tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/reality-television-8853/articlesReality television – The Conversation2023-12-13T01:02:55Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2194942023-12-13T01:02:55Z2023-12-13T01:02:55ZHe’s the romantic lead but has never had sex: what The Bachelors has to say about virginity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565085/original/file-20231212-21-m904rz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C2556%2C1299&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Network 10 </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“I’ve actually never had a girlfriend,” 32-year-old Bachelor Wesley Senna Cortes told contestant Brea Marshall in the second episode of the most recent season of The Bachelors Australia. </p>
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<p>Obviously, I grew up with Christian values and trying to do the right thing and not be another reason for girls not to trust men […] I never saw myself as being a one-night-stand guy and, matter of fact, I’ve actually never had sex.</p>
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<p>These twin disclosures – of Cortes’ lack of relationships and sexual experience – have formed the foundation of his narrative as one of the three leads in this season of Australia’s longest-running reality romance format. </p>
<p>He is an unusual figure not just in comparison to his fellow leads, Ben Waddell and Luke Bateman, but in reality television more broadly, where adult male virgins – particularly adult male virgins cast as romantic leads – are not commonly seen.</p>
<h2>Male virgins in reality romance shows</h2>
<p>This is not to say Cortes is a unicorn. There have been other male virgins on Australian reality romance shows and in The Bachelor franchise.</p>
<p>In 2019, then 29-year-old Matthew Bennett was one of the grooms on the sixth season of Married At First Sight. He <a href="https://www.who.com.au/mafs-virgin-matthew-bennett-today">disclosed to his TV wife</a>, Lauren Huntriss, he was still a virgin, and later <a href="https://www.nowtolove.com.au/reality-tv/married-at-first-sight/married-at-first-sight-matthew-virginity-tv-54010">lost his virginity</a> to her on their honeymoon. </p>
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<p>The <a href="https://people.com/tv/colton-underwood-channels-40-year-old-virgin-bachelor-promo/">poster for</a> the 23rd season of The Bachelor US (also 2019) closely mirrored that of the 2005 film The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and included the tagline, “What does he have to lose?”</p>
<p>Later, in his pointedly titled book The First Time: Finding Myself and Looking for Love on Reality TV, star Colton Underwood <a href="https://pagesix.com/2020/04/01/colton-underwood-writes-about-losing-his-virginity/">disclosed</a> he lost his virginity, like Bennett, under the auspices of the show, sleeping with his eventual partner, Cassie Randolph. </p>
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<p>It seems unlikely Cortes’ narrative in The Bachelors Australia will follow the same path. </p>
<p>For one, unlike Married at First Sight and the US iteration of The Bachelor, the Australian Bachelor franchise does not include sex as a narrative milestone (in the US, this is referred to as the “fantasy suite”). Secondly, he appears to embody “virgin” as an identity in a different way.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-bachelor-to-the-bachelors-why-australias-longest-running-dating-show-has-updated-the-old-formula-197414">From Bachelor to The Bachelors – why Australia's longest running dating show has updated the old formula</a>
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<h2>Ways of being a virgin</h2>
<p>Broadly speaking, sociological literature on virginity has identified two key virgin identity types: adamant virgins and potential non-virgins.</p>
<p>Adamant virgins have made an active decision not to have sex (often until marriage). Potential non-virgins, by contrast, have not made this decision, but have not found themselves in an appropriate situation. </p>
<p>Virgins in the first category often make their choice for religious or moral reasons. Those in the second category are often waiting for the right partner.</p>
<p>While their narratives of virginity are not as clear-cut as these two tidy identity categories, arguably both Bennett and Underwood were potential non-virgins. </p>
<p>“It was never a conscious choice to still be a virgin at 29,” Bennett said in <a href="https://au.sports.yahoo.com/unfortunate-side-effect-mafs-matt-still-virgin-203354960.html">his Married at First Sight audition tape</a>. </p>
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<p>It was just an unfortunate side effect of walling myself off from any sort of vulnerability, being social and dating.</p>
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<p>Underwood, unlike Bennett, is openly Christian, and this was often assumed to be the reason for his maintained virginity. However, he <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/22384066/colton-underwood-gma-interview-gay">offered a different one</a> after breaking up with Randolph and coming out as gay in 2021: </p>
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<p>I could never give anybody a good answer of why I was a virgin. The truth is I was a virgin Bachelor because I was gay, and I didn’t know how to handle it.</p>
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<p>Cortes, however, seems to occupy the first category. He is a devout Christian and these religious convictions seem to have underpinned an active choice. </p>
<p>This makes him an adamant virgin – something of a problem for many of the women paired with him on the show.</p>
<h2>Virginity loss narratives</h2>
<p>Sociologist Laura Carpenter <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Virginity_Lost.html?id=pXXZn_qSoDoC&redir_esc=y">outlines</a> three key ways in which people tend to think about virginity loss: as a gift (something to be valued), as a stigma (something to be disposed of as soon as possible), and as part of a process (a rite of passage in a broader process of sexual maturation).</p>
<p>Many more men than women, she notes, tend to view their virginity in terms of stigma – as something “abnormal and in need of explanation”. This, paired with a widespread toxic assumption that virginity loss can make a boy a man, means male virginity in particular can be pathologised.</p>
<p>Unlike Underwood’s season of The Bachelor US, The Bachelors Australia has not sought to fetishise nor especially belabour Cortes’ virgin identity (unlike the way it approached the narrative of polyamorous contestant Jessica Navin <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-bachelor-to-the-bachelors-why-australias-longest-running-dating-show-has-updated-the-old-formula-197414">in the previous season</a>). Instead, his lack of relationship and sexual experience has been treated as a problem of compatibility with many of the female contestants. </p>
<p>Both Marshall, to whom he initially disclosed his virginity, and fellow contestant Jade Wilden have asked Cortes how comfortable he would be sexually progressing with a partner. </p>
<p>“I was nervous […] that he might progress too quickly, and […] now I’m nervous he won’t progress at all,” Marshall said. Wilden appeared to share that fear, especially when Cortes stated he would not want to move in with a partner before marriage.</p>
<p>If we think of virginity loss as a step in a process, this compatibility concern arises from a worry from these potential partners that they and Cortes might be at very different – possibly irreconcilable – steps in that process.</p>
<p>In the season premiere, the show teased the strong possibility one of the three Bachelors might end the show heartbroken. It will be interesting to see, given these narratives of potential mismatch developing around Cortes, whether that man will be him. </p>
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Read more:
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jodi is the author of Here For The Right Reasons, Can I Steal You For A Second? and Not Here To Make Friends, three novels set on a reality romance show. </span></em></p>The twist in this season of The Bachelors? One is a virgin. What does this say about how society – and reality television – frames virginity?Jodi McAlister, Senior Lecturer in Writing, Literature and Culture, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2068912023-06-13T12:20:52Z2023-06-13T12:20:52ZVirginia Woolf would have loved The Great British Sewing Bee – as three of her novels prove<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529597/original/file-20230601-29-sakuz9.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C1226%2C1237&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sewing Fisherman’s Wife by Anna Ancher (1890).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Syende_fiskerpige.jpeg">Randers Museum of Art</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03myqj2">The Great British Sewing Bee</a> is back. The BBC reality show sees 12 amateur sewers compete in increasingly difficult stitching challenges, all hoping to be crowned the Sewing Bee champion. Now in its ninth series, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/4wDhKqyj04wld2cVx8ykql5/meet-the-sewers">the backstories of this year’s contestants</a> show how sewing often provides an intimate, material connection to mothers and grandmothers. </p>
<p>For 49-year-old contestant <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/4xyW9JRZB1F0jLdN5wxYgYV/lizzie">Lizzie</a>, sewing has been a way to “stay connected” to her mother, who taught her to sew. For <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/2VJX4cDGSVMLW7KqYrl2TXP/matthew">Matthew</a>, 30, it’s a reminder of his nan, who was a tailor. Her tailoring certificate hangs above his sewing space.</p>
<p>These stories are not surprising given the history of domestic needlework. Novelist <a href="https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL19450A/Virginia_Woolf">Virginia Woolf</a> (1882-1941) included details of home sewing <a href="https://southampton.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=d586b9e0-c294-44f2-a6f4-a99f00e72d89">and other stitching</a> in her novels, as a fundamental part of her female characters’ everyday experiences. </p>
<p>While her sewing skills might not have been up to competing in The Great British Sewing Bee, I’m sure she would have been an avid viewer. Woolf’s writing illuminates the special place that sewing held in British households from the late 19th century.</p>
<p>Sewing machines became <a href="https://blog.historicenvironment.scot/2020/06/sew-on-and-sew-forth/">commonplace household items from the end of the 19th century</a>. Needlework was a daily part of woman’s domestic labour. </p>
<p>Houses were full of the paraphernalia and activity of sewing. This image (left), from the first issue of Woman’s Weekly in 1911, shows “needlework in the afternoon” as part of “woman’s work”.</p>
<p>Woolf’s novels evoke this everyday activity with the heightened power of her <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/modernism-daily-time-and-everyday-life/reading-writing-and-thinking-a-woolfian-daily-life/53D1679769EAB90E2ADB0A517C53DC78">modernist writing</a> to reveal the metaphorical meanings of stitching. </p>
<p>Examples from three of her novels show how powerful the modern connection still is to an activity that in the 20th century was a required domestic duty but which, by the end of the century, most women had escaped.</p>
<h2>1. The Years</h2>
<p><a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/525183">The Years</a> (1937) tells the story of the Pargiter family. In a historical sweep from 1880 through to the early 1930s, Woolf shows the changes wrought on women’s lives, including <a href="https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/History/World_History/Book%3A_Western_Civilization_-_A_Concise_History_III_(Brooks)/05%3A_Culture_Science_and_Pseudo-Science/5.05%3A_First_Wave_Feminism#:%7E:text=In%20Britain%2C%20the%20best%20known,as%20the%20Suffragettes%20in%201903.">first-wave feminism</a> and <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230373211#about-this-book">upheavals in social class</a>.</p>
<p>Rose, the youngest Pargiter daughter, is a child in 1880. In one chapter her nanny, “looking up from the wheel of the sewing machine”, tells Rose: “Go and get your sewing, there’s a good girl.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529593/original/file-20230601-25-evjtwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Virginia Woolf in black and white photographed from the side." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529593/original/file-20230601-25-evjtwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529593/original/file-20230601-25-evjtwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529593/original/file-20230601-25-evjtwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529593/original/file-20230601-25-evjtwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529593/original/file-20230601-25-evjtwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529593/original/file-20230601-25-evjtwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/529593/original/file-20230601-25-evjtwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1030&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Virginia Woolf photographed by George Charles Beresford (1902).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:George_Charles_Beresford_-_Virginia_Woolf_in_1902_-_Restoration.jpg">Adam Cuerden</a></span>
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<p>The nanny is preparing the child for traditional feminine domesticity. By 1910, the adult Rose doesn’t sew. She is a suffragette. Her cousin Maggie does, however, as strained financial circumstances mean that she cannot rely on servants. Woolf depicts Maggie making herself an evening dress, articulating the disparities in feminine identity at this revolutionary time for women.</p>
<p>Rose bemoans her lack of sewing ability: “I never could make my own clothes.” Maggie responds, “you did other things”. The two women share a moment of domestic intimacy as Maggie makes her dress with “a comfortable whirring sound as the needle picked through the silk”. </p>
<p>Even though she has abandoned needlework, Rose’s connection to the women in her family is imagined through the familiarity and comfort of sewing.</p>
<h2>2. Mrs Dalloway</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mrs-Dalloway-novel-by-Woolf">Mrs Dalloway</a> (1925) evokes the intensity of a single day in the life of protagonist Clarissa Dalloway. </p>
<p>In the aftermath of the first world war, she is readying herself for a party at her home. An upper-middle class woman, Dalloway is impacted by the <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/who-mops-the-floor-now-how-domestic-service-shaped-20th-century-britain">servant crisis of this period</a>, so mends her own dress. <a href="http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200991h.html">In doing so</a>, she returns to the forgotten rhythms of sewing from her childhood. Sewing becomes a deeply meditative activity: </p>
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<p>Quiet descended on her, calm, content, as her needle, drawing the silk smoothly to its gentle pause, collected the green folds together and attached them, very lightly, to the belt.</p>
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<p>This captures the strange nature of sewing. Like the “needlework in the afternoon” from Woman’s Weekly, it is work but also a “gentle pause” from pressing daily activities. </p>
<p>This is echoed in the way sewing is thought about by contestants on and viewers of The Great British Sewing Bee – with affection and nostalgia. It takes them back to a time spent with mothers, grandmothers and other female relatives in comforting and restorative activity.</p>
<h2>3. The Waves</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Waves">The Waves</a> (1931) invokes the heightened place of sewing in a child’s psychic attachment to early maternal comfort. In the final section of the novel the adult narrator, Bernard, is searching for a language to answer life’s existential questions.</p>
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<span class="caption">Jeune Fille Cousant by Henri Lebasque (1925).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henri_Lebasque,_Jeune_fille_cousant,_ca._1925.jpg">Catcul/Wiki Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>One image that comes to him is taken from deep childhood memory: “I need … words of one syllable such as children speak when they come into a room and find their mother sewing and pick up some scrap of bright wool, a feather, or a shred of chintz.”</p>
<p>Woolf and The Great British Sewing Bee remind us of very recent history when sewing was a daily household activity for most women. But this is not simply nostalgic. </p>
<p>The Great British Sewing Bee highlights the skills, pleasures and frustrations of sewing, which most of us don’t see any more, as our clothes are made in <a href="https://truecostmovie.com/learn-more/human-rights/#:%7E:text=now%20made%20overseas.-,There%20are%20roughly%2040%20million%20garment%20workers%20in%20the%20world,all%20garment%20workers%20are%20women.">factories far away by people we will never meet.</a> By understanding the intimacy of sewing we can imagine clothes makers as skilled human beings and realise our global stitching connections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206891/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Pleasance does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Woolf’s writing illuminates the special place that sewing held in British households from the late 19th century.Helen Pleasance, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and English Literature, York St John UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1996272023-02-16T17:21:34Z2023-02-16T17:21:34ZRuPaul’s Drag Race: our research shows how it helps destigmatise the LGBTQ+ community<p>Pressures on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/23/scotlands-trans-rights-campaigners-react-to-gender-recognition-reform-bill">gender recognition</a> laws, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/21/anti-drag-show-laws-bans-republican-states">strong opposition</a> to drag shows and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Springs_nightclub_shooting">increasing incidents of violence</a> show that stigmatisation of LGBTQ+ people still exists, especially for those who do not conform to societal expectations around gender and sexuality.</p>
<p>A 2021 report by <a href="https://www.stonewall.org.uk/system/files/take_pride_-_june_2022.pdf">Stonewall</a> highlighted how people in the UK still experience feelings of “fear, resentment, pity and disgust” towards those who identify as LGBTQ+, especially transgender men and women.</p>
<p>Amid such social turmoil, drag culture has become even more important for representation. </p>
<p>The most visible elements of drag are the <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2018/06/rupauls-drag-race-100-best-looks.html">fabulous outfits</a>, the drama of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2s4AJW7cMo">lip-synchs</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WKyuVMDT5U">iconic catchphrases</a>. However, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/drag-culture-may-be-mainstream-but-its-forms-are-constantly-evolving-125347">rich cultural history</a> of drag for breaking social conventions and challenging gender stereotypes must not be forgotten. </p>
<p>From the <a href="https://pure.roehampton.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/5320237/00380385211008387.pdf">theatres of 16th century England</a> to the height of <a href="https://ezratemko.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/A-history-of-drag-balls-houses-and-the-culture-of-voguing.pdf">ball culture in 1980s New York</a>, drag has provoked conversations and questioned social norms.</p>
<p>Drag has always been, and still is, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20230131-historys-most-incredible-drag-queens-and-kings">a powerful tool</a> to advance acceptance and raise social consciousness around inclusion within society. Above all, drag’s power is its contribution to the destigmatisation of LGBTQ+ people, which is needed to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19392397.2020.1765080?needAccess=true">enhance their self-worth and wellbeing.</a></p>
<h2>The impact of RuPaul’s Drag Race</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/joms.12848">research</a> focused on the reality TV show, RuPaul’s Drag Race, a reality TV competition for drag queens. The participants are given different challenges every week and their performances are assessed by a panel of judges. These days, it is almost impossible to think of drag without also thinking of the global influence of the show and its creator <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/RuPaul">RuPaul Charles</a>. </p>
<p>Now in its 15th season in the US, with several worldwide spin-offs and a <a href="https://twitter.com/RuPaulsDragRace">strong social media presence</a>, the show has made important inroads in bringing themes traditionally considered taboo to prime time television. This spotlight has allowed the wider public to become more familiar with the struggles of this community.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/joms.12848">our research</a>, we argue that drag has helped in two main ways: positive representation and humanisation. We also argue that there is much more scope for harnessing Drag Race’s positive momentum and disrupting the backlash against drag.</p>
<h2>Positive representation</h2>
<p>In their performances, drag queens represent the bending of gender norms (expectations of how men and women should act) in the form of entertainment. Contestants play with gender norms and make it acceptable for their audiences to do the same.</p>
<p>In doing this, they enhance the representation of minorities that have been historically hidden from the public eye. Cisgender men might dress up as divas of the 1950s, gender non-conforming people can play with different gender conventions, transgender men or women explore different domains of gender performances and women can play with both masculinity and femininity.</p>
<p>This provides LGBTQ+ viewers with a rich register of visible identities. Audiences can see themselves represented in the multitude of different performances of drag. Drag has helped the public to become more aware that gender can be a shifting concept and be more open towards the this community.</p>
<h2>Drag and humanisation</h2>
<p>Drag also has the power to “humanise” LGBTQ+ people by making them more relatable. One of the key features of RuPaul’s Drag Race is showcasing the struggles of gay, lesbian, gender-nonconforming and transgender people.</p>
<p>In the show, contestants tell stories of being stranded when they came out, affected by HIV/AIDS, rejected by their families, or attacked in the streets. These stories allow audiences to understand that other people might have experienced similar struggles.</p>
<p>In a world characterised by episodes of <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/93akz3/lgbtq-hate-crimes">stigmatisation and increased difficulty</a>, brands like RuPaul’s Drag Race can leverage positive representation and humanisation to spread acceptance and awareness.</p>
<p>Different types of organisations (reality TV shows and advertising agencies) can follow the example of drag queens in sharing their stigmatisation experiences and so contribute to shifting public opinion of stigmatised groups.</p>
<p>While the reach of drag as entertainment allows people to be visible and spread important messages, this does not come without sanctions. RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants are often insulted, threatened, and trolled <a href="https://www.thepinknews.com/2021/06/28/divina-de-campo-mural-manchester-gay-village-graffiti/">offline and online</a>. However, the representations on the show remain unapologetic, speaking to many LGBTQ+ people who are still finding their feet and need encouragement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199627/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Drag’s power is its contribution to the de-stigmatisation of LGBTQ+ people, which is needed to enhance their self-worth and wellbeing.Mario Campana, Lecturer in Marketing, University of BristolKatherine Duffy, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, University of GlasgowMaria Rita Micheli, Assistant Professor, IÉSEG School of ManagementLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1827382022-06-12T12:11:27Z2022-06-12T12:11:27Z‘Y’all are coming at this like we’re racists’: How ‘Survivor’ highlights the pulse of socialization<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468049/original/file-20220609-24-sslflq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C0%2C4071%2C2918&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Season 42, Episode 9 Drea Wheeler pointed out that Black players get voted off before white players which opened up a discussion about race. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(SurvivorCBS/Twitter)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While <a href="https://horizon.westmont.edu/6065/oped/in-defense-of-garbage-why-reality-tv-is-a-positive-form-of-escapism/">reality television may be escapism</a>, <em>Survivor</em> highlights the pulse of socialization. </p>
<p>Since its premiere in 2000, <em>Survivor</em> has been a <a href="https://www.psychologyinaction.org/psychology-in-action-1/2015/01/05/outwit-outplay-outlast-the-psychology-of-survivor">social experiment</a> providing a window into the lives of how people live with each other amid social and physical challenges.</p>
<p>Players, however, are not disavowed from their lives outside of the game — who they are does not change. They’re not only battling each other for immunity, but players are also grappling with the ways in which social constructions of identity bleed into the game, like race.</p>
<p>If you look back at <em>Survivor</em> winners there is some <a href="https://www.globaltv.com/shows/survivor/articles/survivor-winners-list/">racial diversity</a>, however patterns remain and have often been pointed out by cast members. In Season 42, Episode 9, <a href="https://www.cbs.com/shows/survivor/cast/216609/">Drea Wheeler</a> pointed out that Black players get voted off before white players which opened up a discussion about race. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-does-critical-race-theory-make-people-so-uncomfortable-176125">Why does critical race theory make people so uncomfortable?</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>In 1989, critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw gave a name to the experiences of injustice Black women are confronted with as they were often left out of policies meant to move justice forward for racialized people: <a href="https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/intersectionality.php">intersectionality</a>. The term addressed the ways in which Black women were oppressed by the dual identity of being a woman and being Black. </p>
