 36:47
  Speaker 7: to us, so that we're not just watching, we're not
• 36:50
  Speaker 7: just devoting ourselves to something we think is entertainment, but
• 36:53
  Speaker 7: really it's just a major commercial. Like every episode of
• 36:56
  Speaker 7: The Apprentice, half the episode is all about selling something
• 37:01
  Speaker 7: for a company.
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: Well, well, Jennifer, it sounds like you're really.
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: Giving us the tools that we need to really be
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: more critical viewers of this kind of content so that
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: we're not just sort of mindlessly viewing it thinking that
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: it's a guilty pleasure that's super harmless.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Where can our listeners find out more about all the
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: great work that you're doing.
• 37:18
  Speaker 7: That was just a tip of the iceberg. If you
• 37:20
  Speaker 7: want more tips like that, my book Reality Bites Back
• 37:24
  Speaker 7: The Troubling Truth about Guilty Pleasure TV. You can find
• 37:26
  Speaker 7: out more about it at Reality bites backbook dot com.
• 37:31
  Speaker 7: I actually do media literacy talks and workshops both on
• 37:36
  Speaker 7: reality TV as well as on a variety of other topics,
• 37:40
  Speaker 7: in particular right now on rape culture, rape culture and
• 37:44
  Speaker 7: gun violence in the media. So if anybody is interested
• 37:47
  Speaker 7: in that, they can contact me on Twitter at at
• 37:51
  Speaker 7: j E n n p o z n e R
• 37:55
  Speaker 7: or on Facebook. Find me there, Jennifer L. Posner, and
• 38:00
  Speaker 7: I would love to. I'm always happy to answer media
• 38:03
  Speaker 7: literacy questions and keep the conversation going, So feel free
• 38:06
  Speaker 7: to tweet at me and let's all, you know, let's
• 38:11
  Speaker 7: never turn our brains off, but still enjoy our entertainment
• 38:15
  Speaker 7: here here.
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: Thanks so much, Jennifer, We really really appreciate it.
• 38:19
  Speaker 7: Thank you.
• 38:20
  Speaker 5: I thought that was so interesting, Bridget like, those are
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: some core tips and strategies for how we can still
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: consume the garbage television that we all love and those
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: quote unquote guilty pleasure shows that we want, But just
• 38:34
  Speaker 5: be a little bit more mindful about not passively absorbing
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: bad messages that really distill women down to these two dimensional,
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: simplified characters.
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: Like you do not actually know people who are on
• 38:45
  Speaker 6: reality TV.
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: As much as I like to think I know Nini Leaks,
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: I don't actually know her, and I don't actually know if.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: What she says on the show is actually what she said.
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: As Jennifer pointed out, those shows can be so heavily edited,
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: I don't actually know what I'm seeing or how real
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: any of this reality TV is, so it's always important
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: to keep that in mind. I also think it's super
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: interesting how so much on this show comes back to
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: being critical and being critical consumers, and so it doesn't
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: matter if you're buying that. Nevertheless, she persisted Sweatshirt that
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: you think the proceeds go someplace good, but who actually
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: knows because it's etsy or you're watching a reality TV show.
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: Really it comes down to being critical about what we
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: are consuming and making some choices based on that.
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, because in media, you're the product, You're what they're selling.
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: So the fact that your eyeballs are on a certain
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: TV show. If you're getting that TV show for free
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: or you think it's free, keep in mind someone's profiting
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: off of your attention. So you have to see those
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: macro level motivations behind the media that we're consuming and
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: just and be mindful about the kind of information diet
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: that you're feeding your brain and your mind and your heart.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: So it's beIN te listeners. We want to hear from you.
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: Are you, like me, a super fan of reality TV
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: and you know the Kardashian sisters better than you know
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: your own sisters. Maybe you hate Reality TV and anybody
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: who watches it you roll your eyes immediately. Wherever you
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: fall on that spectrum, we want to.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: Hear from you.
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: You can get at us on Instagram at stuff mom
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: Ever Told You, on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, and
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: as always, we love getting your emails and our inbox
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: at mom stuff at HowStuffWorks dot com