Sad Boyz - Expert Reveals Reality TV Secrets

Episode Date: September 5, 2026

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Welcome to Sad Boys, a podcast about feelings and other things also. I'm Jarvis. Jordan. And we're joined by a very special guest today. She's a writer. I first found you writing Bachelor Recaps. That's me, baby. Most notably, a new author.

You've got a book that's just come out. Just come out. Yes. And it's about one of our favorite things, which is reality television. It's Ali Barthwell. Hey, what's up, nerds? Must you said, I'm going to mistake. He said, no.

Oh yeah, weird. No, I respond to that. Affectionate. Affectionate. Yeah, I could have sworn you looked at me while you said it. Just a general to the room. You didn't notice the denim jacket. Oh, that's right.

So sorry. He did wear the denim jacket. What's up? Cool, kids. Whoa, there we go. Who probably own a motorcycle? Too scared. He's like, it's a Kia.

I'll have you know. 23 Kia sound good to you. Yeah, wow. The one that's really easy to remotely unlock if you're... Only if you have like a, you know, SIM card in the will. It's the one that there's like a YouTube short. It's so easy, like on how to break into your car.

Yeah, it's a five second ad before a YouTube video will break down how to. Oh, yeah, an AI ad that's like, do you want to break into IKEA? Go ahead. Do you want to steal this catalytic converter? Yeah, no, literally. That's true. There was, I think we told this a long time ago. There, on my, like, doorbell camera, my neighbor was like, hey, do you have,

like any security camera footage of out like just like the street right outside because my catalytic converter was stolen and we were like oh and then I looked at the doorbell cam from like the middle of the night and like a car crawls up the hill someone like slither they don't open the door they like slither down and out of the car you hear and then they slither back up at the door drive away. It was like very efficient. It's like nature photography. Yeah. I would watch a David Attenborough

documentary. Just narrate somewhere. The native catalytic converting as they remove the uncouplings from the undercarriage. This pencil roll. Study show this has a 50% chance of being sold

back to its owner via the eBay secondary market for catalytic converters. The natural scalper has returned from purchasing Pokemon cards in bulk and Walmart, and now seeks its real prey. A 2023 keyer. Fresh off his ship from wrestling a child to the ground to steal his Pokemon cards. Allie, how are you doing?

I'm doing great. Happy to be here. What a treat. Yeah, no, it's a treat for us as well. You're a multi-hyphenate, we've been saying that. You're a multi-hyphenate, a Jeopardy contestant. Absolutely. That should be one of the hyphenates.

Yes. Yeah. Jeopardy. hyphen contested. Get an extra one in there. Yeah, yeah. Well, so you're on a bit of a book tour right now. Yes, I am.

How is it being on tour? It kind of rules. Yeah. Being on a book tour. I think it just sounds cool to say I'm on tour and I've never done it. So that could be really good for us. Yeah. You guys should get into it.

I think just start calling vacations book tours. Oh. I drove here for this. Wow. I was on tour. I'm on a work tour. I was in my garage. It's been really great because it allows me to talk.

about my favorite thing, which is reality TV. My book is called Reality TV for Snobb. Available now. I also did the audio book. So, please get the book and the audio book. That can be a little grueling. It was ridiculous. It sucks.

I also wrote myself in some character voices. I was like, why did I do this? Now you're being called on your own. Yeah, my own improv and sketch skills, like in the booth. And the one thing was they were like, the only note, they were like, yeah, you're just a little loud, so I'm going to turn you down a little bit. They're like, you don't do anything different, just going to turn you down. Okay, didn't need to know that.

Yeah, I'm a little self-conscious now about my volume. Yeah, if you're going to do it, I don't need to know about it. But it was really great. And so it's just been really fun to like, I have done Chicago, Boston, I'm here in L.A. I have New York coming up soon. And so just like hanging out with one of my friends while they asked me questions about my work. and then the audience asked me questions about reality TV and I just get to like give a hot take

and the whole audience is like, yes. That's the life hack. Yeah, that's the life hack. It's like, you know, talk about something you love and you'll never talk a day in your life. Is that the phrase? Yeah. And you'll shut up forever.