<p>Since then, intersectionality has been expanded to other groups of people because it is “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2015/09/24/why-intersectionality-cant-wait/">a way of thinking about identity and its relationship to power</a>.” And when we think differently about relations of power, those who hold power begin to feel threatened as their power has been normalized <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/socialization">through our engagement with socialization</a> and the ways institutions and systems reproduce power. This is systemic racism.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Kimberlé Crenshaw explaining the urgency of intersectionality.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Also playing into this notion is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory.html">critical race theory (CRT)</a> — another term Crenshaw helped coin — which recognizes that racism is embedded within our systems and institutions which are reproducing barriers to equity and inclusion.</p>
<p>Before children are born, they are socialized into gender stereotypes through gender reveal parties (really <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/07/04/its-a-boy-its-a-girl-its-not-a-gender-reveal-party/">sex reveal parties</a>), and moved through society that tells them who gets killed first in <a href="https://time.com/3547214/horror-films-who-dies-first/">horror movies</a>, the role of Black people in <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/black-character-history-video-games/">video games</a>, who can play professional <a href="https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/hockey-is-not-for-everyone-akim-aliu-nhl">men’s ice hockey</a> and who gets voted off <em>Survivor</em>.</p>
<h2>Implicit bias and racism</h2>
<p>On an episode of <em>Survivor</em> during a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8wQudHM77Q">tribal council</a>, a discussion about race emerged and a white male player, <a href="https://www.cbs.com/shows/survivor/cast/216613/">Jonathan Young</a>, responded to the dialogue saying: “I don’t feel this is right, because y’all are coming at this like we’re racists.” In doing this, he showcased the ways in which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs">socialization constructs racial identities</a>. </p>
<p>The role of <a href="https://nccc.georgetown.edu/bias/module-3/1.php">unconscious or implicit bias</a> was implicated when Drea openly shared her frustration about her experience as a Black woman playing <em>Survivor</em> when she noticed two other Black players were voted off from a different tribe. </p>
<p>She called out the pattern of who gets voted off <em>Survivor</em>. This opened the conversation about what it means to be Black on the show: she has to <a href="https://youtu.be/bcBxPTirDak">question her identity</a> and the impact race has on the game at every moment whereas someone like Jonathan does not.</p>
<p>Jonathan pushed back stating: “that’s saying I’m subconsciously racist. And that’s not true.” This steered the conversation away from the trend Drea pointed out towards <a href="https://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/viewFile/249/116">Jonathan’s discomfort with the conversation about bias</a>. </p>
<p>This implied connection between implicit bias and racism result in more <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/03/no-survivor-not-everyone-is-subconsciously-racist/">accusations that CRT is hurting</a> white people and this is absolutely not the case.</p>
<p>The conversation between Drea, Maryanne Oketch and Jonathan was not referring to Jonathan or the other tribal members as racist, but calling out the ways in which socialization leads people to believe stereotypes about certain people and how patterns continue to be reproduced. </p>
<p>By not having these open discussions, what is left is fear mongering and misunderstandings of CRT. Jonathan may or may not be a racist, but unfortunately that is where the conversation was focused — on white people having to become aware of how whiteness permeates our media and causes harm to Drea, Maryanne and other racialized people. </p>
<p>This conversation shouldn’t have centred white people. It should have played out by the white cast members being willing take a step back and listen to Drea and Maryanne. The conversation shouldn’t have been about white people feeling uncomfortable but centred on identifying the patterns of racism which feed how we are <a href="https://theconversation.com/colourism-how-shade-bias-perpetuates-prejudice-against-people-with-dark-skin-97149">socialized into a hierarchy of skin colour</a>. </p>
<p>This is not a drastic approach or a political agenda, but a call to open up spaces for conversations about racism, about whiteness, about race with white people <em><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-empowerment-diary/201708/deep-listening-in-personal-relationships">listening</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Teresa Anne Fowler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This is not a drastic approach or a political agenda, but a call to open up spaces for conversations about racism, about whiteness, about race with white people listening and not centring themselves.Teresa Anne Fowler, Assistant Professor, Education, Concordia University of EdmontonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1837712022-05-31T12:05:13Z2022-05-31T12:05:13ZLove Island ditches fast fashion: how reality celebrities influence young shoppers’ habits<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466255/original/file-20220531-14-8p3053.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=129%2C72%2C9492%2C5409&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The cast of Love Island will be dressed in secondhand clothing as they look for love in the villa.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.itv.com/presscentre/itvpictures/galleries/love-island-ep1-week-23-2022-sat-04-jun-fri-10-jun-1">ITV Plc</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year, contestants on the TV show Love Island will be scantily clad in secondhand rather than new clothing – a pivot away from fast fashion that could influence more eco-conscious shopping habits in fans. The beloved reality show will return to televisions next week, and with it, an array of colourful bikinis and skintight outfits that viewers will seek out in order to dress like their favourite Islanders. </p>
<p>For the past <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/may/20/love-island-partners-with-ebay-to-dress-contestants-in-secondhand-outfits">three years</a> Love Island has partnered with online fast fashion brand <a href="https://www.isawitfirst.com/">I Saw it First</a>, which sponsored the show and provided clothes for contestants. This year, Love Island will be sponsored by eBay, and contestants will be dressed in secondhand outfits on screen. </p>
<p>Sustainability advocates will welcome the change, having criticised the show for encouraging fast fashion consumption. In June 2019, the online fashion retailer Missguided advertised a £1 bikini during a commercial break for Love Island. Former Love Island contestants were used as models to promote the bikini, cementing the link between fast fashion and reality <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17569370.2020.1794321">television</a>. </p>
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<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/rihanna-and-radical-pregnancy-fashion-how-the-victorians-made-maternity-wear-boring-182000?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Rihanna and radical pregnancy fashion – how the Victorians made maternity wear boring</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/wagatha-christie-what-the-vardy-v-rooney-case-can-teach-you-about-avoiding-libel-on-social-media-182969?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Wagatha Christie: what the Vardy v Rooney case can teach you about avoiding libel on social media</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/cluttercore-gen-zs-revolt-against-millennial-minimalism-is-grounded-in-victorian-excess-182706?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Cluttercore: Gen Z’s revolt against millennial minimalism is grounded in Victorian excess</a></em></p>
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<p>Excessively low price points encourage a throwaway culture by implying that clothing has no value. Missguided said the <a href="https://www.missguided.co.uk/media-statement/one-pound-bikini-statement">£1 bikini was</a> a promotional item “sourced to the same high standards as all of our other products”, and that the company absorbed the production cost as a gift to customers.</p>
<p>Of course, partnering with eBay won’t discourage consumption overall. <a href="https://www.itv.com/presscentre/press-releases/ebay-becomes-love-islands-first-ever-pre-loved-fashion-partner">Viewers</a> will be able to explore eBay’s “preloved fashion” via the official Love Island app, where they can purchase similar outfits to what they can see on screen. The sponsorship may well encourage consumers to purchase secondhand clothing while the show is airing over eight weeks. </p>
<h2>Influencing shopping habits</h2>
<p>The show will still create influencers, who may form lucrative partnerships with fast fashion brands once they leave the villa. Last year’s winner, Millie Court, has since signed a deal with ASOS and launched her own <a href="https://www.asos.com/women/fashion-feed/2021_12_13-mon/love-island-millies-style-edit/">range</a>. Perhaps the most commercially successful contestant is Molly Mae Hague, who <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/fashion/a28780359/love-islands-molly-mae-signs-major-prettylittlething-contract/">landed</a> a six-figure clothing deal with Pretty Little Thing in 2019, before being named their creative director in <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/mollymae-hague-prettylittlething-maura-higgins-instagram-europe-b1909215.html">2021</a>.</p>
<p>Young consumers follow Love Island contestants and other reality celebrities on social media, and this affects their fashion purchasing choices. These celebrities often remain in the public eye after appearing on television, promoting fashion brands through their platforms. Shoppers look to reality stars for fashion inspiration, and many report being <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17569370.2020.1794321?scroll=top&needAccess=true">swayed by digital influencers</a> to make purchase decisions.</p>
<p>Love Island is especially <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50005148">influential</a> in the UK. In 2018, 80,000 hopefuls applied to appear on the show, while just 19,400 people applied to the University of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/jul/13/what-does-love-island-have-in-common-with-a-surrealist-dystopia-quite-a-lot-actually">Oxford</a> that same year. Appearing on Love Island for eight weeks is likely to earn you more money over the course of your life than three years at <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/17d9dd5c-90c3-11e8-bb8f-a6a2f7bca546">Oxbridge</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The Love Island logo, a tropical beach with floating white text reading love island and a sparkly gold, floating heart" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465750/original/file-20220527-17-83iq0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465750/original/file-20220527-17-83iq0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465750/original/file-20220527-17-83iq0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465750/original/file-20220527-17-83iq0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465750/original/file-20220527-17-83iq0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465750/original/file-20220527-17-83iq0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465750/original/file-20220527-17-83iq0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Even a short stint in the Love Island villa can lead to lucrative deals with fashion brands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.itv.com/presscentre/itvpictures/galleries/love-island-ep1-week-23-2022-sat-04-jun-fri-10-jun">ITV Plc</a></span>
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<p>It is not uncommon for contestants to leave the show with over a million followers on social media. This is appealing to brands, who then pay these contestants to advertise their products. All of this has contributed to changing values among younger generations, who admire the instant <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17569370.2020.1794321">success</a> achieved by reality stars.</p>
<p>Reality celebrities and other influencers use social media to encourage followers to purchase the clothing they advertise at the click of a button. The instant gratification of purchasing clothes, without the need to visit the local high street, adds to the desirability – and disposable nature – of fast fashion.</p>
<h2>Fast fashion and the planet</h2>
<p>The detrimental environmental impacts of the fast fashion industry are <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-020-0039-9.epdf">well documented</a>. In the UK, people buy more clothes per person than in any other country in <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmenvaud/1952/1952.pdf">Europe.</a> The fashion industry in the UK grows at a faster rate than the rest of the <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/4/1646">economy</a>, and an estimated £140 million worth of clothing is sent to landfill each <a href="https://wrap.org.uk/taking-action/textiles">year</a>. Many fast fashion garments are not made from single fibre materials, and therefore cannot be <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmenvaud/1952/1952.pdf">recycled</a>. Fashion is destroying the planet, and yet we keep buying clothes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Cluttered rack of colourful fast fashion clothing" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465752/original/file-20220527-23-l7qt0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=78%2C123%2C7391%2C4860&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465752/original/file-20220527-23-l7qt0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465752/original/file-20220527-23-l7qt0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465752/original/file-20220527-23-l7qt0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465752/original/file-20220527-23-l7qt0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465752/original/file-20220527-23-l7qt0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465752/original/file-20220527-23-l7qt0v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Fast fashion’s impact on the environment is well documented.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/crowded-clearance-section-clothing-store-various-1646863171">Sundry Photography / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fast fashion is affordable, meaning that it is not always high quality, and often doesn’t contain durability or longevity. It is also <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/sustainable-fashion-blog/2014/oct/01/cotton-production-linked-to-images-of-the-dried-up-aral-sea-basin">resource intensive</a>, and when disposed of in landfill, takes an extremely long time to biodegrade.</p>
<p>However, it is possible to love fashion and still be environmentally aware. Changes in consumer values, vintage inspirations used by current fashion designers, and increased sustainability awareness have fuelled a growing popularity of the secondhand <a href="https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/publications/the-rise-of-vintage-fashion-and-the-vintage-consumer">clothing market</a>.</p>
<p>Love Island’s decision to ditch fast fashion sponsors in favour of secondhand options is a step in the right direction. It will be interesting to see if this year’s contestants go on to partner with fast fashion brands or more sustainable and secondhand options upon leaving the show -– this may be the real test of success of the partnership with eBay.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183771/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rose Marroncelli does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The beloved reality show is partnering with eBay to promote secondhand outfits instead of fast fashion.Rose Marroncelli, PhD Researcher, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1810202022-04-28T19:10:26Z2022-04-28T19:10:26ZSelling voyeurism: How companies create value from the taboo<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458021/original/file-20220413-24-ffc2bx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5841%2C3645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A growing number of businesses across a wide range of industries are successfully selling voyeurism to their audiences. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/selling-voyeurism--how-companies-create-value-from-the-taboo" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>What do reality television, slum tourism, erotic webcam and mixed-martial arts have in common? They all rely on voyeurism to entertain their audiences. Voyeurism provides a glimpse into the private life of another person to give audiences a revealing and entertaining experience. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.mmafighting.com/">mixed martial arts</a> (MMA), for example, it provides a close-up look at the violence of a no-holds-barred fight. On reality television shows, like <a href="https://www.cbs.com/shows/survivor/"><em>Survivor</em></a> and <a href="https://www.bigbrothercanada.ca/"><em>Big Brother</em></a>, voyeurism creates the excitement, thrills and shock that entertainment-hungry consumers crave.</p>
<p>In most societies, voyeurism is taboo. Yet a growing number of businesses across a wide range of industries are successfully selling voyeurism to a growing audience. </p>
<p>As management researchers, we study the intersection of organizations and society. In our <a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2019.0210">recently published research</a>, we explain how businesses use two key dimensions — authenticity and transgression — to create a commercial opportunities from voyeurism. </p>
<h2>Authenticity and transgression</h2>
<p>Authenticity emerges from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1479758042000797015">seeing the “real life” of another person</a> and transgression appears from <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Voyeur_Nation.html?id=4MloAAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">viewing something forbidden</a>. What differentiates erotic webcam from most pornography is the perception that the audience is getting a live and interactive glimpse into the private bedroom of the cam model. </p>
<p>Authenticity and transgression work together to generate entertaining experiences for the audience. In doing so, businesses that commodify authenticity develop devoted and returning customers. </p>
<p>Delivering value to customers based on something taboo is no easy task. The mixed emotions that draw us into the voyeuristic experience can easily overwhelm us — there is a very fine line between creating entertainment value and creating too many negative emotions (such as anxiety and guilt) that push customers away. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two blindfolded people kissing while cameras film them" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458028/original/file-20220413-16-g4rox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458028/original/file-20220413-16-g4rox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458028/original/file-20220413-16-g4rox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458028/original/file-20220413-16-g4rox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458028/original/file-20220413-16-g4rox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458028/original/file-20220413-16-g4rox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458028/original/file-20220413-16-g4rox.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reality television shows, like E! Entertainment’s ‘Kiss Bang Love’ rely on the use of voyeurism to deliver entertainment value to audiences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Berenice Bautista)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It doesn’t take much to turn reality shows from a guilty pleasure to something that makes the audience feel too guilty to watch. In this way, the authenticity and transgression draw audiences in and create value, but can also push audiences away and destroy value. </p>
<p>For these businesses to be successful, they have to walk a fine line. How do they do it?</p>
<h2>Emotional optimization</h2>
<p>To successfully commercialize voyeurism, businesses engage in numerous tactics to turn down undesirable emotions, while retaining or turning up the desirable emotions for the customers. The ones that are successful know their audiences well and keep them coming back for more.</p>
<p>Businesses like MMA, reality television, slum tourism and erotic webcams use a variety of approaches to manage audiences’ emotional responses. Strategies, such as shielding audiences, de-personalizing performers and creating the impression that performers are willing participants, help balance customers’ mixed emotions.</p>
<p>For example, the use of cages in MMA — as opposed to less constraining barriers in boxing or the lack of barriers in traditional martial arts — prevents fear from overwhelming the audience. The cage acts like a protective barrier between the audience and the violence unfolding in front of them. But it also reinforces the idea that this is a no-holds-barred fight. In this way, the sense of violence and danger decreases, while desirable emotions, like excitement, are maintained.</p>
<p>However, there is no exact amount of authenticity and transgression that elicit desirable emotional responses from consumers. Because each audience member is different, the larger and more diverse an audience gets, the harder it is to find the sweet spot. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Behind a chain-link cage, an MMA fighter punches another in the stomach" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458027/original/file-20220413-22-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458027/original/file-20220413-22-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458027/original/file-20220413-22-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458027/original/file-20220413-22-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458027/original/file-20220413-22-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458027/original/file-20220413-22-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458027/original/file-20220413-22-xkzgr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The use of cages in MMA prevents fear from overwhelming audience members by acting like a protective barrier between the audience and the violence unfolding in front of them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Chase Stevens)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When MMA was a “backstreet” activity, the smaller audience was more comfortable with higher levels of transgression and authenticity. But now, <a href="https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1614213-a-timeline-of-ufc-rules-from-no-holds-barred-to-highly-regulated">since MMA has gone mainstream, there are more restrictions to the fighting</a>. They still advertise as “no-holds-barred,” because that’s where the value is created, but they have <a href="https://www.ufc.com/unified-rules-mixed-martial-arts">implemented many rules</a> to ensure it’s not too real or too violent to watch.</p>
<h2>What can voyeurism teach us?</h2>
<p>The successful commercialization of voyeurism challenges how we think of both authenticity and transgression. Authenticity is assumed to be beneficial for value creation. In fact, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2019/06/20/why-brands-should-make-authenticity-a-business-imperative/?sh=541c6dd121fd">authenticity is used in an exponential number of industries to create value.</a> Transgression, on the other hand, is <a href="https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2008.27752775">assumed to be detrimental for value creation</a>, since audiences risk social disapproval for participating. </p>
<p>In the practice of voyeurism, however, the extreme authenticity can repel audiences if the experience feels “too real,” while the transgressiveness may appeal to audiences seeking a taboo experience.</p>
<p>In erotic webcam, for example, viewers look into the bedrooms of cam models as they perform sexual acts, while their personal lives are kept private. This strategy depersonalizes models so that audience members do not feel too much empathy for them, which can interrupt the “entertainment value.” </p>
<p>Our research shows that authenticity and transgression are not inherently good or bad, it’s the emotions that matters for value creation. From a business perspective, effectively managing the emotional responses is the core task that facilitates value creation. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1524&context=faculty_scholarship">ethics of voyeurism are widely debated</a> for good reason. However, understanding how voyeurism creates value is an issue that cannot be ignored, regardless of one’s views on the ethics. We need to understand how and why it creates value if we are to have conversations about what should and should not be allowed.</p>
<p>Instead of arguments exclusively about <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/53026">whether voyeurism is ethical or not</a>, we should explore <em>why</em> we are drawn to voyeurism in the first place and where the limits should be for this taboo, yet incredibly prevalent practice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181020/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeline Toubiana has received funding from SSHRC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maxim Voronov, Sean Buchanan, and Trish Ruebottom do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Voyeurism provides a glimpse into the private life of another person to give audiences a revealing and entertaining experience.Trish Ruebottom, Associate Professor of HR and Management, McMaster UniversityMadeline Toubiana, Associate Professor, Entrepreneurship and Organization, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaMaxim Voronov, Professor of Organization Studies and Sustainability, York University, CanadaSean Buchanan, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1590552021-05-20T19:54:28Z2021-05-20T19:54:28ZFriday essay: why there’s still something about Byron, beyond Insta influencers and beige linen<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401778/original/file-20210520-23-175ewz7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=55%2C24%2C4065%2C2726&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1458594656687-226e7d3300e3?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=2252&q=80">Unsplash/Delphine Ducaruge</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When town planners mapped Byron Bay in 1884 they mistakenly believed Captain James Cook had named Cape Byron <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron">after the English poet</a> Lord Byron — when in fact it was named after the poet’s grandfather, a navy admiral. </p>
<p>From that mistaken belief, say <a href="http://byronbayhistoricalsociety.org.au/development-of-byron-bay/early-settlement/">local historians</a>, many of Byron’s streets were given the names of famous English poets or literary figures such as Wordsworth, Browning, Milton, Marvel, Jonson, Kingsley, Carlyle Tennyson and Keats. </p>
<p>“It is more than a little ironic,” they note, “that the streets of Byron Bay, a very industrial seaport town until the 1970’s, were named after men who were far from working class”.</p>
<p>Now, with television turning its lens on Byron Bay, we can add another layer of irony to this story. A town mistakenly thought to be named after a rich European poet and his contemporaries is today synonymous with a new breed of image-conscious wordsmiths — the influencers.</p>