So close. Do you have an improv and sketch background? I was going to ask because I know you're writing primarily. I started doing improv and sketch in Chicago at the Second City. Amazing. So I got a scholarship when I graduated college. to the Second City for performers of color. And I went through all the training at Second City.

I was a touring actor for like almost two years. Another tour. Oh, wow. Always on tour. Listen, I know how to like get into a hotel room. Yeah. Exactly how I want it. Oh, yeah.

And then I became a teacher and a director at the Second City. And then the pandemic hit and we taught on Zoom for a little bit, which I don't recommend. Oh, my God. Teaching improv on Zoom. Don't recommend. I don't know if I don't know if I don't know if I don't know if I did. I don't know if I've ever said it here, but I was taking, I just started a character class here with John Milheiser, who was like formerly of S&L. And I was, I was so excited to get out in the world, touch grass, get back to performing.

I had done improv and sketch in San Francisco. That's where Anastasia and I met. And, and I stopped to that. I was like, hey, improv team, I'm going to try this YouTube thing and I only have so much time. And I can't do these like three hour Sunday practices, you know? And then COVID hit and it went to Zoom. And I was like, my job is so much of me sitting at my desk being on Zoom that I just can't. Like, this is now everything that I like has turned into a Zoom meeting.

And I just had to let it go. You live long enough to see yourself become the villain. I would so much rather do nothing. I think by the end I like finally cracked it. But it's just like, if anything you do on Zoom, like I did a Zoom sketch show. with my students. And it was just like, you can't have a scene over two minutes. Like, everything has to be really short.

But we found some fun ways to, like, play with, like, people coming on and off camera and stuff like that. So, yeah, like, my background is teaching, writing, performing, sketch and improv. Are you from Chicago originally? I grew up in the closest suburb of Chicago. Oh, okay. So I went away for college and then came back and came back to do sketch and improv. Windy City. What did you say?

Windy City. The Windy City. Did you know that? My family's from Springfield, but I've never been there. I went to Chicago for the first time for Pokemon GoFest this year. Oh, hell yeah. But it was also the time that right before the World Cup, Germany and the U.S. were having a show match at Soldier Field.

And it coincided with it raining B-52 bombers flying overhead. The Field Museum had a Pokemon thing going on as well. Yes, there's a poca—it's like the fossils of Polaroos. Come on. It's awesome. My boyfriend and I went and it is true. The, like, the audience was, like, children. Yeah.

And then people my age. Yes. But there's a moment, like, right when you walk in because, like, the conceit of the exhibit is, like, this is a world that we've found these fossils. Like, it pretends. Right. And they're like, and all the games are, like, artifacts from the world. That's cool. But, like, right when you walk in, there's, like, an old school game boy and the red and blue.

Oh, yeah. And it's like, these are artifacts from the late 1900s. Wanna feel old? Yeah, and we were just like, oh, no, we just walked in. Fossilizing in real time. I keep this Game Boy around so that I remember that I'm actually young and started on a Game Boy Color. And this was what the old people have. How's your back, by the way?

Not good. Right, okay. God, I love 6-7. Oh, dude. Honestly, I was just thinking about Tung Tongue So, the other day. And five nights at Freddy's. My dad watched the South Park episode with Six-Seven.

And so he did it for like weeks. And so in my mind, six-seven is not for the youth. It is for my elderly father. I think I've started hearing the wave of teachers having students tell them we don't do that anymore. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there also was a jeopardy category that we didn't have in our game. But it was all things that rhymed with. six, seven.

Wow. Every answer rhyme to six, seven. So it was like, one, it was like the band that sings come sail away and the last name of the character in Naked Gunn. Oh, they doubled up. So it was six. Drebben. Wow.

And I, we'll talk about it. I love a brain teaser category. And I was like backstage locked in. Like I've never been locked in before. You were connecting, like neurons firing at an unprecedented degree. I was seeing past the answer. Yeah, yeah. I think trivia does require a certain type of approach to learning.

Well, like, I'm a real, I'm a New York Times crossword. Yeah, I was going to say, that's where you come in. You know their weird, like, little remixes that they do. It's only meta. It's only deciding, like, oh, who wrote this one? Oh, okay. So we're just going to do a theme that doesn't make any sense. There was, like, a daily paper in Chicago, and you could tell they needed a bunch of owls

because they would go Civil War General, and you're like, Ely. You've got to always tell it's earlier in the week on the easier ones when it's, has to include um reggae inspired style of music ska yeah yes kind of edgy goth comma say emo the comma say is taking a big part of any kind of trivia doing crosser puzzles is like learning how the brain of the person making it right so like preparing for jeopardy part of it is learning how to read the question and looking, so there's something people talk about when they start studying Jeopardy questions.

The answer is whenever they go this actor, like that's what they're asking for. So you look for the word this, like if you can scan the question the question, so if you're a speed reader, if you scan the question really fast, and look for the word this, it's like that's what they're looking for.

Right. Because a lot of times, especially like pop culture, Jeopardy, people would just answer the wrong thing. Like they would answer the album and not the song or the movie and not the album. So you want to look for like, you know, this actor, this whatever. Yeah.

Well, let's talk about that because you were on pop culture Jeopardy, hosted by Colin Jost. And I wasn't expecting you to pop up while I was listening in the background while doing something else important, I'm sure, playing a video game. Hello, Jarvis. Yeah. Jarvis, pay attention. I looked over. I looked over and you were knowing all the answers to things and I was upset with my own

lack of knowledge. What was your journey like into that? How long have you been a trivia? head. Oh man. Yeah, maybe just walk us through that experience.

I'm, I'm like a board game person, a crossword puzzle person. I love a little logic puzzle. I love all that shit. I'm not the nerd. I mean,

writing in many ways, writing in many ways can be that. It's like that creative problem solving, you know? And so, uh, I've been like going to do bar trivia

and stuff for years. I have like a friend group that we go like every week, you know. And so my younger brother also did trivia in college. He was like a national trivia champion. The dynasty. The dynasty, right? He was an HBCU champion. I was like, all right. I got to come out and represent. And so my boyfriend and I watched the first season and we were like, we know every answer. We should be. And we try, I tried out for the first season. They had teams of three. So I was going to do me and my two brothers.

And my older brother didn't fill out his form. So we like got passed over. So then we applied again. And we applied as a team of three. But then they cut one of the people because it moved to Netflix. So it was me and my boyfriend and they cut my younger brother. And they chose who got cut. They chose who got cut. And so then they were like, okay, you're our coach. And so he was like, the thing that you need is buzzer training and reaction time tests. So he started telling us about how they would do reaction. They would sit in his trivia team and they would sit in front of each other. Like one person would go up and they would do 15 reaction time tests in front of each other. And like the average reaction time is like 0.25 seconds or something.

Yeah. So you had to be under 0.25 seconds for the majority. So he was like, that's what y'all need to do. Wow. He also found. I should also probably get the answers, right? But I don't think I'm going to, that's kind of beyond. Right.

I can hit the button really hard. I'll provide a little bit of nerd context, uh, since we love fun facts here. So I do think there is something to like 200 milliseconds in reaction time. Because in the, it probably is less of an issue now, but in the internet, like I used to do, like work on websites and stuff. It's very important that your website loads to the user in under 200 milliseconds. Yeah. Because it's like, otherwise you start to feel it.

You start to feel. And so it's like, it's in like one like like reaction moment. I hit go and then it happens. It should go. And so. A D&D turn happens in six seconds kind of thing. Yeah. So on pop culture jeopardy and on jeopardy, there's lights on the side of the stage.

So they read the clue. Like a stoplight? or like a traffic light type thing? They're like they flash, but it's like two like columns of light on the side of the screen. And they read the question and when the last,

at the end of the last syllable, the lights flash and that's when you can buzz in. Right. So we bought a system, a $300 system from like buzzers.com or whatever. It's a place for it. And that's where it's.