<p>From streets in the 19th century to cyberspace in the 21st, the point is not whether the connection to Byron (the man or the town) is true, but that the conjuring is enough to fire imaginations — for the purposes of colonisation then and chasing profit today. </p>
<p>Because hype doesn’t stand in for the real, there is still something very special about Byron Bay. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401787/original/file-20210520-17-kshphw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="lighthouse on coast" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401787/original/file-20210520-17-kshphw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401787/original/file-20210520-17-kshphw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401787/original/file-20210520-17-kshphw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401787/original/file-20210520-17-kshphw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401787/original/file-20210520-17-kshphw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401787/original/file-20210520-17-kshphw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401787/original/file-20210520-17-kshphw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cape Byron lighthouse at sunset.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1581132885085-02e91cf6e0cc?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=2250&q=80">Unsplash/Shubham Sharma</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ten-great-australian-beach-reads-set-at-the-beach-108083">Ten great Australian beach reads set at the beach</a>
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<hr>
<h2>By the baes</h2>
<p>When streaming giant Netflix issued a press release in early April announcing production was imminent on the doco-soap Byron Baes, negative reaction from the local community was fast and fierce. </p>
<p>Surfers <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9489369/Celebrities-join-locals-protest-stop-Netflixs-Byron-Baes-reality-show.html">paddled out to protest</a> and locals brandished handmade signs reading: “Give Netflix the Flick” and “Byron’s Soul is not for Sale”. Meanwhile famous neo-locals, actor Chris Hemsworth and wife Elsa Pataky, threw a “<a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/celebrity-photos/chris-hemsworth-and-elsa-pataky-throw-allwhite-party-with-a-host-of-alisters/news-story/01c0dbfc364de67886b39f49f85baf2b">white party</a>” with A-list friends including Matt Damon (visiting from Hollywood) and some musos (visiting from Melbourne). </p>
<p>Netflix’s Byron Baes press release promised a bevy of “hot instagrammers living their best lives, being their best selves, creating the best drama content #no filter guaranteed”. </p>
<p>The tone was vacuous: “This is our love letter to Byron Bay, this is not just Chris and Zac’s backyard, it’s the playground of more celebrity-adjacent-adjacent influencers, than you can poke a selfie-stick at”. </p>
<p>In any other town this misreading of place and lack of community consultation might have gone unnoticed. But not in Byron. This is a community that <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/not-in-byrons-backyard-20030816-gdh9aw.html">ran Club Med out of town</a> in the early 1990s (though a luxury “place sensitive” resort has since <a href="https://www.traveller.com.au/checkin-hot-elementary-my-dear-byron-gmwcmw">opened on the proposed site,</a>). This is a town that has consistently <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/byron-bay-turns-its-nose-up-at-kfc-20121205-2avud.html">fought off McDonalds, KFC</a> and other mega-franchises. The building limit is two storeys in the township and the local council has <a href="https://greensoncouncil.org.au/byron/">three Greens representatives</a>, including the mayor. </p>
<p>In 1994 the Arakwal people, one of the tribes of the Bundjalung nation, lodged the first of three native title claims over the region. On 28th December 2000 the Arakwal signed the <a href="https://arakwal.com.au/native-title-indigenous-land-use-agreements/">first Indigenous Land Use Agreement</a> in the country, which stands internationally as a benchmark for Indigenous communities negotiating Native Title. </p>
<p>But the Bay is still bruised from a <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2019/07/the-coast-of-utopia-surfer-moms-instagram-influencers">2019 Vanity Fair</a> article on local “murfers” (mum surfers) and Instagram stars. Many readers took pleasure in the way it skewered a group of privileged, linen-clad influencers with revelations about sponsorship and duplicity. Others felt the piece was <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/live-and-let-live-on-the-coast-of-utopia-aka-byron-bay-20190709-p525ms.html">a nasty smear job</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401785/original/file-20210520-19-1vbw50u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="clothing boutique." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401785/original/file-20210520-19-1vbw50u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401785/original/file-20210520-19-1vbw50u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401785/original/file-20210520-19-1vbw50u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401785/original/file-20210520-19-1vbw50u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401785/original/file-20210520-19-1vbw50u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401785/original/file-20210520-19-1vbw50u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401785/original/file-20210520-19-1vbw50u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Boho chic and beige linen at a local store.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1581863681588-0e332753a3cc?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&auto=format&fit=crop&w=1350&q=80">Unsplash/Noemi Macavei Katocz</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So, Byron Baes was always going to be divisive. At the recent protests, filmmaker Tess Hall summed up local sentiment saying, “Trash TV equals trash town”. Many have suggested this ruckus was all part of Netflix’s plan — that the continuing coverage will only serve to provide free publicity. Despite a 9500-strong petition and an emergency motion from council, filming has <a href="https://www.echo.net.au/2021/05/filming-of-byron-baes-begins-with-no-indigenous-consultation/#:%7E:text=Filming%20of%20the%20Netflix%20series,Indigenous%20groups%20or%20Byron%20Council.">reportedly commenced</a>. </p>
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<p>
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</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Mind the gap</h2>
<p>What’s happening in Byron Bay highlights the gap between constructed content and reality, between what happens on “the Gram” and people’s actual lives. </p>
<p>I want to see if recent events have dented the spirit of the Byron I know — whether, despite its battles, it still retains its restorative powers. I spend my first night with a friend in a treehouse-style whiskey bar, trying to reactivate my Insta account after a break of several years. We request and wait — my university firewall not playing ball. My friend, much younger than me, keeps refreshing my email as if this delay is an affront to humanity. </p>
<p>It turns out our national broadcaster has already beaten Netflix to the punch and interviewed Byron Bay influencers for an upcoming Compass program <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/religion/watch/compass/instagram-utopia/13311220">Byron Bay: Australia’s Instagram Utopia</a>. I chat with a couple of those featured during my visit.</p>
<p>When I tell Sarah Royall, adventurer and travel influencer with an eco-agenda that I’m not on Insta she looks at me like I’m an alien. But her bright-eyed positivity about the network potential of Instagram, what she categorises as a “new and emerging industry” is convincing. When travel restrictions ease, she plans to hold a sustainability retreat in French Polynesia involving coral reef and shark experts, scientists and marine biologists from around the world, all connected by social media. </p>
<p>Like the other women featured on the ABC program, Sarah deviates from the blatant objectification and product placement usually rife on Instagram. There’s Angel Phoenix, a self-described radical astrologist who lives in a caravan. Jade Couldwell and Sophie Pearce, two friends and mummy influencers, who pose in various relaxed tree and sand tableaux with their golden-haired husbands and children. Emica Penklis, an ex-model who now runs a successful organic chocolate company and Bunjalung woman Ella Noah Bancroft, a queer activist. Still, this is Instagram. They are all beautiful.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401779/original/file-20210520-17-1str9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="gorgeous young woman with hands in hair" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401779/original/file-20210520-17-1str9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401779/original/file-20210520-17-1str9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401779/original/file-20210520-17-1str9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401779/original/file-20210520-17-1str9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401779/original/file-20210520-17-1str9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401779/original/file-20210520-17-1str9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401779/original/file-20210520-17-1str9zw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=543&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ella Noah Bancroft harnesses her beauty for influence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ABC TV</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-going-for-a-swim-in-the-ocean-can-be-good-for-you-and-for-nature-150281">Why going for a swim in the ocean can be good for you, and for nature</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Colour and movement</h2>
<p>Because Instagram demands beauty in whatever form it comes, beauty is the unspoken currency. Ella Noah Bancroft is uncomfortable about this aspect, smiling wryly when she says her words are linked to, “an often pretty egotistical photo … but it’s not about the photo for me, it’s about the caption”. </p>
<p>She recognises the power the platform provides her, but earns more money from her various roles in the community than she does from her social media presence — though the two are vitally interconnected. Instagram appears to operate in this way for many — a nexus around which other opportunities, entrepreneurial ventures and side hustles occur. People becoming brands with faces and voices. What’s contained in the messaging is key. </p>
<p>The women talk about the importance of cultivating “relationships” with their “communities”, steering talk away from the machinations of the monetary value of influence. Progressive narratives underpin or offset the images and commercialism — mental health, environmentalism, feminism, LGBTQI rights. While none of this could be read as altruistic, surely the ethical lean is positive. </p>
<p>That said, Penklis’ view is pragmatic. Her product is organic with a high price point. So her social media feed is designed to attract a particular clientele, rather than highlight an agenda. She’s also refreshingly honest and tapped into the essential fact of Instagram influence: envy sells. </p>
<p>While Byron Bay might offer the promise of this enviable work life balance — pristine surf beaches, spa and wellness retreats, national parks — the business of influence can be hard work and switching off isn’t easy. </p>
<p>Royall has suffered from burnout and Bancroft is conscious about cultivating time away from technology. In the Compass program we see her working with other women in a communal garden. She tells me she often visits her mother on their nearby ancestral lands but does not document it.</p>
<p>“How many people can say that — that they can sit and talk with their mother for hours without looking at their phone?”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401786/original/file-20210520-21-yq2p0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="houses by the coast" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401786/original/file-20210520-21-yq2p0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401786/original/file-20210520-21-yq2p0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401786/original/file-20210520-21-yq2p0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401786/original/file-20210520-21-yq2p0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401786/original/file-20210520-21-yq2p0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401786/original/file-20210520-21-yq2p0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401786/original/file-20210520-21-yq2p0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some say Byron is the site of a spiritual energy vortex. Others see development opportunities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1605269515950-2b26e3201305?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxwaG90by1wYWdlfHx8fGVufDB8fHx8&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&auto=format&fit=crop&w=2250&q=80">Unsplash/Patrick Mcgregor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Being there</h2>
<p>Byron Bay is a strange attractor — the Insta-driven celebrity wave, just the latest to roll in after the colonialists, whalers, hippies and the wealthy. </p>
<p>Sure, some young wannabes are lining up at sunset at the redeveloped Beach Hotel hoping to run into a Hemsworth brother and real estate is skyrocketing. But the roll call of visitors and locals remains eclectic. There are still old rockers holding up the bar at The Rails, glitter fairies busking on stilts in the main street while the well-heeled stroll by in their boat shoes. </p>
<p>Some spiritualists believe Byron and the surrounding area is a portal or <a href="https://crystalsbyronbay.com/2020/09/11/energy-infusion-byron-bay-energy-heart-of-the-bay-crystals/">energy vortex</a>. The Arakwal believe it is a healing place where Indigenous women would birth in the ti-tree lakes. There’s definitely something in the water. Wave after wave, the same “cheer up, slow down, chill out” vibe washes over everyone. </p>
<p>On my final morning in Byron I head up to the Pass where another paddle out protest is scheduled — not against Byron Baes but <a href="https://www.nbnnews.com.au/2021/05/08/hundreds-attend-pep-11-protest-at-byron-bay/">PEP11</a>, a major oil and gas venture threatening the precious marine ecosystem on the east coast. The bright blue day and the gathered crowd are impressive.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401781/original/file-20210520-15-ihfwrk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="surfers with signs" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401781/original/file-20210520-15-ihfwrk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/401781/original/file-20210520-15-ihfwrk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401781/original/file-20210520-15-ihfwrk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401781/original/file-20210520-15-ihfwrk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401781/original/file-20210520-15-ihfwrk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401781/original/file-20210520-15-ihfwrk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/401781/original/file-20210520-15-ihfwrk.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Locals at the paddle out protest, this time against an offshore gas venture rather than a reality television series.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I don’t see any influencers or famous Hollywood actors, or even many people on their phones. Everyone radiates casual ease and community, standing about, or pooled under the eucalypts, boards strewn all over the place. Jaded radio hosts like Mick Molloy may have <a href="https://omny.fm/shows/triple-m-national-drive/why-cant-mick-be-a-byron-bay-influencer">paid out on the Byron community</a> for going surfing as a form of protest (he suggests burning a wicker Hemsworth effigy instead). But when you’re here the gesture is powerful and symbiotic with a lifestyle tuned in to consciousness raising. </p>
<p>Musician Billy Otto, a guy Byron Baes’s producers reportedly <a href="https://www.victorharbortimes.com.au/story/7249689/the-boy-who-gave-netflix-and-byron-baes-the-flick/?cs=2808">tried to recruit</a> for the reality show, takes to the microphone. After his song and the speeches, the crowd flows down to the beach, surf warriors paddling out a model of a giant gas rig which they dismantle and bring back to shore. </p>
<p>Beyond them, further out to sea, my eye is drawn to Nguthungulli (Julian Rocks) where the Arakwal people say, their grandfather creator is resting. As the surfers form a circle, I’d wager it’s not the influencers, but Nguthungulli who draws so many people to Byron Bay. The most easterly point of the country. A place originally named <a href="https://arakwal.com.au/cavanbah/">Cavanbah</a>, the “meeting place”. </p>
<p>On the way home my phone dies. I guess refreshing my Instagram self is going to have to wait. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oxVl8z77do8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘He rests in the rocks out there today.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/one-of-australias-most-famous-beaches-is-disappearing-and-storms-arent-to-blame-so-whats-the-problem-150179">One of Australia's most famous beaches is disappearing, and storms aren't to blame. So what's the problem?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159055/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally Breen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How does the spirit of Byron Byron endure wave after wave of seekers and lately, Instagram influencers? Sally Breen took a road trip and found a something deeper in the beachy township.Sally Breen, Senior Lecturer in Writing and Publishing, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1258012019-10-24T04:53:31Z2019-10-24T04:53:31ZNew house rules: landmark ruling could trigger other workers’ compensation claims from reality TV stars<p>This week, the Seven Network was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/oct/22/house-rules-channel-seven-ordered-to-pay-compensation-to-reality-show-contestant">found liable</a> to pay a workers’ compensation claim brought by Nicole Prince, one of the contestants on its renovation reality television show, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2931524/?ref_=ttep_ep_tt">House Rules</a>. </p>
<p>Prince suffered a major depressive episode, and symptoms consistent with post traumatic stress disorder after she and her partner were cast as the “mean girls” in the 2017 season of the series. </p>
<p>She provided convincing evidence program directors manipulated series content to ensure the pair appeared to be hypercritical of other contestants, drawing not only their hostility, but also an avalanche of hateful social media comment. (Channel Seven <a href="https://www.wcc.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/563048/2558-19-Prince-COD-SOR.pdf">refused</a> to remove the offensive and often violent posts.) </p>
<p>The case before the <a href="https://www.wcc.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/563048/2558-19-Prince-COD-SOR.pdf">New South Wales Compensation Commission</a> concerned a statutory claim under the <a href="https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/#/view/act/1987/70/whole">Workers Compensation Act 1987 (NSW)</a> for medical expenses. </p>
<p>However it raises the prospect of potential common law claims by other reality TV “stars” who have been treated badly. In the wake of the ruling, fellow reality TV contestants including <a href="https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/reality-tv/mafs-stars-are-considering-legal-action-following-landmark-seven-ruling/news-story/4c547bacaf2195a45ebafb6118da15b9">Tracey Jewel</a> from Married at First Sight have floated the possibility of legal action. </p>
<h2>On the books</h2>
<p>Prince’s success depended upon a finding she was an employee according to the <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/how-we-will-help/templates-and-guides/fact-sheets/rights-and-obligations/independent-contractors-and-employees">common law test</a> that defines employment. The difference between an employee and independent contractor is based on multiple factors and has developed with court decisions over time. To make a determination, courts look at each case and the overall “vibe” of the relationship between the parties.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298456/original/file-20191024-119423-u7eksu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298456/original/file-20191024-119423-u7eksu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298456/original/file-20191024-119423-u7eksu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298456/original/file-20191024-119423-u7eksu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298456/original/file-20191024-119423-u7eksu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298456/original/file-20191024-119423-u7eksu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298456/original/file-20191024-119423-u7eksu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298456/original/file-20191024-119423-u7eksu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Contestants Fiona Taylor and Nicole Prince (right) were portrayed as villains on the renovation reality show.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Channel 7</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Employees are also owed duties of care under <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tort">tort law</a> (which determines civil liability) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract">contract</a> law (which governs agreements). </p>
<p>An employer who exposes an employee to unnecessary risk of foreseeable harm can also be held liable at common law for damages that can extend to lost earnings. In this case, Prince gave evidence she had been unable to find employment following her disastrous experience on the show.</p>
<p>The prospect for these kinds of claims has long been <a href="https://scholarship.shu.edu/sports_entertainment/vol23/iss1/5/">recognised</a> in the United States, where claims by contestants (or their surviving family members) have been brought against television production companies, although rarely successfully. </p>
<p>In 2017, the US reality dating show Bachelor in Paradise was <a href="https://www.vulture.com/2017/07/bachelor-in-paradise-timeline-of-allegations.html">suspended</a> for nine days pending allegations of sexual misconduct (later dismissed). Two contestants on the show had engaged in sexual activity under the influence of alcohol. </p>
<p>The scandal <a href="http://www.cardozoaelj.com/2019/02/10/corporate-responsibility-reality-show-participants/">raised the question</a> of when reality TV producers should intervene to protect contestants. </p>
<p>The sticking point in the US cases has been the ability of networks to disclaim employer status in their written contracts with contestants. In Australia, however, employment status cannot be avoided by contractual disclaimers if the court decides the relationship bears the hallmarks of employment, established in a number of <a href="http://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/showCase/2001/HCA/44">High Court cases</a>. </p>
<h2>House Rules</h2>
<p>The Workers Compensation Commission found Prince was engaged for remuneration ($500 a week plus $500 in allowances) to serve Seven’s business. Seven exerted control over when she worked, what she wore, and which tools she used.</p>
<p>As a featured personality, Prince was an integral part of their business. She was required to provide exclusive service, and give up her normal occupation, during filming.</p>
<p>Finally, Prince bore none of the entrepreneurial risks that would be involved were she engaged in her own business.</p>
<p>These factors were said to “overwhelmingly” indicate she was employed by Seven.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298457/original/file-20191024-119405-1h3nnal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298457/original/file-20191024-119405-1h3nnal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298457/original/file-20191024-119405-1h3nnal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298457/original/file-20191024-119405-1h3nnal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298457/original/file-20191024-119405-1h3nnal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298457/original/file-20191024-119405-1h3nnal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298457/original/file-20191024-119405-1h3nnal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298457/original/file-20191024-119405-1h3nnal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The original House Rules cast.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Once it was established she was an employee it was a straightforward matter to find her psychiatric illness was a consequence of her employment. While the Commission made no findings as to fault (statutory Workers Compensation claims are not fault-based), certain observations made in the reasons suggest Prince may well be able to demonstrate the harm she suffered was foreseeable. </p>
<p>The commission <a href="https://www.wcc.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/563048/2558-19-Prince-COD-SOR.pdf">concluded</a> Seven deliberately manipulated her on-screen portrayal as a nasty person, and was made aware of the torrent of abuse she was receiving as a consequence. It refused to take any steps to ameliorate the harm, no doubt because this kind of conflict and outrage is a calculated part of such shows’ audience appeal.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BUoXRj1hkLS","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>A legal landmark</h2>
<p>This appears to be the first successful claim of this nature in Australia. </p>
<p>It’s possible claims brought by contestants who are physically harmed could be settled by the insurers.</p>
<p>This one, involving the infliction of psychological harm, opens a wide door to more potential claims from contestants who naively expect to be able to present themselves as their usual loveable selves on the television, and end up as social pariahs. </p>
<p>The amount Prince is to be compensated has not yet been determined. But in 2011, a NSW woman who suffered psychiatric illness and was unable work after she had been subjected to workplace bullying and harassment was <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/theres-more-to-reveal-says-orkopoulos-whistleblower-20110602-1fizc.html">awarded $438,000</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298458/original/file-20191024-119477-q71bwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298458/original/file-20191024-119477-q71bwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298458/original/file-20191024-119477-q71bwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298458/original/file-20191024-119477-q71bwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298458/original/file-20191024-119477-q71bwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298458/original/file-20191024-119477-q71bwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298458/original/file-20191024-119477-q71bwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298458/original/file-20191024-119477-q71bwt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reality television stars are frequently subject to online abuse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/success?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdownload.shutterstock.com%2Fgatekeeper%2FW3siZSI6MTU3MTkxMjgyMywiYyI6Il9waG90b19zZXNzaW9uX2lkIiwiZGMiOiJpZGxfNjExNDE4ODMzIiwiayI6InBob3RvLzYxMTQxODgzMy9odWdlLmpwZyIsIm0iOjEsImQiOiJzaHV0dGVyc3RvY2stbWVkaWEifSwicVB5SEpQWXJNSGRveEwwQUdYUVFqVEZ6MDZVIl0%2Fshutterstock_611418833.jpg&pi=41133566&m=611418833">www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>This case also raises some very interesting questions about whether reality TV contestants might bring other claims related to employment. Minimum wages, perhaps? Or superannuation entitlements? </p>
<p>Prior to the Prince decision, the Law Society of NSW published a <a href="https://lsj.com.au/articles/the-legal-implications-of-reality-television/">tongue-in-cheek piece</a> that flagged a shopping list of potential legal claims reality stars might pursue. </p>
<p>Those claims may be far-fetched, but the <a href="https://www.wcc.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/563048/2558-19-Prince-COD-SOR.pdf">refusal</a> of Seven’s insurer to pay Prince’s compensation claim – which set this legal precedent in motion – has opened up a proverbial can of worms for reality television producers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125801/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joellen Riley Munton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A landmark ruling that ordered the Seven Network pay a reality TV star compensation could have far-reaching implications for other productions and workplaces.Joellen Riley Munton, Professor of Law, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1183042019-06-06T12:15:29Z2019-06-06T12:15:29Z63 Up: long-running documentary series shows how reality TV should be done<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278325/original/file-20190606-98041-1echqg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C27%2C1800%2C1016&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some of the boys and girls in 1964, aged seven.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ITV archive</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fifty-six years after ITV first aired its landmark 7 Up documentary, 12 of the 14 men and women first seen as seven-year-old children in 1964 have returned to share the story of their lives in one of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jun/01/seven-up-at-63-documentary-michael-apted-cameraman-george-jesse-turner-interview">most influential experimental television documentaries</a>. </p>
<p>63 Up is the ninth instalment in a series originally designed as a one-off special made by Granada as part of ITV’s World in Action strand. The original was based on the famous Jesuit motto: “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” Using interviews and footage of the seven-year-olds at play together, the programme explored issues of class and aspiration. The 14 children were selected from different backgrounds and talked on camera about their ambitions, feelings, values and experiences. Among the production team was a young researcher, Michael Apted.</p>
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<p>When Granada decided to revisit the children seven years later – with Apted now in the director’s chair – a franchise was born. Apted and the crew, many of whom have worked on all episodes, have returned every seven years to document the lives of the contributors. Over the decades, viewers around the world have followed them through education, work, relationships, children and grandchildren – and now many are planning their retirement.</p>
<p>More than just documenting the life course of 14 individuals, the programme has offered a lens through which we have been able to see social and cultural change at work – from the micro-level of participants’ careers, marriages, divorces, parenting and illnesses to broader social themes of employment, poverty and politics. Its blend of personal and political has been emulated in many shows since it began, but no other show has allowed us to see the way the two intersect throughout the duration of an individual’s life.</p>
<p>63 Up keeps to that formula. In the first part (of three), cabbie Tony spoke of the tensions between Uber and black cab drivers and expressed his regrets over voting Leave – yet also shared some of the personal struggles he and his family have gone through, including him and wife Debbie raising one of their granddaughters. </p>
<p>The same is true of former farmer’s son, Nick, who left Yorkshire to study at Oxford – as a contemporary of Teresa May. An academic now based in the US, he shared his take on Trump (“Oh … gosh”) while also speaking of the treatment he is undergoing for throat cancer and welling up recalling the birth of his son.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278311/original/file-20190606-98022-1ssqojl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278311/original/file-20190606-98022-1ssqojl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278311/original/file-20190606-98022-1ssqojl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278311/original/file-20190606-98022-1ssqojl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278311/original/file-20190606-98022-1ssqojl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278311/original/file-20190606-98022-1ssqojl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278311/original/file-20190606-98022-1ssqojl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278311/original/file-20190606-98022-1ssqojl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The 7 Up cohort at the age of 21.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ITV archive</span></span>
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<p>Although the participants were divided on whether they believed that their course in life was established at seven, it is clear to see that class division and problems with social mobility have affected them somewhat – and they particularly see this as a concern for their children and grandchildren. Sue laments that her generation “had wonderful support from the council. If your parents had a council house, you got a council house … now council housing is so hard to get.” Peter, meanwhile, worries that his children’s generation will be worse off than his own.</p>
<p>There are, of course, limitations with the sample of participants: all are English, only four were women, and only one from a BAME background. In 63 Up, the discrepancies are made more apparent by the absence of one of the previous female participants, Suzy, and the death of another, Lynn (whose family have contributed to this instalment). While this suggests the extent to which times have changed since 1964, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2012/may/13/profile-michael-apted">Apted has said</a> the lack of diversity – especially in relation to gender – is one of his main regrets.</p>
<h2>Landmark television</h2>
<p>The Up series has a long legacy. It has spawned multiple versions around the world and a second UK series, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04gw89n">7 Up New Generation</a>, which follows children who turned seven in 2000. Up has also inspired several similar series that follow individuals as they age, including Channel 4’s <a href="https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/2066560/does-anyone-remember-citizen-2000">Citizen 2000</a> and the BBC’s <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072bk8https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072bk8">Child of Our Time</a>.</p>
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<p>The show’s influence can be seen across a wide range of factual broadcasting. In 1964, seeing “ordinary” people sharing details of their lives on TV was still a curiosity – and <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/9215360/love-island-first-reality-show-seven-spotlight/">The Sun</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/may/11/long-lost-subject-7-up-returns">The Guardian</a> have both referred to 7 Up as “the first reality show”. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/04/63-up-review-documentary-marvel-makes-all-other-reality-tv-look-trivial">The Guardian</a> goes further, describing it as a “documentary marvel” that “makes all other reality TV look trivial”, while The <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/0/63-upa-reminder-reality-tv-can-noble-enterprise/">Telegraph</a> says it is “a reminder than reality TV can be a noble enterprise”. </p>
<h2>Fame and mixed fortunes</h2>
<p>While not exactly becoming household names over the show’s 55 years, the participants have become like family to the show’s devotees – you want to know what has happened in the often troubled life of Neil and you mourn the death of Lynn (who died in 2013 after a short illness and is given a tribute in the current series). In a clip repeated from 42 Up, academic Nick jokes: “I would like to be more famous for science than for this programme, but unfortunately, Michael, it’s not going to happen.” </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278331/original/file-20190606-98054-1fvr39g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/278331/original/file-20190606-98054-1fvr39g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278331/original/file-20190606-98054-1fvr39g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278331/original/file-20190606-98054-1fvr39g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278331/original/file-20190606-98054-1fvr39g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278331/original/file-20190606-98054-1fvr39g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/278331/original/file-20190606-98054-1fvr39g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">High hopes: Neil at seven.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ITV archive</span></span>
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<p>Of all the participants in the series, Neil is the most memorable story with the most dramatic (and therefore most TV-friendly) journey. From the bubbly seven-year-old who declared his ambition to be an astronaut, to the man struggling with mental health problems, homelessness and addiction in his 20s, to being given a home by fellow participant Bruce and then becoming a lay minister in his church and Liberal Democrat campaigner in his 40s and 50s. </p>
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<span class="caption">Settled: Neil at 63.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ITV Pictures</span></span>
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<p>It is Neil’s story that, perhaps, also has the most resonance today in the light of the debate over negative press for its duty of care towards participants in the Jeremy Kyle Show and Love Island. He has said he has <a href="https://www.bigissue.com/culture/63-up-star-neil-hughes-on-homelessness-reality-tv-and-faith/">no regrets</a> about taking part – and this is something echoed by many of his contemporaries, with Sue claiming “it’s a lifelong achievement to be part of this programme”.</p>
<p>Much of the press surrounding the show this year has raised the inevitable question of its future. Contributors <a href="https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-06-04/63-up-seven-up-cast-members-where-are-they-now/">have admitted</a> they are not sure what will happen, and that they will only keep making shows if they involve Apted and the rest of the crew they have built a decades-long relationship with. But with <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48495405">Britain’s Got Talent</a> having been won by an 89-year-old earlier this week, don’t bet against the possibility of 70 Up.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118304/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth Deller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What started as an experiment in 1964 has become the UK’s most successful documentary franchise.Ruth Deller, Reader and Principal Lecturer in Media and Communication, Sheffield Hallam UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/809412017-07-26T01:45:39Z2017-07-26T01:45:39ZHow public feuds on social media and reality TV play out in court<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179630/original/file-20170725-28293-13xq8a7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=224%2C410%2C4062%2C2329&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How incriminating is your Instagram feed?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/chiang-mai-thailand-jul-102016-women-452103463">Jirapong Manustrong/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Free expression on TV and social media generates big ratings and even bigger online followings. Unscripted reality stars claim to bring their authentic expressions to the public through these channels. Beyond influencing the court of public opinion, though, can reality stars wind up in legal trouble for these actions? </p>
<p>Shortly after Independence Day, reality television personality Robert Kardashian Jr. served up fireworks of his own on Instagram and Twitter, posting embarrassing and lewd videos and photos of his ex, Angela “Blac Chyna” White, in an hours-long tirade. The evolving situation <a href="http://www.bet.com/celebrities/news/2017/07/05/rob-kardashian.html">captured the media’s attention</a> and, unfortunately for Kardashian, the posts also captured the attention of White and her lawyers. </p>
<p>In a matter of days, White and her legal team filed for, and received, a temporary restraining order against Kardashian based on his social media posts. According to White’s lawyers, they received a “complete and total victory” in the civil case. White has also threatened to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/rob-kardashian-blac-chyna-nude-photots-criminal-charges-revenge-porn-reality-tv-ex-girlfriend-a7826531.html">press criminal charges</a> under California’s revenge porn laws.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Angela ‘Blac Chyna’ White and her lawyers, Lisa Bloom and Walter Mosley, hold a press conference shortly after their courtroom victory.</span></figcaption>
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<p>While the exhibits in the case <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rob-kardashians-ex-fiancee-arrives-at-court-for-hearing/2017/07/10/d78281d4-6583-11e7-94ab-5b1f0ff459df_story.html">have been sealed</a>, the order prohibits Kardashian from, among other things, posting pictures online of White and their infant daughter.</p>
<p>This saga is the latest high-profile example of the serious legal issues revolving around both reality TV and social media. To the general public, TV footage and social media posts can seem like easy proof of behavior. However, as a law professor who researches the impact of the internet on our legal system, I’ve learned that using this information as evidence in court is not always a slam dunk. </p>
<h2>Repercussions of reality TV</h2>
<p>Reality TV provides us unprecedented access into others’ lives – and <a href="http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/comlrtj14&div=26&id=&page=">creates novel legal problems</a> for people who find themselves in court. As TV cameras have begun to give us seemingly unfiltered views into the private lives of others, they’ve also captured information that could be used in legal proceedings. </p>
<p>This kind of programming has roots in the “Candid Camera”-type shows that <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305709011_Allen_Funt_Stanley_Milgram_and_Me_Postwar_Social_Science_and_the_First_Wave_of_Reality_TV">started in the 1940s</a> and the groundbreaking “<a href="http://www.pbs.org/show/american-family/">An American Family</a>” documentary series that aired on PBS in 1973. But reality television really <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-love-reality-tv-psychology-2016-11">exploded in popularity</a> toward the beginning of the 21st century. Today, there are <a href="http://www.adweek.com/tv-video/overhaul-national-geographic-channel-stresses-quality-programming-over-quantity-169896/">nearly twice as many</a> reality TV shows as there are scripted shows during prime time. Viewers tune in to see what traditionally has taken place behind closed doors. With the rise in prominence of such shows and their stars, it’s no wonder that reality TV footage is increasingly showing up in court.</p>
<p>Some early cases of reality TV footage being used in courtrooms <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/2013/12/22/exhibit-a-reality-tv-footage-becomes-a-legal-tool-with-tax-collectors-and-in-pricey-court-cases/">revolved around civil cases</a>. In one <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/dec/20/andy-warhol-farrah-fawcett-ryan-oneal">famously contentious lawsuit</a> between actor Ryan O'Neal and the University of Texas, the school tried to use TV footage from the reality show “Chasing Farrah” to prove that O'Neal did not own an Andy Warhol portrait of Farrah Fawcett. The university had a vested interest in the portrait because when Fawcett died, she left it all of her artwork. O'Neal argued that he owned the portrait because <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-farrah-fawcett-verdict-20131219-story.html">Warhol gave it to him</a> during Fawcett’s life.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179496/original/file-20170724-21564-1frl7m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179496/original/file-20170724-21564-1frl7m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179496/original/file-20170724-21564-1frl7m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179496/original/file-20170724-21564-1frl7m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179496/original/file-20170724-21564-1frl7m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179496/original/file-20170724-21564-1frl7m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179496/original/file-20170724-21564-1frl7m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/179496/original/file-20170724-21564-1frl7m2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">One Warhol portrait is controlled by the University of Texas at Austin’s art museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/eelundgaard/5937718384">Ethan Lundgaard</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>In “Chasing Farrah” footage, Fawcett tells the owner of an auction house that she owned two Warhol portraits – including the one O'Neal claimed was his. The university argued this proved that Fawcett, not O'Neal, was the rightful owner of the portrait. But even with this footage, O'Neal <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-25458884">won the lawsuit</a> and the court allowed him to keep the portrait.</p>
<p>Footage used in criminal cases has not always fared better. For example, “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3694654/">To Catch a Predator</a>,” a reality TV series on from 2004-2007, focused on exposing men who solicited sex online from underage decoys. Though this footage appeared to show men committing horrible acts and being arrested, it did not always lead to convictions in court.</p>
<p>For example, one California man who appeared on the show was <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/dateline-catch-a-predator-case-223775">acquitted of all charges</a> because the judge did not find the evidence credible. Interestingly, he was the only man from his episode who went to trial – all of the other men from that same California location pleaded guilty without taking their chances in court. In another instance, a Texas district attorney dropped all charges and <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/2007/06/28/texas-da-wont-prosecute-any-pedophiles-nabbed-in-nbc-predator-show.html">refused to prosecute</a> any of the 24 men featured on the program from his district; he questioned the involvement of people outside of law enforcement and the unreliability of the evidence they gathered. </p>
<h2>What’s really real</h2>
<p>Social media, on the other hand, has at times been used more successfully in court, though it’s not automatically admissible. Before a judge allows a social media post to be considered, it must be “<a href="https://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/trialevidence/articles/051711-authentication-social-media.html">authenticated</a>” – a lawyer needs to show that the alleged wrongdoer owns the account and wrote the post in question, and that the printed-out version before the court accurately reflects what appeared on the social media site.</p>
<p>States have different rules for proving this. In Maryland, for example, <a href="http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1020&context=endnotes">authentication standards are very high</a> to avoid the risk of manipulation, and courts request detailed evidence of proof. In other states, like Texas, while the judge serves as a gatekeeper for the evidence, the <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/publications/youraba/2016/november-2016/how-to-get-social-media-evidence-admitted-to-court.html">jury gets to make the final decision</a> about how reliable social media evidence is.</p>
<p>Once social media posts are admitted as evidence, however, they can be helpful for the submitting party. In one recent case, Bollea v. Gawker, <a href="https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/hulk-hogan-sex-tape-what-you-say-in-a-chat-room-can-be-used-against-you.html">Hulk Hogan’s lawyers used conversations</a> held by Gawker employees on Campfire, a social media messaging app, to prove claims of harm. Ultimately, a jury found Gawker liable for US$140 million in damages related to its posting of a sex tape featuring Hogan. </p>
<p>Social media posts have also led to the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2399535/Matthew-Best-New-York-Rappers-Instagram-pictures-guns-cash-led-bust.html">largest gun bust</a> in New York City’s history, driven a settlement between department store Lord & Taylor and the Federal Trade Commission over <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2016/03/lord-taylor-settles-ftc-charges-it-deceived-consumers-through">charges of deceptive Instagram posts</a> and <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/family_law/childcustody.authcheckdam.pdf">affected child custody decisions</a> made by courts. </p>
<p>Our very public and very interconnected world has made it easy for celebrities and noncelebrities alike to memorialize private acts in a very public way. Reality TV footage and social media posts are already changing what counts as legal evidence as courts grapple with just how “real” it all is. It’s still unclear whether society’s penchant for voyeurism – and the way we now live our lives so publicly – will have an effect on how we behave outside the courthouse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80941/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shontavia Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Should reality stars be warned that everything they say can and will be used against them in a court of law? Turns out, it’s complicated.Shontavia Johnson, Professor of Intellectual Property Law, Drake UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/707262017-01-01T13:42:15Z2017-01-01T13:42:15ZThe violent, post-truth 2017 predicted in The Running Man? We’re living in it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151395/original/image-20161222-17301-12kgij1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'It's showtime!' </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/moviesinla/7399761058/in/photolist-cgTHad-2ktn69-dTnLks-jiV3CX-obwWtE-e6yxhH-udo1F-aXJQEK-9n113T-cwEJW-6TwWbH-hMzMRb-2ULzvZ-89Ct3N-kPnApu-5tHxfp-bwTk8Y-9xewX8-7kxcPw-eDhBZx-7TWYMD-76q7PE-5ADuT1-4Ej1H6-qPtocn-bawgN-amczfE-odvgVo-7kxcPu-2XUpyT-7KuTZA-4HnQSt-bv9PHm-4oF9nj-5wKuXm-4ozHJ3-4C9Spf-7KuVFL-5YrLTC-9WhgAD-7xZ1yr-5xyBex-7KqVYr-7KqXgM-7xUGiZ-7cVuYH-5yuH7a-5js8NU-kDF2o-6iNDQ">Movies in LA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Welcome to a world where fake news stories are used to manipulate public opinion. Dissent is no longer tolerated and all your communications are monitored; the economy is not functioning and reality TV is used to distract you from harsher realities. Welcome to 2017.</p>
<p>I don’t mean our 2017 but an imagined one from 30 years ago. This was the setting for 1987 movie The Running Man, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bad news? Much of this action-adventure slugfest looks eerily prophetic now that we’re here for real.</p>
<p>In the film, Schwarzenegger plays police helicopter pilot Ben Richards in a 2017 when many people are living on the streets and food, natural resources and oil are in short supply. The movie begins with him refusing to fire on a food riot from his helicopter because the people are unarmed, with women and children caught up in the protest. He gets overpowered by colleagues and the rioters are massacred, with footage of the incident edited to make him the perpetrator – and a useful scapegoat. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151408/original/image-20161222-17321-hxg599.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151408/original/image-20161222-17321-hxg599.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151408/original/image-20161222-17321-hxg599.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151408/original/image-20161222-17321-hxg599.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151408/original/image-20161222-17321-hxg599.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1007&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151408/original/image-20161222-17321-hxg599.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1265&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151408/original/image-20161222-17321-hxg599.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1265&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/151408/original/image-20161222-17321-hxg599.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1265&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The original.</span>
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</figure>
<p>Imprisoned for life, Richards is offered the chance to win his freedom by competing in the most popular TV programme in history, Running Man. This state-sponsored show pits contestants against high-profile hunters with extreme weaponry. It’s a Schwarzenegger vehicle from his 1980s heyday, so you can probably guess who wins.</p>
<p>The script by Steven E de Souza loosely adapts a <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11607.The_Running_Man">1982 novel</a> of the same name by Richard Bachman, the pseudonym of horror author Stephen King. The source material is set in 2025 and far less heroic. It ends with Richards hijacking an aeroplane and flying it into the television company’s skyscraper headquarters – stop me if this is sounding in any way familiar.</p>
<p>The film adaptation is a product of its time, with 1980s props that look out of place in the fictional 2017 setting. People carry clipboards instead of tablet computers, use analogue phones rather than mobiles, and store their music on cassette. The Running Man does feature smart home technology, like voice-controlled coffee makers, but the computers are primitive. It’s the satirical touches that stand out most in this film, such as the president of the United States having his own theatrical agent.</p>
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<h2>When in Rome …</h2>
<p>The central conceit of both novel and film – that those in power use mass entertainment to distract the population from reality – is part of a long tradition. It dates all the way back to the <a href="http://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/plebians.html">Roman empire</a> when the masses were appeased with free wheat and arena spectacles, a tactic described as <em>panem et circenses</em> – bread and circuses. </p>