They've got like a website books like it's from the 90s. Yeah. Oh yeah. And it has like a little light system. And, Someone came. So my younger brother built us probably like 10 practice boards of Jeopardy questions that we found online. And we would, he would turn the light on and we would buzz in. And we had a day where like our friends came and like played against us. So we could, we did games like back to back.

So we could feel like what that was like. You were really like creating. It was like the, Sealed Team 6 getting Osama bin Laden. You recreated. I didn't know. You had a cut out of Colin Joe. On our practice day, we wore like matching outfits to be like, okay, what shoes do we need to wear? You hire a local improviser to like riff with you about like, so what's your deal? You guys brothers or what a great place to not prepare. Yeah.

Great stage to complete nail everything and completely whiff on basic socialization. Completely whiff on the interview question. I don't know. Karsten. Oh, shoot. This episode of Sad Boys is sponsored by Zog Doc. There are certain times in life, right? We're finding the purpose.

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That's Z-O-C-D-O-C dot com slash sad-B-O-Y-Z. Zodd-O-Y-Z. Zodd-O-S-D-O-C-D-O-S-D-B-S-D-O-S-B-D-S-B-D-O-S-B-D-Sys. Thanks again to Zoc Doc for sponsoring this episode. On the interview questions, it was like the weekend before our 10th anniversary. And so when we were like getting ready, they come and they're like, okay, what's interesting about you? Please tell us something.

And we were like, oh, it's our interview. It's our anniversary next week. And they were like, just say it's today. Yeah. They were like, just say it's today. Like, we don't know when people are going to watch. Like, just say it. So like we got.

Maybe they're watching your anniversary. Yeah. So we got like That got like a pop of people being like Oh it's their anniversary So like we did all of that buzzer training And then my boyfriend did not study He was like no I don't need any new information

Was he one of those people in school who's like I'm good I just I got it all up here Yeah Like those people exist Yeah and well because so he worked at a record store For like 12 years Oh wow

So there is not There's hardly a piece of music trivia he doesn't know. That's so cool. He and so just anything music I was like I'll wait and he'll get it right. Yeah yeah yeah. And so I was like okay what are our

gaps in knowledge? Right. So there was stuff where I watched the first season and wrote down like every category and marked off like what we knew and looked for patterns. So they always asked where things are filmed like what like where things are filmed or with the name

of like what's the coffee shop and Buffy, like stuff like that. Right, right. Um, so I did, coffee. Buffy's, the vampires, Bumphe's, uh, Vampires Latte. Sanders sipec. Uh, that was one where I was like, I know, I knew it, but like, it has exited my brain. Right. Um, but so I went and like did a day where I looked up, like, where stuff is filmed, what the name of towns in different movies and stuff is called. Do you use a special? So when I was like studying, uh, Japanese in college, I used, this app on key because it does spaced repetition for memory. Because you know like there's basically like the decay rate of your memory. If you remit, if you refresh those things at a

certain interval, you can kind of lock it in. Like did you have, I'm sure people do stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. The the two sort of things that I did is when I had like a topic, I would be like, oh, so I did one where I was like, okay, I'm going to get a fact about like every movie that won best picture. And I would think of five, I would go research five facts and I would write them by hand because you have a better, like retention for stuff that you're up by hand. So I would do that. So I did one where it was like, I didn't know anything about K-pop and I didn't think Philip knew a ton about K-pop either. So I was like, okay, we have to at least know the names of the top 10 like K-pop groups in case that comes up.

Like there's stuff like that where it was like, okay, I'm going to look at like what's on. We were like, it's on Netflix. What's on Netflix? Like, let's look that up. There's a little, yeah, opportunity for free promo. Right, yeah. Like there was a whole category on Wednesday. Oh, yeah.