<p>One of the first writers to transplant this notion to television was <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049646/">Quartermass</a> creator Nigel Kneale in his 1968 play for BBC Two, <a href="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/560006/">The Year of the Sex Olympics</a>. It envisaged a dystopian future where the elite maintains control over the people by broadcasting a constant stream of pornography and trash television. </p>
<p>Kneale effectively predicted the rise of reality TV programmes like Big Brother and I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here; and much other science fiction has drawn on the same theme. It appears, for example, in Doctor Who in the 1985 adventure <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/vengeancevaros/detail.shtml">Vengeance on Varos</a> – set in a totalitarian world where torture and executions are televised to amuse and divert the masses – and more recently in <a href="http://www.thehungergames.co.uk">The Hunger Games</a> trilogy. </p>
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<p>The additional element that makes The Running Man even more resonant right now is fake news. The fake footage of Richards’ helicopter massacre is replayed to the live audience in the gameshow studio to coerce them into believing Schwarzenegger’s character is a liar, a murderer and a threat to everyone. The programmers then do the same thing to his sidekick, Amber Mendez (Maria Conchita Alonso), before later faking their televised deaths during the game itself. </p>
<p>It’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-can-we-learn-to-reject-fake-news-in-the-digital-world-69706">not unlike</a> how social media and even some broadcasters have been guilty of distributing and promoting fake news in recent months, especially during the US presidential election. When psychotic Running Man host Damon Killian (Richard Dawson) interviews studio audience members in the movie, their simple-minded responses echo footage of real American voters dismissing reality for what they’ve been told on TV or via alt-right news sites. </p>
<h2>Muscular politics</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, The Running Man cast included not one but two men who would improbably become governors of American states. <a href="http://www.ontheissues.org/Jesse_Ventura.htm">Jesse Ventura</a>, then best known as a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHAQvZCQcXU">professional wrestler</a>, appears as gameshow veteran Captain Freedom. In 1999, Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota, serving a full four-year term. </p>
<p>Schwarzenegger, a former bodybuilder, was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/8/newsid_3659000/3659108.stm">then elected</a> governor of California in 2003 and re-elected in 2006. And having starred in a movie about the potential dangers of reality TV, on January 2 he <a href="http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/arnold-schwarzenegger-on-taking-over-apprentice-from-trump-w457096">will become host</a> of Celebrity Apprentice in the US. The person he replaces? A real estate tycoon called Donald Trump who will become the president of the United States in the coming days, despite losing the popular vote.</p>
<p>Trump has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/14/steve-bannon-white-house-racism-fear">appointed</a> as his chief strategist and senior counsellor Stephen Bannon. Until recently, Bannon was executive chair of Breitbart News, a right-wing website accused of massaging facts to promote its agenda and win the election for his new boss. And lest we forget, one key part of Trump’s mandate is to revive an economy that has never recovered from the financial crisis of 2007-08. </p>
<p>Put it all together and the 2017 of The Running Man doesn’t look very far away.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70726/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Bishop does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s 30 years since the 1987 classic foresaw a dark vicious future where reality TV had taken over. Looks like we forgot to pay attention.David Bishop, Lecturer in Creative Writing, Edinburgh Napier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/615812016-06-27T06:18:44Z2016-06-27T06:18:44ZThe Briefcase: does Australia’s ‘most exploitative reality show’ breach broadcasting rules?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128251/original/image-20160627-28373-13oyes7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Channel Nine has been criticised for surprising participants with an ethical dilemma. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Briefcase, Channel Nine </span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.9now.com.au/the-briefcase">The Briefcase</a> premiered on Channel Nine last week, to immediate controversy. Criticised for leading participants to believe they would feature in a program on financial hardship, it has been called <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/the-briefcase-is-australias-most-exploitative-reality-show-ever-20160609-gpert9.html">“Australia’s most exploitative reality show”</a>. </p>
<p>As it comes soon after the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-scandal-of-60-minutes-no-broadcasting-standards-no-investigation-60109">60 Minutes child abduction case</a>, aired on the same network, it’s worth asking whether there are any broadcasting rules that address these concerns about deception, manipulation and exploiting vulnerable people. </p>
<p>Ultimately, the answer seems the same as in the 60 Minutes matter: no applicable rule or code of conduct has been broken – partially because, since last year, there are no rules in the commercial TV code specifically about reality TV shows and their participants. </p>
<p>But the issue in The Briefcase has more in common with a recent radio incident – the <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17577632.2015.1055946?journalCode=rjml20">2012 “royal prank call” on 2Day FM</a> – than it does with the 60 Minutes story. </p>
<h2>What’s The Briefcase about?</h2>
<p>Two couples facing hardship of some kind are given A$100,000 and told they can keep the money, give some of it away or give all of it away to another couple. Both couples are told about the other couple’s struggles, but are unaware they were offered the same deal. </p>
<p>The first show, which aired last Monday, featured a family that lost their home in a bushfire, and the family of a woman who had both arms and legs amputated after a serious bacterial infection. </p>
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<p><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3650618/Families-TV-Briefcase-told-signing-completely-different-show.html">Criticism of the program</a> has focused on how the producers misled participants by telling them they were going to be on an entirely different show. Andrew Backwell, the head of programming and production at Channel Nine, told the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/the-briefcase-poverty-porn-critics-have-got-it-wrong-20160620-gpnefq.html">Sydney Morning Herald</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We told people we were doing a show called Making Ends Meet, in which we were going to come and speak to them about their financial situation and provide some financial advice.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s not clear what the participants agreed to at the outset or how this might have changed along the way. But one of last week’s participants <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/the-briefcase-contestants-hit-back-at-poverty-porn-critics-we-dont-want-your-pity/news-story/a5e39dae5fc7214b89423c881cc80b15">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We were given every opportunity to walk away from the project before and after the surprises.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And ahead of the second episode, airing tonight, one participant told the <a href="http://www.theherald.com.au/story/3990965/a-briefcase-of-cash-makes-a-big-splash/">Newcastle Herald</a>, “it was massive for me – a good opportunity to find out who I am.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/13/the-briefcase-ethical-dilemmas-might-be-interesting-but-they-can-also-be-traumatic">Concern has also been expressed</a> about the treatment and portrayal of vulnerable people facing an ethical dilemma. A focus on the misfortunes of others has led to <a href="https://dailyreview.com.au/tvs-death-not-exaggerated-briefcase-channel-9-night-television-apocalypse/44493/">claims of “poverty porn”</a>. </p>
<h2>Deception and consent</h2>
<p>The first place to look for regulation is the <a href="http://www.freetv.com.au/media/Code_of_Practice/Free_TV_Commercial_Television_Industry_Code_of_Practice_2015.pdf">Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice</a>. There’s nothing here about the conditions under which participants are recruited to TV programs, so there’s nothing to say participants can’t be misled. </p>
<p>Some codes of practice do have a rule about the use of deception, but it’s usually in relation to news and current affairs, and is balanced with a right to use deceptive means where they are in the public interest. </p>
<p>A participant’s consent is also important. The 2Day FM royal prank call saw two Australian radio hosts pre-record a prank call to a London hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge had been admitted. </p>
<p>Several hours passed and attempts to retrospectively obtain consent were unsuccessful. 2Day FM went ahead regardless and broadcast the call. <a href="http://www.acma.gov.au/Industry/Broadcast/Radio/Radio-content-regulation/acma-publishes-royal-prank-call-investigation-report">The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) found</a> the radio station breached the <a href="http://www.commercialradio.com.au/getattachment/Legal/Regulation-Codes/Commercial-Radio-Codes-Guidelines-September-2013.pdf">Commercial Radio Codes of Practice</a>, as well as a broadcasting licence condition. </p>
<p>We don’t know what the participants in The Briefcase agreed to, but it appears they later consented to the changed arrangements. <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/the-briefcase-poverty-porn-critics-have-got-it-wrong-20160620-gpnefq.html">Fairfax Media has reported that the participants it spoke to</a> “felt they could have opted out at any stage, but they chose not to”. Whether an opt-out clause is an appropriate mechanism to address potentially serious misrepresentations is debatable.</p>
<h2>Is the show ‘highly exploitative’?</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128229/original/image-20160627-28362-kpcvnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128229/original/image-20160627-28362-kpcvnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128229/original/image-20160627-28362-kpcvnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128229/original/image-20160627-28362-kpcvnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128229/original/image-20160627-28362-kpcvnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128229/original/image-20160627-28362-kpcvnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128229/original/image-20160627-28362-kpcvnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128229/original/image-20160627-28362-kpcvnh.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Screenshot from The Briefcase, Channel Nine.</span></span>
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<p>The Commercial TV Code identifies some material as “proscribed content”. After an <a href="http://acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/main/lib310007/acma_realitytvreview_finalreport_vol1_30mar07.pdf">ACMA investigation</a> into the infamous “turkey slap” incident on Big Brother in 2006, the Code was changed to proscribe material that was “highly demeaning or highly exploitative” and appeared to “purposefully debase or abuse a person … for the enjoyment of others”. </p>
<p>But this rule was removed in 2015. There are now no rules specifically about reality TV and no rules generally about treatment of program participants. </p>
<p>This is where the contrast with 2Day FM’s royal prank call is interesting. The ACMA found the radio station breached an equivalent rule about “highly exploitative” conduct towards participants in a “live hosted entertainment program”. It referred specifically to the use of deception. </p>
<p>In considering the effect on two hospital nurses who were recorded in the phone call, it said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The broadcast used the deception of the prank to engage with the employees in a way that was personally degrading and humiliating and was likely to reduce their professional standing. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Is there a need for more regulation?</h2>
<p>On the basis of what’s been broadcast so far, it’s hard to argue convincingly for a crack down on reality TV. The portrayal of compassion by the two couples in episode one of The Briefcase was sympathetic and moving. At least <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/the-briefcase-families-we-were-tricked-into-nines-show-but-dont-feel-sorry-for-us-20160618-gpln4b.html">some of the participants told Fairfax Media</a> they had no concerns over the way they were treated.</p>
<p>But it’s also likely the community expects at least some minimum level of regulatory oversight. </p>
<p>The ACMA has clearly demonstrated its ability to investigate and deliver appropriate, measured regulatory responses to the conduct seen in Big Brother and the royal prank call. (In contrast, it appears the ACMA is unable to address the 60 Minutes incident, despite demonstrated and serious harm, because <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-scandal-of-60-minutes-no-broadcasting-standards-no-investigation-60109">no broadcasting regulations can be applied</a>.)</p>
<p>When the broadcasting regulatory framework is overhauled, and as networks move to more content of this type, a general principle about the fair treatment of participants in programs like The Briefcase would work as a reminder to maintain standards in an increasingly competitive environment. </p>
<p><br></p>
<hr>
<p><em>The second episode of The Briefcase airs on Channel Nine on Monday June 27.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61581/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek Wilding does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since 2015, Australia has no regulations specifically for reality television. With controversy swirling around Channel Nine’s ‘The Briefcase’, what exactly is allowed?Derek Wilding, Research Fellow, Faculty of Law/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/589392016-06-09T23:00:30Z2016-06-09T23:00:30ZSpeaking with: Deb Warr on “poverty porn”<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121341/original/image-20160505-19858-qe5ncs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">original</span> </figcaption></figure><p>In May 2015 the mayor of the City of Blacktown, Stephen Bali, denounced the SBS documentary series Struggle Street – produced in the Blacktown suburb of Mount Druitt – labelling it as “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-06/garbage-truck-protest-again-sbs-reality-tv-struggle-street/6448012">public funded poverty porn</a>” and staging a creative protest which saw a dozen garbage trucks blockade the broadcaster’s head offices. The <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/04/27/sbs-air-second-season-struggle-street-series">second series</a> of Struggle Street will be <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-i-struggle-with-the-idea-of-struggle-street-filming-in-my-suburb-59678">filmed in Queensland</a> and Victoria in 2016, and there has already been significant backlash to the announced plans.</p>
<p>While <a href="https://dallasrogersblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/rogers-2016-housingworks_poverty-porn.pdf">poverty porn</a> is a term used to describe media that appears to exploit impoverished communities and individuals for entertainment, supporters of shows such as Struggle Street argue that the genre can generate sympathy, engagement and ultimately have a positive effect on the community.</p>
<p>Dallas Rogers spoke with Deb Warr, Associate Professor from the McCaughey Centre for Community Wellbeing at the University of Melbourne, about the role the media plays in creating narratives around poverty and the importance of varied methods of engagement with impoverished communities.</p>
<hr>
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<p><strong>Additional audio:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><p>ABC Lateline <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4230260.htm">SBS accused of ‘poverty porn’ over documentary series</a></p></li>
<li><p>Newsnight <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mszhESGvE_c">Is Channel 4’s Benefits Street ‘poverty porn’?</a></p></li>
<li><p>Four Corners <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2012/09/20/3594298.htm">Growing Up Poor</a></p></li>
<li><p>Benefits Street S01E01 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkKJQF1xSJU">Welcome to James Turner Street</a> </p></li>
<li><p>Benefits Street <a href="https://soundcloud.com/matthew-cracknell/benefits-street-theme-tune">Theme Tune</a> </p></li>
<li><p>The Sydney Morning Herald <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/mt-druitt-community-leaders-hurt-angry-and-feeling-sick-after-struggle-street-documentary-20150506-ggvtff.html"> Mt Druitt community leaders hurt after Struggle Street documentary</a></p></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Music from:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><p>Free Music Archive <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot_Sessions/The_Contessa/HeadlightsMountain_Road">Headlights/Mountain Road by Blue Dot Sessions</a> </p></li>
<li><p>Free Music Archive <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot_Sessions/The_Contessa/Wisteria">Wisteria by Blue Dot Sessions</a> </p></li>
<li><p>Free Music Archive <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Strassmeir_Dachaur_Bauernkapelle/Antique_Phonograph_Music_Program_08252015/Werdenfelser_Trompeten_Landler">Werdenfelser Trompeten Landler by Strassmeir Dachaur Bauernkapelle</a> </p></li>
<li><p>Free Music Archive <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot_Sessions/The_Contessa/Paper_Napkin">Paper Napkin by Blue Dot Sessions</a></p></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dallas Rogers receives funding from the Community Broadcasting Foundation to produce short academic interviews for SoundMinds Radio (<a href="http://www.soundminds.com.au/author/dallas/">http://www.soundminds.com.au/author/dallas/</a>). Segments of this interview were played on community radio in January 2016</span></em></p>Is television focussing on marginalised communities just exploiting the poor for entertainment? Dallas Rogers spoke with Associate Professor Deb Warr about the media and poverty.Dallas Rogers, Lecturer in Urban Studies, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/577022016-06-06T01:21:19Z2016-06-06T01:21:19ZObsessed with reality TV? You may be a narcissist<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124670/original/image-20160531-1943-ote2h8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump in the boardroom during an episode of 'The Apprentice.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Lehr/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In early May, with Donald Trump on the verge of solidifying the Republican nomination, his opponent Ted Cruz ranted to the press: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump. This man is a pathological liar. He cannot tell the truth, but he combines it with being a narcissist… A narcissist at a level I don’t think this country has ever seen.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Journalists and psychiatrists have agreed with his characterization of Trump. He’s been called “<a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/donald-trump-narcissism-therapists">remarkably narcissistic</a>,” “<a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/11/donald-trump-narcissism-therapists">a textbook case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder</a>” and even “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/15/donald-trump-friends-family-staff-inner-circle-whos-who">a total narcissist … who will be the destruction of the United States</a>.”</p>
<p>The rise of Trump has surprised many. But it shouldn’t surprise those who are familiar with personality trends over the last several decades. </p>
<p>When we think someone’s a narcissist, there’s a chance they have <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-dark-side-work/201409/healthy-self-esteem-versus-healthy-narcissism">subclinical narcissism</a> – the technical term for a personality trait characterized by grandiosity, entitlement, envy, a tendency to exploit others and a preoccupation with fame and success. It’s not considered pathological, like the more serious and clinically diagnosable <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder">Narcissistic Personality Disorder</a> (NPD). But it’s disconcerting nonetheless. (People who do develop NPD almost always have the subclinical narcissism trait.) </p>
<p>In 2008, psychologists were able to show that scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, which measures subclinical narcissism, have been <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00507.x/full">steadily increasing</a> in the United States since the 1970s.</p>
<p>A year later, two popular books, “<a href="http://www.narcissismepidemic.com/">The Narcissism Epidemic</a>” and “<a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780061582332/the-mirror-effect">The Mirror Effect</a>,” analyzed the phenomenon, floating potential reasons for the rise of narcissism in America. They both concluded that the rapid growth and reach of entertainment media and celebrity culture shared much of the blame.</p>
<p>However, neither of those books tested this claim, so we recently <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycarticles/2016-07841-001.pdf">conducted a study on television viewing habits</a> that was designed to do just that.</p>
<h2>How college students responded</h2>
<p>We were interested in three particular questions:</p>
<ul>
<li>Is narcissism related to television exposure?</li>
<li>Are preferences for specific television genres related to narcissism?</li>
<li>Are narcissism trends continuing?</li>
</ul>
<p>For the study, we administered a survey to 565 college students. We asked them to complete several questionnaires, with questions that included how much television they watch and their preferred genres, in addition to the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). Participants selected which of a pair of statements best describes them. Each pair contained one narcissistic and one non-narcissistic answer, with an individual’s score determined by the total number of narcissistic options selected.</p>
<p>By comparing results from our sample, taken in 2012, with a hypothetical 2006 sample constructed from a <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/4330/npitimeupdatespps.pdf">prior meta-analysis of narcissism research</a>, we found that our sample of college students had an average NPI score approximately 1.5 points higher. This evidence suggests that narcissism among college students is continuing to increase. </p>
<p>We also found that people who watched more television were more likely to score higher on the NPI. However, once we accounted for genre, this correlation diminished and a different one emerged. </p>
<p>Regardless of how <em>much</em> TV they watched, people who liked political talk shows, reality shows, sporting events and horror shows tended to score higher on the NPI. But those who preferred news broadcasts – even if they watched a lot of TV – usually had lower scores on the NPI. </p>
<p>Taken together, these results suggest that there is a relationship between television exposure and narcissism. Furthermore, the type of show one prefers is more influential than the amount of TV watched. </p>
<h2>A model to mimic</h2>
<p>On the surface, these results make sense. Take horror shows: the villains often exhibit narcissistic personality traits as they profess their grand plans for destruction or domination. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, political talk shows (“The O'Reilly Factor,” “Real Time with Bill Maher”), sporting events and, in particular, <a href="https://www.csub.edu/%7Ecgavin/GST153/CelebrityStudy.pdf">reality shows</a> (Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice,” “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”) all feature plenty of narcissistic personalities who <a href="http://www.esludwig.com/uploads/2/6/1/0/26105457/bandura_sociallearningtheory.pdf">viewers might then mimic in their everyday behavior</a>. Contestants and stars typically brag of their accomplishments, insult their opponents and demand special treatment during and after filming. Meanwhile, a baseball star, after hitting a game-winning home run, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/fashion/blessed-becomes-popular-word-hashtag-social-media.html">might claim he’s been “blessed</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125045/original/image-20160602-23293-828bu8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125045/original/image-20160602-23293-828bu8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125045/original/image-20160602-23293-828bu8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125045/original/image-20160602-23293-828bu8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125045/original/image-20160602-23293-828bu8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125045/original/image-20160602-23293-828bu8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125045/original/image-20160602-23293-828bu8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bill Maher.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Lehr/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the other hand, the results for those who prefer news broadcasts corroborate <a href="http://crx.sagepub.com/content/33/3/115.short">previous studies</a> showing that news consumers are more civicly engaged and less individualistic.</p>
<p>Our findings come as reality TV series and partisan political shows have proliferated in recent years. In 2000, there were four reality television shows. By 2010, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=iEuXCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT252&lpg=PT252&dq=2000+4+reality+TV+shows+2010+320+reality+TV+shows&source=bl&ots=3Kom62YGup&sig=LT6Vyzh-urHDnJVM9CunkXz-Thw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiGzsel8onNAhWj6IMKHffFB7gQ6AEIOzAE#v=onepage&q=2000%204%20reality%20TV%20shows%202010%20320%20reality%20TV%20shows&f=false">that number had ballooned to 320</a>. Meanwhile, some cable news networks today, like Fox News and MSNBC, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2015/02/26/bill-reilly-and-growth-partisan-media/SiTny61lsaOFav0QV7szwK/story.html">feature “wall-to-wall” opinion shows</a>. </p>
<p>When viewers are exposed to so many characters and personalities exhibiting narcissistic behavior and being rewarded, <a href="https://theconversation.com/inspired-by-kim-kardashian-a-feverish-legion-of-followers-struggle-to-achieve-online-fame-51534">they have reason to model such behaviors themselves</a>.</p>
<p>The Kardashians receive lucrative television contracts, while golfer Tiger Woods <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/tiger-woods-earns-83-times-more-money-endorsing-things-playing-golf-165649">nets massive endorsement deals</a>. In Donald Trump, we’re now seeing a reality star being rewarded with the Republican presidential nomination. </p>
<h2>While correlation doesn’t mean causation…</h2>
<p>Of course, it’s important to remember that this was a survey rather than a controlled experiment. Therefore, we cannot infer whether television exposure and genre preferences actually make people more narcissistic, or whether people who are more narcissistic are simply more likely to watch certain types of shows. We think that the first explanation is more compelling, but future research will be able to better determine the direction of these relationships.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125035/original/image-20160602-23298-1me7tmu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125035/original/image-20160602-23298-1me7tmu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125035/original/image-20160602-23298-1me7tmu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125035/original/image-20160602-23298-1me7tmu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125035/original/image-20160602-23298-1me7tmu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125035/original/image-20160602-23298-1me7tmu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125035/original/image-20160602-23298-1me7tmu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lacy and Marcus from Season 1 of ‘Bachelor in Paradise.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Lehr/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We doubt many people consider these results a surprise. Estimates of average television exposure <a href="http://www.bls.gov/tus/tables/a1_2014.pdf">now range from three to five hours per day</a>, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and <a href="http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2016/the-total-audience-report-q4-2015.html">Nielsen</a>. It’s a reasonable assumption that any leisure activity that occupies about 20-30 percent of the average person’s waking hours will have some influence on someone’s personality. And that’s just “traditional” viewing in front of a television. The average person <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/02/25/we-are-hopelessly-hooked/">will spend even more time</a> consuming television shows on portable devices like laptops and smartphones. </p>
<p>This level of media exposure becomes concerning when the shows feature individuals who model rampant self-interest, disregard of others’ well-being and a focus on the individual above all else. </p>
<p>We think it partially explains the rise in narcissism since the 1970s. And perhaps in that, there is an explanation for the attraction to a candidate like Donald Trump.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57702/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Studies have shown that since the 1970s, people’s scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory are rising. Could there be a connection to television consumption?Robert Lull, Vartan Gregorian Post-doctoral Fellow in Science Communication, University of PennsylvaniaTed Dickinson, Ph.D. Candidate in Communication, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/440562015-07-03T10:53:40Z2015-07-03T10:53:40ZMarried at first sight: latest reality TV show poses as ‘social experiment’<p>Married at First Sight, Channel 4’s “social experiment” reality show which asks whether “science can help to create a successful relationship and if the act of marriage itself helps create a psychological bond that leads to true and enduring love” <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/married-at-first-sight">is about to air</a> in the UK. </p>
<p>Like its sister shows in Denmark, the US and Australia, it’s the latest in a series of reality television programmes to use the format of arranged marriage to place lovelorn singles in hothouse situations for our entertainment.</p>
<p>But this time, instead of simply being offered romantic suspense, emotional stress and gendered humiliation, we’re being asked to view this as a legitimate social experiment. This is scientific research – and the show’s producers have hired relationship experts to oversee and legitimise it.</p>
<p>For each series, the relationship experts match up heterosexual couples using various forms of psychological and neurological testing – basing their selection on their personal and social history. The couples they match will marry, go on honeymoon and move in together while being recorded continuously – with the option of deciding to separate if they change their minds within five weeks. The television channel recently announced some of the volunteers who <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3143223/Meet-couple-introduced-time-wedding.html">will shortly be getting married</a>. </p>
<h2>Entertainment guinea pigs</h2>
<p>Channel 4’s experiment is one that would be highly <a href="http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2005/march-05/could-reality-shows-become-reality-experiments.html">unlikely to pass muster</a> with any human research ethics committee.</p>
<p>The experts, who gather data from participants to match couples and then interpret their ongoing interactions, come from a variety of disciplines including evolutionary anthropology, neuroscience, psychotherapy and clinical psychology. All of these are professions that require members to uphold standards of human research ethics that include preventing social and psychological harm and avoiding conflicts of interest.</p>
<p>But as per the formula of most reality television, participants are deliberately stressed and exposed, with the data gathered by each researcher publicly interpreted for our entertainment. There is a conflict of interest between the needs of the show’s producers for the largest audience possible and the needs of the participants to be protected from psychological harm. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YlzFu6Y_h4Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Discovery’s Naked and Afraid goes wrong – dramatic scenes for your entertainment.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is also a conflict of interest between the role of each expert as scientist, consultant, and television performer.</p>
<p>While the contestants will have undoubtedly signed detailed consent forms, this in no way overrides the experts’ own professional obligations to conduct research that complies with the ethical guidelines set for their industries. That’s what guidelines for ethical research practice are there for; to protect participants from voluntarily consenting to experiments that may prove to be harmful.</p>
<p>It’s arguable that much of the show <a href="http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/_files_nhmrc/publications/attachments/e72_national_statement_may_2015_150514_a.pdf">breaches common guidelines</a> for ethical conduct in human research, and the <a href="http://www.pacfa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/PACFA-Code-of-Ethics.pdf">ethical codes of practice for psychotherapy</a> and <a href="http://www.bps.org.uk/what-we-do/ethics-standards/ethics-media-information-members/ethics-media-information-members">psychology</a>.</p>
<h2>Harm can be done</h2>
<p>There’s no question that the social and psychological sciences have made significant contributions to both violations of ethical research practice and general human misery. Among several humanitarian crimes, anthropologists have worked for natural resource industries <a href="http://blogs.crikey.com.au/northern/2011/12/06/ethics-anthropologists-and-anthropolitics-in-the-wild-wild-west/">against the interests of first peoples</a>. Psychologists have participated <a href="https://theconversation.com/obama-is-right-we-must-protect-young-people-from-gay-conversion-therapies-40017">in so-called conversion therapy</a> and the <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/657294?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">design and implementation of torture</a>.</p>
<p>In the case of reality television, because it’s marketed as “light entertainment”, sometimes masked as social experimentation to give it an air of credibility, we can be persuaded to see it as a matter for ethical debate rather than professional sanction.</p>
<p>Professor Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist known for <a href="http://psychology.about.com/od/classicpsychologystudies/a/stanford-prison-experiment.htm">the notorious Stanford Prison Experiment</a> in the early 1970s and past president of the American Psychological Association, has had significant input in the design of reality television programme <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0818733/">the Human Zoo</a>. According to Zimbardo, shows such as Survivor, where contestants are marooned on an island and have to feed and shelter themselves while competing in challenges, promote “the worst aspects of human behaviour and the wrong human values.” Human Zoo, however, which used candid-camera style filming to observe human behaviour and social interaction between a group of strangers, was <a href="http://news.stanford.edu/pr/01/zimbardo52.html">a more responsible and positive demonstration</a> of psychological ideas. </p>
<p>Zimbardo has described the role of the media as a “gatekeeper between psychology and the public”. I’m not sure how we can expect the media to act as a gatekeeper for the public. Aside from dubious ethical standards, what about the <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/Television/story?id=7739393">people who have experienced significant negative impacts</a> from appearing in such shows and the poor track record for <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6702315.stm">research ethics</a> in reality television to date? It appears that when it comes to televised radical social experiments, both participants and the public are to be left to protect themselves.</p>
<p>As reality television begins to position itself beyond the realm of simple voyeurism and ventures into the territory of legitimate social research without the ethical oversight, perhaps the place for complaints about the process <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/reality-tv/382004/">is not only the television networks themselves</a> but also the various member associations of the contributing expert consultants, who are accountable to the public for the ethical practice of their members and have dedicated professional conduct committees whose role is to hear and respond to complaints about the practices of their members. </p>
<p>Participant complaints could have a significant impact on the process of making experimental television. But in the case of the current crop of new reality shows, we have yet to find out.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44056/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zoë Krupka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Just because using ‘science’ to arrange marriages will entertain a TV audience, doesn’t make it ethical.Zoë Krupka, PhD Student Faculty of Health Sciences, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/402142015-05-20T10:07:43Z2015-05-20T10:07:43ZThe guilty pleasure of watching trashy TV<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82122/original/image-20150518-25432-qgwl88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why do people complain so much about 'low-brow' shows – yet still watch them?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&search_tracking_id=9PzFV_tzvYh8B2oSe7NVJg&searchterm=television&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=207830650">"TV" via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many Americans have a conflicted relationship with the media they watch. </p>
<p>In particular, those who think of themselves as “cultured” tend to have a negative view of certain “low-brow” contemporary television shows. Scripted shows like Two and a Half Men and Reign are described as “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/22/arts/television-review-swinging-bachelor-s-peril-beware-of-geek-bearing-kid.html">banal</a>” and “<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2013/10/16/reign-review/2994343/">dumb</a>,” while the latest crop of “<a href="http://entertainment.time.com/2014/01/04/7-reality-shows-to-hate-watch-in-2014/">trashy</a>” reality shows – The Bachelorette, Keeping Up with the Kardashians – are to be enjoyed only by “<a href="http://entertainment.time.com/2014/01/04/7-reality-shows-to-hate-watch-in-2014/">hate-watching</a>” them. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, these <a href="http://variety.com/2015/tv/ratings/ratings-nbcs-voice-abcs-bachelor-finale-top-monday-1201449680/">very</a> <a href="http://www.ew.com/article/2013/11/15/the-cws-reign-rises">same</a> <a href="http://variety.com/2015/data/ratings/two-and-a-half-men-finale-draws-more-than-13-million-viewers-1201437800/">shows</a> are watched by millions of people each week. </p>
<p>The popularity (and profitability) of reality TV has <a href="http://nyupress.org/books/9780814757345/">reshaped the landscape of television</a>. In fact, many TV producers are purposely making “bad” shows to appeal to a certain type of viewer.</p>
<p>How can so many people complain so much about these shows – yet still watch them?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304422X14000576">We sought to understand</a> this seeming contradiction by going to the source and talking to self-described viewers of “bad” television. </p>
<p>Many of the people we interviewed found trashy television too <a href="http://joc.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/01/30/1469540514521078.abstract">offensive</a> to watch, but there were others who kept on consuming, even as they described the shows as “awful,” “terrible,” and “just downright bad.”</p>
<p>Those we talked to were often what society considers to be “cultured” – upper-class, educated and comfortable talking about art or their favorite novelist. These sophisticated television viewers felt the contradiction of watching trashy television even more acutely than most; they struggled with the idea that, for all their appreciation of “good” culture, they found themselves repeatedly watching such “bad” TV. </p>
<p>In order to overcome the contradiction of condemning while also consuming, our interviewees generally resorted to three explanations.</p>
<h2>A guilty pleasure</h2>
<p>Many cultured viewers actually feel quite badly about watching trashy television, but they can’t seem to stop themselves. </p>
<p>They feel ashamed, almost unclean, after watching an episode of Reign or The Bachelor, but they can’t help it. </p>
<p>As one 50-year-old nonprofit manager explained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You feel a little dirty in a way…I’m like, “Oh my God. Why are you doing this to yourself, and why am I choosing to sit here and watch it when it’s just ridiculous?” I feel terrible about myself. I’m like, “I’ve wasted twenty minutes here, just watching America’s Next Top Model.” And, you know, I resolve never to do it again. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But she does watch again, like most other guilty pleasure viewers. And again. And again.</p>
<p>“Just one more episode,” they say. Or, “It’s been such a long day and my job is so demanding, it’s okay if I indulge in a little mindless crap at the end of the day.” </p>
<p>Most claim it is simply out of their control, like being unable to look away from a car crash. One university professor described why he watches Judge Judy like this: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is an element there of being freaked out by something, and watching it is almost like watching a car wreck. You know, you are driving along the highway and you see a car smashed up, you slow down; it’s the same kind of thing.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Ironic consumption</h2>
<p>Not all feel guilty about watching trashy television – some revel in it. </p>
<p>Ironic consumers, or “hipster viewers,” think that the shows they watch are really bad, but they still enjoy them: they derive great pleasure from making fun of a terrible show. To them, trashy television is – as the saying goes – “so bad it’s good.”</p>
<p>These viewers tend to watch trashy television from an emotional distance. They don’t really feel connected to the characters or care about their fates. (They are just there for the laughs, after all.) </p>
<p>Watching with this perspective allows them to feel superior to the show and its conventional viewers. A 28-year-old teacher who enjoys watching Hoarders stated: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It depicts such a bad scenario, but it’s pleasurable to watch because it makes you feel better about yourself…a person will think, “Thank God I’m not like that.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a way, by watching trashy TV from a position of superiority, ironic consumers can reaffirm their own self-perception of being cultured.</p>
<h2>A camp sensibility</h2>
<p>Audiences who view these shows as camp have more complex reasons behind their reasons for watching. Susan Sontag described <a href="http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Sontag-NotesOnCamp-1964.html">“camp sensibility”</a> as enjoying a cultural object that is so extravagant and exaggerated that it achieves a certain kind of “failed seriousness.” </p>
<p>Those with a camp sensibility don’t feel guilty, nor do they revel in the trashiness of bad television. Rather, these connoisseurs of bad culture have a strange kind of admiration – almost reverence – for really awful cultural products. As Sontag observed, “Camp is a tender feeling.” </p>
<p>One graduate student compared his enjoyment of 1980s B-movies to honoring an embarrassing cultural moment: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s a sort of a celebration of our failure. Like, I can’t believe someone spent so much time on this and it’s so bad; maybe that’s it, celebrating our failings. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whereas ironic consumers feel apart and above the cultural object, a camp sensibility allows a viewer to identify with the creators of the movie or television show. They admire the vision of the producers and rejoice in its ultimately disastrous outcome.</p>
<h2>Our complicated culture</h2>
<p>We exist in a complicated cultural environment where we no longer take the products of media at face value. We make aesthetic and moral judgments about TV shows – “that was awful,” “this is trash” – but we keep on watching. Conflicted, we want to have it both ways; we try to hold on to the idea that we really do have “good taste,” even as we consume television we judge to be terrible. </p>
<p>Not surprisingly, television producers have caught on. Now “bad” shows are expressly produced for connoisseurs of trashy television. Shows like 16 and Pregnant, Jersey Shore, and True Blood can be specifically consumed as a guilty pleasure, ironically or with a camp sensibility. </p>
<p>All the while we try to remain aesthetically pure. We watch these “trashy” shows at a distance, in order not to be contaminated by the appearance of bad taste.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40214/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How do those who watch low-brow television shows rationalize their behavior? We found out.Charles McCoy, Assistant Professor of Sociology, SUNY PlattsburghRoscoe Scarborough, PhD candidate in Sociology, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/381632015-03-10T19:27:41Z2015-03-10T19:27:41ZHow reality TV killed creativity in television<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73879/original/image-20150305-1908-azygl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Contestants from the most recent series of Big Brother toast their success º but is that success killing TV creativity?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Nine Network, Big Brother Publicity, Paul Broben</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It might be hard to find two more laboured topics in the arts right now, but a good Google search reveals “creativity” and “reality television” are yet to go head to head in the same story. Here’s what’s missing in the respective debates. </p>
<p>Reality television now dominates Australian TV screens. While in 2014 only one scripted show <a href="https://theconversation.com/review-never-tear-us-apart-the-tabloid-version-of-the-inxs-story-22886">INXS: Never Tear Us Apart</a> made it into the top 20 most watched episodes (with reality and sport taking all other 19 positions), in 2013<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/the-ratings-reality-show-the-most-watched-tv-of-2013-20131204-2ypc6.html"> reality made up 13 of the top 20 </a> most watched episodes, alongside sport.</p>
<p>Mirroring the spread of reality across broadcast and cable in the US, which now devotes almost half of all programming to the booming genre (<a href="http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17254/reality_tv_production_workers_win_collective_bargaining">generating</a> US$6 billion in annual revenue), its appeal is as strong as ever - or “in full flower, both as a creative force and a business” as the New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/arts/television/reality-rocks-convention-in-los-angeles.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0">reported</a> in 2011. </p>
<p>According to the world’s current “hero” of reality and creativity, Big Brother and The Voice creator <a href="http://www.fastcocreate.com/3035135/tv-utopia-how-john-de-mol-keeps-creating-reality-shows-the-world-cant-stop-watching">Jon de Mol</a>, “working on being creative in the TV world is endless. It never stops. It’s a challenge that never disappears.”</p>
<h2>The rise of corporate creativity</h2>
<p>The insidious rise of reality television – or perhaps better named, “corporate television” - can be marked against what British sociologist <a href="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/spais/people/person/thomas-s-osborne/">Thomas Osborne</a> calls the “creative economy”, a permanent hurricane of creative chatter driven by a new kind of moral imperative, and one with potentially moronic consequences. </p>
<p>The ever-expanding creative industries now stretch across design, fashion, software production, video games, marketing, advertising, pop music, the performing arts, publishing, philosophy, publicity, education, neuroscience, prison rehabilitation and beyond.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N1nr26KIgDI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A preview for the Australian franchise of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Outta Here.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Managers workshop their staff into more “creative” productivity, and the seriously creative (or at least the best at monetising the craft), work out how to stop consumers clicking skip on the YouTube commercial. The major advertising players such as Leo Burnett are now even recruiting poets and theatre artists instead of hard-nosed sellers for the purpose, so I hear. </p>
<p>Amid the frenzy, at the helm of the creativity cult, the liveliest genre on the set right now is combining the visceral impact of documentary with the story structure of scripted TV, and nailing “the hot-button cultural issues — class, sex, race –that respectable television rarely touches,” US reality producer Michael Hirschorn <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/05/the-case-for-reality-tv/305791/">said</a> in 2007. Its best performing formats: the bachelor, housewife, chef, renovator, talent sensation, duck hunter, swamp person, child pageant disaster and (an all-time favourite) “occupant of a house” – now occupant who watches TV - stir up the perfect mix of humiliation and Schadenfreude. </p>
<p>In Australia contestants can end up anywhere from broke and bullied to going blind and suicidal. In the US, wannabe stars will resort to alcohol-fuelled punch ups or birthing their own babies on TV. Having sex on camera became the standard, even old-hat, years ago.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73880/original/image-20150305-1952-c6vatb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73880/original/image-20150305-1952-c6vatb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73880/original/image-20150305-1952-c6vatb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73880/original/image-20150305-1952-c6vatb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73880/original/image-20150305-1952-c6vatb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73880/original/image-20150305-1952-c6vatb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73880/original/image-20150305-1952-c6vatb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73880/original/image-20150305-1952-c6vatb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Remember the Biggest Loser?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Network Ten</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Though it’s tempting to keep rehashing the widespread academic and other evidence of worker exploitation and stolen wages (US$40 million a year by New York based, non-scripted TV companies alone in 2013, <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17254/reality_tv_production_workers_win_collective_bargaining">according</a> to the Writer’s Guild of America), pitifully cheap production values, links to mass plastic surgery, eating disorders and generally diminishing morality in audiences, “frankenbiting” (where dialogue is deceptively edited to create better stories), metadata surveillance, the impoverishment of public discourses and the fact the that the whole thing is predicated on being real when it is extraordinarily fake - there is another aspect to reality TV that makes it even worse.</p>
<p>The genre is also shrinking creativity.</p>
<h2>Where have all the creatives gone?</h2>
<p>First of all, it has all but wiped from the broadest entertainment platform, one of the oldest occupations in history, the working actor. Now that we’ve got desperados, trained professionals might as well go the way of the iPhone 5.</p>
<p>The surrounding artistic team? Restructured. Choreographers, lighting designers, sound engineers and costume people are given the US (or Dutch) patent and told to make it feel just the same. </p>
<p>Most crucially, the writer, who may have otherwise penned the next Lord of the Rings, Hunger Games, The Three Sisters or The Simpsons now helps Kim Kardashian’s Klan as they kustomize peoples’ face, clothes, hair, job and social climbing privileges in exchange for credit card payments in a virtual Hollywood.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73881/original/image-20150305-1928-1jhir6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73881/original/image-20150305-1928-1jhir6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73881/original/image-20150305-1928-1jhir6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73881/original/image-20150305-1928-1jhir6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73881/original/image-20150305-1928-1jhir6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73881/original/image-20150305-1928-1jhir6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73881/original/image-20150305-1928-1jhir6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73881/original/image-20150305-1928-1jhir6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Keeping the Kardashian image intact.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Paul Miller</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Low art forms, from the bawdy to bear baiting to Puppetry of the Penis have always had a place in our cultures – but they hasn’t always dominated, less survived or defined eras as corporate television may well do of ours. Do we see really see today’s swamp people or karaoke singers who would be Leonard Cohens selling out the Drama Theatre in 400 years? </p>