There was stuff. There was one question, but it was a thing. We were like, nobody on the, none of us watched Wednesday. Right. So we kept getting triple stumpers and Colin just literally like, great promo for Wednesday. And then. They're like, cut that from the edit. The other thing that I had, so my younger brother was getting us reaction time and buzzer training.

My older brother is tech, web developer, on and on. And I was like, I wish I could have every jeopardy question in like a flash card on my phone. And so he vibe coded me an app that had literally every jeopardy question. We found like a website. Yes, I was going to say, there's a website that has, it's the full like database. archive or something. Yes. And it's every, like, in the episode, it existed. And then I think you can like sword and go by categories and stuff.

So I gave him a list of categories to start. I was like movies, music, Oscar winners, country music. Because I knew I didn't know country music. That was another one of my like gaps. And it was like instead of scrolling on TikTok or something for like a half hour before bed, I would just do flashcards of every Jeopardy question. That sounds fun. Am I a nervous?

Sounds fun to me. We. Yes. Okay. So, oh my gosh. It was so. I was like, this is so fun. And also everyone there was a trivia nerd too.

So we were like, we just want to sit around and talk about how we trained and everything. And but we got, we, we, we sent in our application like in the fall of last year. We got the. Is there a video portion of that where you're like, we had to do. This is us. Like you. We had to do a Zoom interview. Oh, okay.

Where they like, they say like get like a clicky pen. It is a sketch. Yeah. Five, six, seven. And, um, and they. did like, you know, why do you like Jeopardy? What, you know, what's your history with trivia? How did you guys meet?

Like, they asked stuff like that. But we... You watch Wednesday. Yeah. Please say, what's your favorite day of the week? And so we got the notice that we were going to go at Thanksgiving and it taped beginning of January. Oh, wow.

Okay. And I think we were... So then you go into overdrive the preparation or is... There, we were just like, I was like, okay, I have to do something for it every day. Yeah. We found there's like YouTube compilations of like every, you know, rock and roll question on Jeopardy or like every final jeopardy about movies or something.

That us to the people uploading that way. Listen, listen, shout out to the people with that editing software. There's the polydons. A very special interest. Yeah. And so we would sit and like every night we were like, okay, let's watch an episode of pop culture Jeopardy of the first season, one of those YouTube videos, and then the night before our games, we were like in the hotel. And I also got these buzzers that you can plug into your computer.

And there's a website that someone made who was like a former contestant. Oh, cool. That reads you fake questions or like reads you just random questions and you can buzz in. Right. And I did like 20 of those like before I went to bed. And then we found out. I'm imagining a rocky montage. Oh yeah. And then we found out we were in the semifinals. I was like, I'm doing 50 before bed. Because if you watch our episode, we were up against a team that had won like four games in a row. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, as we were talking to people, we realized, like, we had put in the most, like,

buzzer training out of a lot of the other teams. So it was like, all right, somebody's got to beat these. So we were, like, gave them a run on the buzzer and, like, you know. And just feel like the perfect formula. Maybe, like, maybe I'm out of loop. Perfect formula for an anime where it is because you have the opportunity for, like, scenes while they're doing the trivia where it's like a long moment like a death note slow-mo like he doesn't even know this one but i'm and the hands going towards the buzzer and they see on the other

side each person they face has like a bachy style specific skill everyone like has the certain yeah like they walk in and one guy has like a giant hand there's a guy with photographic memory he remembers every frame of everything he's ever seen we have to distract him you're like trying to get flushed. It is a little bit like we kept telling ourselves everyone knows the answers. Like every other team

knows the answers. Right. Because they got here. So what is the thing that can differentiate us? Right. And it was physical strength. Oh, okay. The karate part. The karate, yes. It was love. It was our anniversary. At the end it was love. Yeah. By the end it was love. Did you have fun?