<p>No. </p>
<p>Why? Because creativity has become fashion, save for the essential surviving artists like: Bansky, Woody Allen or the Coen brothers as examples. In Thomas Osborne’s <a href="https://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/PERSONALPAGES/Fakultaet_1/Behnke_Christoph/files/literaturarchiv/OsborneKreativitaet.pdf">words</a>, what we’re seeing is: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[the] endless repetition of permanent change under conditions of permanent imitation: production for the sake of production, “ideas” for the sake of “ideas” – and something which ultimately, perhaps precisely because of its character as a sort of compulsory heterodoxy, has conservative effects.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For philosopher <a href="http://www.utas.edu.au/architecture-design/people/people/academics/Jeff-Malpas">Jeff Malpas</a>, these conservative effects link creativity to corporate techno-capitalism – a mass wave of de-individualisation dressed up as control and liberty. Or in primetime terms: vote for the biggest loser to win a cheeseburger! </p>
<p>The point is, you take away the art – which is what corporate television has done – and you take away the stories that are really for the people. It’s a clever move to make artists look “out of touch” in the television space because artists - largely driven by what it means to be human, and most importantly, originality (certainly not by money) – write, direct and perform inconvenient truths. They’ve always been better at democracy than the politicians, which is no doubt why they need to be removed. </p>
<p>As creativity becomes confused with invention, imitation (or novelty at best) and is reduced to metadata captured through live-streamed barnyard sex and X-Factor applications - we forget that as Hegel after the renaissance and Aristotle of ancient Greece warned, art presents man with himself. </p>
<p>Assuming they were right we’d better lay off Kim Kardashian and the like for a while and vote for something else. Unless, that is, she’d like to have a go at reciting The Odyssey. </p>
<p><br>
<em>Read other articles in our Creativity series <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/creativity-series">here</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><em>Editor’s note: Carla will be answering questions between 2 and 3pm AEDT on Thursday March 12. You can ask your questions about the article in the comments below.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38163/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carla Rocavert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the age of the “creative economy”, reality programs are dominating Australian TV. The problem is, reality TV is squeezing the creativity out of our screen culture.Carla Rocavert, PhD candidate in Arts/Philosophy, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/343662014-11-21T01:10:52Z2014-11-21T01:10:52ZSBS’s First Contact is the real ‘festering sore’ of the nation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65142/original/image-20141120-4472-waerxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The First Contact cast members' transformation over the series is an optical illusion of Australian race relations.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The SBS/Blackfella Films production <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/programs/first-contact">First Contact</a> – that takes six non-Indigenous people and immerses them into Aboriginal Australia for the first time – captured the <a href="http://www.bandt.com.au/media/sbs-tv-event-first-contact-ratings">nation’s attention</a> this week amassing a television audience nearing 1 million viewers, while the program’s Twitter hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/firstcontactsbs">#FirstContactSBS</a> trended worldwide. </p>
<p>Over the three episodes, we saw the participants get their “first contact” with Aboriginal Australia as they were welcomed into the homes of Aboriginal people in the city and in the bush. </p>
<p>Clearly the television series hit a nerve, sparking a plethora of conversations around the country. </p>
<p>These conversations tell us more about the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia than the racist soundbites in the show’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3x_tcqYRr8">promo clip</a>. </p>
<p>TV viewers were understandably outraged at the views expressed by First Contact’s cast members. But as the nation gathers to vilify them, we must remember they are a product of the nation they live in … that we all live in.</p>
<p>A nation that <a href="https://theconversation.com/pyning-for-indigenous-rights-in-the-australian-curriculum-30422">struggles</a> to teach its own history in its schools.</p>
<p>A nation which <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-racial-discrimination-act-may-be-too-wide-but-changing-it-has-disproportionate-dangers-24809">suspends</a> the Racial Discrimination Act to “protect” Aboriginal people.</p>
<p>A nation that <a href="https://theconversation.com/race-act-changes-are-what-you-get-when-you-champion-bigotry-24782">asserts</a> its right to be bigots.</p>
<p>A nation that insists Aboriginal people celebrate the day their country was invaded. </p>
<p>A nation where its Prime Minister declares himself the PM for Aborigines and <a href="https://theconversation.com/abbott-is-quietly-failing-on-his-pm-for-aboriginal-affairs-promise-26948">cuts funding</a> to Indigenous communities; who believes Australia was “<a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/11/14/pms-nothing-bush-comments-slammed">nothing but bush</a>” before white settlement; who defines the authenticity of his colleague’s Aboriginality based on where they live and who <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/08/16/comment-abbotts-views-indigenous-women-escape-scrutiny">believes</a> that “Aboriginal women are cowering in their huts”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65147/original/image-20141121-4464-26qv64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65147/original/image-20141121-4464-26qv64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65147/original/image-20141121-4464-26qv64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65147/original/image-20141121-4464-26qv64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65147/original/image-20141121-4464-26qv64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65147/original/image-20141121-4464-26qv64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65147/original/image-20141121-4464-26qv64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65147/original/image-20141121-4464-26qv64.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">First Contact.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gee, when Abbott finds out that the Aborigines live in houses (albeit it, ridiculously overcrowded ones), he will be as disappointed as First Contact’s <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/11/20/first-contacts-bo-dene-i-cant-believe-i-was-so-naive-and-ignorant">Bo-Dene</a> was when she realised the mob in north-east Arnhem Land wore shoes! </p>
<p>The cast-members reflect who we are as a nation. But their transformation over the series is an optical illusion – or delusion – of Australian race relations.</p>
<p>For a moment we are led to believe that the oppressive hierarchical relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia could be refigured. But this momentary shift was short lived, as Channel Nine’s Today Show demonstrated earlier this week, in their review of the first episode.</p>
<p>I assumed The Today Show’s <a href="http://www.9jumpin.com.au/show/today/videos/">The Grill</a> was going to reflect on the racism revealed in the show. </p>
<p>Commentator Miranda Devine launched a critique of the show by expressing her concern about the portrayal of negative stereotypes. I was about to agree, until she clarified that she meant the negative portrayal of the (white) women as racist. </p>
<p>Devine argued that it is not racist to complain about Aboriginal welfare because even Aboriginal people (or in her words “these people”) agree that welfare is not good for them. Okay, but the cast said quite a few negative things about Aboriginal people that were unrelated to welfare dependency. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65148/original/image-20141121-4475-11w76sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65148/original/image-20141121-4475-11w76sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65148/original/image-20141121-4475-11w76sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65148/original/image-20141121-4475-11w76sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65148/original/image-20141121-4475-11w76sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65148/original/image-20141121-4475-11w76sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65148/original/image-20141121-4475-11w76sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/65148/original/image-20141121-4475-11w76sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">First Contact.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SBS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Also, in episode one we didn’t actually meet welfare-dependant Aboriginal people; we met Aboriginal people in Redfern leading crime prevention initiatives, while paying off their mortgage, and barbecuing like real Aussies (as opposed to munching out on bugs). </p>
<p>We also witnessed the cultural resilience of Marcus Lacey and his extended family in north eastern Arnhem Land who graciously engaged with these “outspoken Aussies”. </p>
<p>Despite this, the Today Show focused their analysis on “the problem of Aboriginal dysfunction” rather than the cast members’ ignorance. The “Aboriginal problem” is a pervasive discourse used by white Australia to absolve itself of any responsibility to past and present injustices experienced by Aboriginal people. </p>
<p>It is this discourse that Aboriginal activist and actress Rosalie Kunoth-Marks so famously challenged on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCYhO6yRWgU">ABC’s Q&A</a> program earlier this year. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vCYhO6yRWgU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Rosalie Kunoth-Monks on ABC’s Q&A: ‘I am not the problem’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But alas, even First Contact’s host Ray Martin explained the show by <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/first-contacts-casting-reveals-australias-festering-sore-20141119-11pjnt.html">stating</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think every Australian realises that the Aboriginal problem, quote unquote, is our festering sore. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The discourse of the “Aboriginal problem” demonises Aboriginal people and is a dangerously alluring concept that we as Indigenous people sometimes perform to.</p>
<p>Demonisation leads us to believe that we are culpable for the racial oppressions inflicted upon us. It is the belief (often instilled in us by our parents) that if we work hard (or 10 times harder) we can prove ourselves to white Australia.</p>
<p>Yet, many of us have done just that, and now are subjected to a different brand of Australian racism - the one that tells us that our success and accomplishment voids our claim as “real Aboriginals”.</p>
<p>Suggesting that Aboriginal people remedy the racism we encounter is like telling the battered woman that she can escape domestic violence by just behaving better. Racism cannot be cured in this country by enlisting Aboriginal people to perform palatable, perfect or culturally pure renditions of Aboriginality. </p>
<p>Racism is not about the capacity of Aboriginal minds or bodies – it is about the psyche of the racist, and the psyche of a nation which has yet to “recognise” or “reconcile” Indigenous sovereignty and their own illegal occupation. </p>
<p>That, Ray, is the deep festering sore of this nation. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>You can watch First Contact on <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/">SBS On Demand.</a></em></p>
<hr>
<p><em>Editor’s note: Chelsea will be answering questions between 4 and 5pm AEDT on Friday November 21. Ask your questions about First Contact in the comments below.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34366/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chelsea Bond is an Australian Learning and Teaching Fellow and affiliate member of the National Indigenous Research and Knowledges Network. </span></em></p>The SBS/Blackfella Films production First Contact – that takes six non-Indigenous people and immerses them into Aboriginal Australia for the first time – captured the nation’s attention this week amassing…Chelsea Watego, Senior Lecturer in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/325712014-10-15T01:08:56Z2014-10-15T01:08:56ZHumilitainment – the sorry story of reality TV<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61744/original/st9pxcsd-1413332395.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Come play with us. For ever. And ever. And ever. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alex Eylar</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Yesterday the Danish Toymaker Lego <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/oct/14/lego-reality-tv-show-lego-movie-batman">announced</a> its plans for a reality TV show to be launched in 2015, rumoured to be based on the idea of Master Builders, the top “construction workers” in the insanely successful <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-lego-movie-understands-what-separates-kids-and-adults-25314">Lego Movie</a> earlier this year.</p>
<p>Surely the show will be more about the minifigs than the personalities of the people putting them together? Well, no, recent history would suggest otherwise. </p>
<p>As Paris Hilton <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362153/news?year=2006;start=21">famously said</a> of her reality program, which ran from 2003 to 2007:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Simple Life is a reality show and people might assume it’s real. But it’s fake. All reality shows are fake basically. When you have a camera on you, you are not going to act yourself.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Television has changed dramatically in the past two decades. </p>
<p>Back then there were a small number of cable or satellite channels and a few terrestrial networks broadcasting standard formats, based upon film studio production methods, of situation comedies, police/crime procedurals, quizzes, cartoons, and so on, using professional actors or presenters, working from scripts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paris Hilton takes her TV reality show to a party in Beirut.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/ Nabil Mounzer</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, a very large proportion of its programming in all TV formats (free-to-air, cable, and satellite) could be meaningfully described as “reality” – as distinguishable from scripted shows with relatively high production values.</p>
<p>Reality TV covers a wide variety of formats such as personal makeovers, “Mr Right/The Bachelor” programs, survival, talent contests, cooking contests, home renovation contests, weight reduction contests, “real housewives of X city”, docusoaps (programs that appear to be documentaries but have the feel of soap operas), dancing competitions, job-seeking contests …</p>
<h2>The origins of reality TV</h2>
<p>One of the tropes of reality TV - the filming of non-actors in actual settings, usually entailing some trick or prank, must go back to Alan Funt’s 1948 <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CpzNGhfVio">Candid Camera</a>, a format revived by MTV with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk%27d">Punk’d</a> in 2003.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-CpzNGhfVio?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Candid Camera, 1953.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But, like the hidden camera experiments of psychologist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Milgram">Stanley Milgram</a>, those shows did not carry the taint of suspicions of it all being a put-up job - which takes us back to the question of what reality is. </p>
<p>In some respects, reality TV, or the vague feeling that we are watching something synthetic, goes back to an American historian Daniel J. Boorstin, who in 1962 produced a book called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Image-Guide-Pseudo-Events-America/dp/0679741801/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410244479&sr=8-1&keywords=the+image+boorstin">The Image: A Guide To Pseudo-Events In America</a>. </p>
<p>Boorstin attacked “pseudo-events” such as press conferences, presidential debates (which existed merely to be reported) and publicity stunts concocted by public relations and advertising professionals. </p>
<p>He also attacked the manufacture of celebrity – “a person who is known for his well-knownness” (later known as “famous for being famous”). His insights are almost eerie in their predictive power of “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity%E2%80%93industrial_complex">celebrity-industrial complex</a>”, within which much of reality TV exists. </p>
<p>Media academic <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reality-TV-Genres-Misha-Kavka-ebook/dp/B00EMT2Y4A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410245836&sr=8-1&keywords=reality+tv+misha+kavka">Misha Kavka</a> tracks the next phase of reality TV from 1999 onwards, calling it the age of Surveillance and Competition, with programs such as [Big Brother](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(TV_series) and [Survivor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_(U.S._TV_series).</p>
<p>A series of industrial strikes by US actors, writers and extras in the late 1980s and early 1990s helped precipitate the search for production that would step around unions and search for lower-cost formats. Reality TV helped solve those. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Contestants of the 2006 series of American reality show Survivor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ Nine</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Companies such as the Dutch company <a href="http://www.endemol.com/programme/big-brother">Endemol</a>, <a href="http://au.eonline.com">E!</a>, [Bravo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bravo_(U.S._TV_network), and <a href="http://www.mtv.com">MTV</a> were able to produce reality format shows at much lower costs than mainstream production houses and networks. </p>
<p>Endemol developed Big Brother and franchised the show throughout the world. Over time it developed more sophisticated programming, including conventional dramas and comedies, including Australia’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1530541/">Offspring</a>.</p>
<p>Franchising of formats has provided a substantial source of income for developers.</p>
<p>Survivor, a game format show where people are “marooned” in harsh environments, launched in 1997 as a Swedish show, and debuted on US TV in 2000. It has been a ratings winner for more than a decade. Early morphings of reality TV (perhaps helping lower the bar of what was acceptable on TV) were “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabloid_talk_show">Trash TV</a>” programs such as the talk shows of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcMY3mNvfgs">Maurie Povich</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGo1HZAWA4I">Jerry Springer</a>.</p>
<h2>Ordinary people and anti-talent</h2>
<p>Kavka argues that “ordinary people” who appear on reality shows sometimes become celebrities themselves, but not always in ways they had anticipated. </p>
<p>Sara-Marie from the first series of Big Brother in Australia, who had been nominated for eviction six times before finally being voted out, was greeted on her exit with screams of adoration by a nation keen on replicating her joyful “bum dance” in pink pyjamas and bunny ears. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jemma, Peter and Sara Marie in the final eviction at the Big Brother household, 2001.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ Dave Hunt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>None of these sudden celebrities could be described as having talent. On the contrary, the very thing they became famous for - ignorance, malapropisms, turning one’s bottom to the camera and slapping it - could be better described as “anti-talent”.</p>
<p>Ray Richmond of the <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/calling-reality-tv-is-altogether-150164">Hollywood Reporter</a> counted 18 casting staff in the pre-production of a Gordon Ramsay cooking show:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Why does a program populated primarily by the actual employees and customers of real restaurants need 18 people to cast it? If the casting department’s job is strictly scouting out the eateries and judging charisma and on-camera appeal, are they not in fact conducting auditions?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To a certain extent, then, the scene we see on screen - staff, angry chef, customers - is all pre-arranged. American media critic <a href="http://www.realitybitesbackbook.com/about-reality-bites-back">Jennifer Poszner</a> has described the way reality TV producers will often look for stereotypes to cast – such as the so-called slut or the dumb jock – so role-taking on the part of participants, at variance from their normal behaviour, seems to be the norm. </p>
<p>Contestants on the Idol/Voice franchises sometimes appear in Ford commercials, thus <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Triumph-Reality-Revolution-Television/dp/0313399018/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410166290&sr=8-1&keywords=edwards+triumph+of+reality+tv">breaking down the barriers</a> between show and commercial breaks - a weird inversion of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement">product placement</a>.</p>
<p>When Survivor cast member Jerri Manthey appeared on a 2004 interview show, the audience could only focus on the manufactured persona of Manthey as a villain on the show and booed her off: as she fled, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Triumph-Reality-Revolution-Television/dp/0313399018/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410166290&sr=8-1&keywords=edwards+triumph+of+reality+tv">she cried</a> “We’re real people too!”</p>
<h2>Humilitainment and schadenfreude</h2>
<p>It is also true that the confected conflict built into many reality shows leads to what has been called “<a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/joy-and-pain/201403/humilitainment-anyone-0">Humilitainment</a>” - the entertainment value we apparently are meant to derive as contestants are bullied, critiqued and undergo rituals of shame, degradation and embarrassment as they are excluded from a competitive situation - expelled from Reality Garden of Eden. </p>
<p>As Ben Pobjie <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/exposing-bigfoot-sure-to-raise-hairs-20140716-3c1fl.html">observed</a> about Masterchef in the Sydney Morning Herald:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But look, the important thing is: somebody is going to cry.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Masterchef Judges Gary Mehigan, Matt Preston and George Calombaris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ Network Ten</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some analysts have linked this phenomenon to that of the German concept of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude">Schadenfreude</a> - the pleasure one derives from the suffering of others. This is often exacerbated by the absurdly melodramatic pausing of judges giving their in-or-out verdict on the contestants. </p>
<p>The economics of celebrity is also tied up with how money is made out of the shows.</p>
<p>The Kardashian family produces books, clothing brands, nail polishes, perfumes, diet supplements, cosmetics and clothing boutiques. Endorsements of other products earned them US$65 million in 2010. Social media <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13527266.2012.726235#.VA1ug4C1bbE">accelerated these processes</a>.</p>
<p>Additional money flows into the coffers when shows split revenues with telephony service providers viewers use to phone or text in to vote for a contestant. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reality-TV-Genres-Misha-Kavka-ebook/dp/B00EMT2Y4A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410166222&sr=8-1&keywords=kavka+reality+tv">Kavka</a> argues that once a person has spent money on a call, they are more likely to spend money on the iTunes download, a single, an album or a ticket to a live performance - in other words, they become emotionally invested. </p>
<p>Pop culture scholar Leigh Edwards points out that Coca-Cola thinks it is worth US$64 million a year to have <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Triumph-Reality-Revolution-Television/dp/0313399018/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410166290&sr=8-1&keywords=edwards+triumph+of+reality+tv">Coke containers in front of the judges</a> of American Idol, another example of product placement.</p>
<p>Perhaps crucially, reality TV is so much cheaper to produce than conventional high-production value shows - anywhere from <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0410/why-networks-love-reality-tv.aspx">50% to 10% of the cost</a>. </p>
<h2>Constructing a Frankenbite</h2>
<p>While much of reality TV seems to be live, to be happening in real time, such is often not the case. </p>
<p>Shows such as The Apprentice may have a shooting period of five months, and even the talent shows may have multiple re-takes. On some shows such as Big Brother and the Kardashians, hundreds of hours of tape or film may be shot, which means editing becomes very important.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West at The GQ Men of the Year Awards at Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, September 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ NEWZULU/ Richard Goldschmidt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Because so much film is shot in reality programs, editing assumes a greater importance than it normally would. Here, Jeff Dawson discusses some <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Editing-Reality-Accessible-High-Paying-Hollywood/dp/1935247085/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410252343&sr=8-1&keywords=dawson+editing+reality+tv">tricks of the trade</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>So what is a Frankenbite? Simply put, a Frankenbite is an interview bite that has been CONSTRUCTED (capitals in original) from fragments of otherwise unrelated interview material. It is a sentence or series of sentences MANUFACTURED in the edit, as opposed to a sentence of series of sentences actually captured ‘in reality’ on set. This is called CHEATING. A Frankenbite follows the same logic, but takes it to a more extreme level. In a Frankenbite, words - even word fragments - are elements to be drawn from and manipulated any which way needed to best tell the story. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He offers some hypothetical monologue from Keeping Up with the Kardashians:</p>
<p><strong>Kim</strong>: I buy couture and I love it. </p>
<p>Some people might really hate me for saying that.</p>
<p>Khloe is the youngest. Though if you ask her, she says she’s the most mature.
And she looked at me like … stand up! You can’t sit there all day!</p>
<p><strong>Frankenbite</strong>: I hate Khloe. I really can’t stand her.</p>
<p>On a Bachelor-type show, Joe Millionaire, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Triumph-Reality-Revolution-Television/dp/0313399018/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410166290&sr=8-1&keywords=edwards+triumph+of+reality+tv">editors re-cut audio</a> to make it sound like the male and a female contestant were having sex in the woods, when that was not true. It’s amazing that this is legal in the US. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Contestant Joelene during Network Ten’s The Bachelor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ Network Ten</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many people who participate in reality TV programs quite enjoy the experience, but there are several dark sides. US journalist <a href="http://www.vh1.com/celebrity/2014-05-26/reality-stars-who-did-porn">Stacy Lambe</a> tracks the number of reality “stars” who ended up doing pornography, while <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/consequences-train-wreck-tv-226683">Hollywood Reporter</a> in its analysis of “train-wreck TV” raises “questions about reality’s exploitation of the sick, weak and mentally ill as insiders reveal a one-sided dynamic where the ‘star’ almost always loses”. </p>
<p>This is mainly about the contrast between the very low pay of participants and the millions earned by producers. </p>
<p>The reality of reality is therefore often grim: while there have been tens of thousands across the planet who have participated in the talent show franchises, there have only been one or two that have had some type of major success (but not so much of late), such as Kelly Clarkson and Susan Boyle, which is not a spectacular average.</p>
<p>Many talk of this being a golden age of television, with high-budget, high production values, high-concept shows such as Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad. But there seems to have been a <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/171563/hollowing-out-america">hollowing-out</a> of shows in the middle, with low-cost reality TV at the other end of the spectrum. </p>
<p>But let’s not get snooty: reality/unreality TV “stars” are the sages of our age. Sit back, and <a href="http://www.torontosun.com/2014/08/06/dumbest-reality-tv-star-quotes">enjoy their wisdom</a>. </p>
<p>And if that fails, crack out your Lego set and get building.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Baden Eunson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Yesterday the Danish Toymaker Lego announced its plans for a reality TV show to be launched in 2015, rumoured to be based on the idea of Master Builders, the top “construction workers” in the insanely…Baden Eunson, Adjunct Lecturer, School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics , Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/272202014-05-27T20:11:40Z2014-05-27T20:11:40ZRuPaul’s ‘tranny’ debate: the limits and power of language<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49486/original/42b7tmyb-1401157926.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Tranny' finds a place among many other slurs that have historically hateful roots.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Foxtel</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’re a fan of the American reality TV show <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1353056/">RuPaul’s Drag Race</a>, currently airing on Foxtel’s Lifestyle You channel in Australia, you’re likely aware of the ongoing storm that has surged around how the show uses certain language relating to those who identify as transsexual, transgender or transvestite. </p>
<p>Words such as “tranny” and “she-male” have been <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/03/19/rupaul_s_drag_race_and_transphobia_why_the_shemale_game_was_offensive.html">called to task</a> for what some see as the way that they target one of society’s most marginalised populations, namely transgendered people. “Tranny” is slang for transexual or transgendered people: those whose psychological gender conflicts with their physical sex. It is also used in reference to transvestites: those who dress but do not necessarily think, feel or relate with a sex other than their own. </p>
<p>Strong voices against the use of words like “tranny” <a href="http://www.policymic.com/articles/85715/rupaul-is-finally-being-taken-to-task-for-transphobia-as-backlash-grows">have featured on social media</a>. In response, RuPaul defended the word “tranny” and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/22/rupaul-responds-tranny_n_5374897.html">questioned</a> how people think about language and victimhood. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49492/original/dbqdvz9v-1401159154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49492/original/dbqdvz9v-1401159154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49492/original/dbqdvz9v-1401159154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49492/original/dbqdvz9v-1401159154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49492/original/dbqdvz9v-1401159154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49492/original/dbqdvz9v-1401159154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49492/original/dbqdvz9v-1401159154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49492/original/dbqdvz9v-1401159154.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">RuPaul (R) and drag personality Alyssa Edwards at 2013 MTV Movie Awards in Culver City, California.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/ Paul Buck</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Closer to home, Sydney-based drag queens were recently <a href="http://gaynewsnetwork.com.au/news/tranny-bingo-organisers-reject-claims-of-transphobia-in-wake-of-petition-calling-for-name-change-13677.html">asked to remove the word</a> from their event “Tranny Bingo”. These examples call to question how subcultures, and society generally, negotiate language.</p>
<p>While this issue may seem like mere semantics, it would be a mistake to underestimate the power of language. </p>
<p>In 2010, Roz Kaveney <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/30/trans-language-transgender">wrote in The Guardian:</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>language is a battlefield for trans people. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Language can be thought of as a battlefield for all because it is the primary way through which we organise our world. As a result, it is a powerful mechanism for social learning. Marginalised groups know this well and language has a long history of being used to exclude and dominate minority identities.</p>
<p>Although language is incredibly powerful, it is also rather limited. This limitation is embedded in the nature of words, which are only ever approximations for our world and our experiences. All language is representational and as a representation it is fallible. </p>
<p>“Meaning”, as we all know, is consensus about what a word represents. For some words, consensus is not achieved and in these cases dissent and debate about meaning can be found. “Tranny” is one such word and it finds a place among many other slurs that have historically hateful roots.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QWKHx1ExoQY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">WTF podcast: RuPaul Charles gives his thoughts on language and those who would police it.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In some cases, these words have been reclaimed and recast in an affectionate and empowering light. For example, many people now understand the word “queer” to represent a specific identity and some claim it proudly for themselves. Nevertheless, it is easy to imagine this word still being used in a sneering or hurtful way.</p>
<p>Context and intent are pivotal to meaning and it is a mistake to assume that words have a universal meaning. As the American jurist <a href="A%20word%20is%20not%20a%20crystal,%20transparent%20and%20unchanged">Oliver Wendell Holmes</a> put it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged. It is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and comment according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>From a social science perspective, the conversation that surrounds “tranny” is a fascinating example of how language is negotiated. These negotiations are rarely simple and they challenge both minority group members and society more broadly.</p>
<p>In the USA, law professor Randall Kennedy <a href="http://rocket.csusb.edu/%7Etmoody/whocansaynigger.pdf">outlines just how convoluted and contested</a> the so-called “N word” remains. Is it ever all right to use this word? What about among those racialised as black? </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49580/original/9bmxv9jh-1401230921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49580/original/9bmxv9jh-1401230921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49580/original/9bmxv9jh-1401230921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49580/original/9bmxv9jh-1401230921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49580/original/9bmxv9jh-1401230921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49580/original/9bmxv9jh-1401230921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49580/original/9bmxv9jh-1401230921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49580/original/9bmxv9jh-1401230921.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Carmen Carrera.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christopher Macsurak</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kennedy argues that this particular word may make us very uncomfortable but many understand it as a part of their identity and it has great historical richness and depth. For these reasons it cannot be, and indeed is not, confined to the past. Confronting its place in contemporary language is unavoidable.</p>
<p>For “tranny”, the issues are remarkably similar. <a href="http://thefightmag.com/2014/05/performance-artist-justin-bond-fires-back-after-trannyshack-name-change/">Some have suggested this type of debate</a> – which is largely taking place among gay and trans-identified people – distracts from other issues while creating distance between would-be allies. </p>
<p>But this type of public and critical discussion is a key part of helping minority groups construct their own realities of language and in doing so become stronger and more diverse. Dissent helps us identify weakness and move forward. Like all words, “tranny” is not static nor is it simple. </p>
<p>The true significance of this debate is that it is happening at all. No-one would argue trans-identified people are not marginalised, even among other sexual minority groups, but now there are important questions being asked about what it means to be trans and the debate is moving away from exclusively the fringe. </p>
<p>As a result of this shift, understandings of the word “tranny” will undoubtedly evolve and as a term it will emerge with greater nuance and depth. Alongside this change, cultural understandings of broader trans issues will evolve as well, which is the great social power of language.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27220/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denton Callander does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If you’re a fan of the American reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race, currently airing on Foxtel’s Lifestyle You channel in Australia, you’re likely aware of the ongoing storm that has surged around how…Denton Callander, Research fellow, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/228302014-02-05T06:16:21Z2014-02-05T06:16:21ZMy Kitchen Rules pair are all the rage on social media – for now<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40770/original/fkfsgm36-1391578944.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C621%2C1968%2C1408&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is it worse to be hated or forgotten as a reality-show contestant?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Seven Network</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The launch of the current series of My Kitchen Rules has undoubtedly been successful, both in terms of television ratings and in capturing a social media audience, clearly <a href="http://mumbrella.com.au/twitter-graph-202662">winning the battle</a> for the Twitter audience on premiere night, and maintaining a lead over both The Block and The Biggest Loser since then. </p>
<p>But it is the controversy surrounding Perth contestants Kelly Ramsay and Chloe James that has <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/perths-my-kitchen-rules-contestants-hung-from-a-tree-on-social-media-20140204-31yj5.html">dominated media coverage</a> today, detailing the abuse to which they have been subjected on social media, with Facebook posts of the sort: “I wish these girls would f** off and die”, and images shared with the “pair being hung from a tree and others of them having their eyes poked out”.</p>
<p>Why were they subjected to this abuse? They’ve been characterised as “<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/theres-something-smelly-about-my-kitchen-rules-and-its-not-the-cheese-20140128-31joy.html">bitchy princesses</a>” by TV critics and accused of cheating by using pre-made ingredients when they served a low-scoring Great Gatsby themed meal to judges.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40767/original/6q4h4cbc-1391578038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40767/original/6q4h4cbc-1391578038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40767/original/6q4h4cbc-1391578038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40767/original/6q4h4cbc-1391578038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40767/original/6q4h4cbc-1391578038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40767/original/6q4h4cbc-1391578038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40767/original/6q4h4cbc-1391578038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40767/original/6q4h4cbc-1391578038.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facebook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Loving to hate reality TV contestants</h2>
<p>Such controversy is nothing new in the realm of reality TV, which often turns contestants into caricatures in order to engage the public. </p>
<p>British media studies scholar <a href="http://www.mdx.ac.uk/aboutus/staffdirectory/janet-jones.aspx">Janet Jones</a> <a href="http://nms.sagepub.com/content/5/3/400.abstract">argued</a> back in 2003 that Big Brother contestants are seen as “characters rather than participants or contributors”. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40768/original/qff6zvnz-1391578304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40768/original/qff6zvnz-1391578304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40768/original/qff6zvnz-1391578304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40768/original/qff6zvnz-1391578304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40768/original/qff6zvnz-1391578304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40768/original/qff6zvnz-1391578304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40768/original/qff6zvnz-1391578304.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jade Goody in 2007.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly, in her 2006 review of international studies of reality TV, Dutch scholars Liesbet <a href="http://javnost-thepublic.org/article/pdf/2006/2/5/">Van Zoonen</a> and Minna Aslama concluded that one of the big draws of Big Brother is “discovering and assessing the ‘authentic’ versus ‘artificial’ behavior of the participants”.</p>
<p>Negative reaction from fan communities is also fairly common. </p>
<p>One need only look to the case of Jade Goody in the United Kingdom, who in 2002, before the advent of current social media platforms, was being described as “a nasty slapper”, “public enemy number one”, and “the most hated woman in Britain”. </p>
<p>Similarly, and more recently, Big Brother series 15 in the United States saw contestant Aaryn Gries <a href="http://www.thewrap.com/culture/article/big-brother-racism-watch-aaryn-gries-lowlight-reel-video-101601">make racist remarks</a>, and a torrent of abuse was directed at her (very quickly made private) Twitter account:</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40764/original/f9rdgrmq-1391577852.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40764/original/f9rdgrmq-1391577852.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40764/original/f9rdgrmq-1391577852.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40764/original/f9rdgrmq-1391577852.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=311&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40764/original/f9rdgrmq-1391577852.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40764/original/f9rdgrmq-1391577852.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40764/original/f9rdgrmq-1391577852.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Figure 1: Key words in Tweets to Aaryn’s Twitter account, July 11 – August 29 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Darryl Woodford</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Business as usual</h2>
<p>Belgian film scholar <a href="http://www.cims.ugent.be/members/daniel-biltereyst">Daniel Biltereyst</a> has <a href="http://academic.csuohio.edu/kneuendorf/frames/phx/creativegeography/biltereyst_04.pdf">argued</a> that “some reality programmes are engaged in the intentional production of a perfume of scandal and controversy”. </p>
<p>In both the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/jan/17/raceintheuk">United Kingdom</a> and <a href="http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news/125205/Big-Brother-USA-Ratings-Soar-As-Racist-Homophobic-Aaryn-Gries-Is-Evicted">United States</a>, racism controversies and their fallouts have led to an increase in ratings – and last night’s episode of My Kitchen Rules <a href="http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/did-my-kitchen-rules-knowitalls-chloe-and-kelly-cheat/story-e6frfmyi-1226818033161">also recorded a boost</a>. </p>
<p>While the hateful comments are given the most attention, it is rarely a one way street. The hashtag #TeamAaryn was being used by Twitter users defending Aaryn and supporting her on the show – and a cursory glance at yesterday evening’s <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23MKR&src=typd">#MKR</a> stream also shows some support mixed in for Chloe and Kelly.</p>
<p>Given the immediacy of social media, such behaviour presents moral and ethical challenges for both producers and the audience. While in the case of Big Brother, Goody and Gries were protected from much of the real-time reaction as they remained contestants, pre-recorded shows such as My Kitchen Rules expose participants to the public’s reaction immediately; an experience Kelly Ramsay described as “like a car wreck”. </p>
<p>Similarly, Kaitlin Barnaby, evicted from Big Brother series 15 while the racism controversy was prominent in the United States, described “hateful” comments from “cyber-bullies” that she had received through Twitter following her eviction.</p>
<h2>After reality TV, who are the winners?</h2>
<p>History suggests that life post-show may not be so bad for those portrayed as reality TV villains. </p>
<p>Goody (who died in 2009 following a very public period with cancer) went on to build a substantial brand based on her name, although slowed by the subsequent <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-430336/Jade-Goody-admits-racist.html">2007 racism scandal</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly “Evil Dick” (Dick Donato), a contestant from Big Brother 8 in the United States, has <a href="https://twitter.com/EvelDick">built a brand</a> around his negative image, now hosting an unofficial pay-per-view talk show on Vimeo. </p>
<p>In the more recent case, Big Brother 15’s Aaryn Gries saw a rapid turnaround in attention after her eviction from Big Brother 15, becoming a Twitter “celebrity”. Twitter users no longer focused on the racism scandal – but rather wanted to receive attention from Aaryn, a phenomenon Alice Marwick and <a href="http://www.danah.org/name.html">danah boyd</a> have <a href="http://www.tiara.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/marwick_boyd_to_see_and_be_seen.pdf">described</a> as “a public performance of access”, in which users see “receiving a message from a highly followed individual [as] a status symbol in itself”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40765/original/p4z9r7mm-1391577907.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40765/original/p4z9r7mm-1391577907.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40765/original/p4z9r7mm-1391577907.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40765/original/p4z9r7mm-1391577907.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40765/original/p4z9r7mm-1391577907.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40765/original/p4z9r7mm-1391577907.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40765/original/p4z9r7mm-1391577907.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Figure 2: Key words in Tweets to Aaryn’s Twitter account, August 30 – September 30 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Darryl Woodruff</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kelly Ramsay is <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/perths-my-kitchen-rules-contestants-hung-from-a-tree-on-social-media-20140204-31yj5.html">quoted</a> in the Brisbane Times as saying “People have no idea that we’re real people, we’ve been made the villains of the series”, and that she hoped viewers would re-evaluate as the season evolves. </p>
<p>Perhaps the worst thing for reality contestants, however, is not being hated, but being forgotten, for it is memorable characters that get invited back for “all-star” seasons, or for crossovers with other Reality TV formats, and it is memorable characters that are able to build a brand for themselves through social media platforms such as Twitter. </p>
<p>As evidenced by today’s coverage, Ramsay and James have the spotlight; now they just need to work out how best to leverage it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22830/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Darryl Woodford receives funding from QUTBlueBox to develop metrics around social media & television.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katie Prowd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The launch of the current series of My Kitchen Rules has undoubtedly been successful, both in terms of television ratings and in capturing a social media audience, clearly winning the battle for the Twitter…Darryl Woodford, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Queensland University of TechnologyKatie Prowd, Research Assistant, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.