It was honestly like one of the most thrilling things. Amazing. things I've ever done. We did one game on the first day and I was like, I immediately could do like four more games because it takes like a half hour. Like you film the whole episode in like less than a half hour. So it goes by so fast like a whirlwind and like the feeling of that music, the thinking, the Jeopardy thinking theme, if you know the answer, it is the most like gratifying,

satisfying thing where you're just like, yes. I know do like it's like this is my theme song now and then if you don't it is like a psychological terror it lasts for five minutes yeah yeah because you're also like I know the parts of this song to know like we're approaching the end and that was also like in our there's a key change in our semi final game I was like oh no we've hit the key change and we don't have the answer yet crunchy roll no one likes your originals make this one like it was so fun every like everyone except for like a couple people were like super chill. Shout out to you.

Shout out to the people that weren't super every, all of my PCJ heads will know what I'm talking about. But it was like we have a group chat where we all talk and like we've gone to visit each other and for the finals we had a meet up in Chicago of all the teams in the Midwest and we like had a big party and like did trivia together. Yeah, you guys would destroy you if you. Oh my God. You just walking into a bar trigger.

Yeah. It was it was wild. Walking in with your Olympic medal on. Did you feel extra conscientious of just the mechanics of it being a reality show maybe in a way that other people might not have been? Or a game show. I think like there was like a moment in the Zoom interview or they were like, oh, react to getting the answer and like say if you know it or something. So then we went into the taping. Also like we were the last game on the first day and we got there at like 11 a.m.

We didn't start our game until like 8 o'clock at night. So, and it was a thing where like there had been a team that had been dominating. And we eventually, my friend said it, she was like, they're wrestling heels at this point. Like they're winning, winning, winning. And the audience is like watching their friends go up against these people and then lose. So I was like, we got to come out with the most energy, like the best attitude and like get the audience like on our side. And at a certain point, like the, I don't know if you felt this way. But like when there is a team that's dominating like that, it's, I don't even know if the expectations are, I feel like the expectations are lower because I mean, everybody's like falling to this behemoth or whatever.

Yeah. It was just sort of like, well, it wasn't even like, oh my God, this behemate. It was like, we want to see our friends like play more than one game. Right. Like we all came to see our friends. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's not that much fun in watching an underdog lose.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. first seen Goliath and you're like, yeah, like, like, like,

Deliath is a 100 to zero. Yeah. That makes sense. He's really big. He's really big. He's really big. And he knows tons about opera. Yeah.

And so it was like, basically I was like, if we come out there and have a really great attitude, we have a lot of energy. My boyfriend strategy was like, I'm going to be really nice to everyone on the crew. I'm going to remember everyone's name.

And there were moments too where like the person was doing, putting our mics on the second day. And he was like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. Donna. That's a good strategy for life.

And you could literally see her be like, you remember my name? No one, like, no one. That's the power of the protagonist in the show is basic social decor. No, literally. At the hotel we were staying at, I feel like I gave the most basic compliment to the door man. Yeah. And he was like, I'm going to help you figure out how your suitcases fit in your trunk.

We were all headed to the airport and there were like four of us trying to fit in. Yeah. Because we took a friend to the airport and then we drove. And I, it was like we, it was almost like when you get a double bounce on a trampoline. Like his energy and my energy were like multiplying each other. It was amazing. I had to text to get my car out of like the,

because the Valley Parker did a nearby car park. I guess it's just private to them. Parking lot for Americans. You know, oh yeah. We're stamping out every last British part of you. It shouldn't he, um, the old car parky-wocky? Is that a bit like a cheese, bro? So, it's Tuesday.

This is also a battle we're fighting at work. Oh, yeah. There's some where he's like, I'm not giving that up. Sorry. Well, maybe give a little respect. We built all this. Look at our buildings. Roughly 75 to 100 years old.

The ones that fell down. Asbestos, anybody heard of it? But yeah, there's a, yeah, there are those little chunks. And I think like even like the, the Colin joist of it all. Like by the end of the day, he was like, I want a competitive game. Like, I want a really, like, good game. So when we came on and we had a lot of energy, we were able to, like, riff with him a little bit. Like, he was like, all right. Like, we got. And so he was, he was also, he took it really seriously. I had like no opinion of him going in and, like,

coming out. I'm like, what a nice guy. I, this also raised my, handsome, good at stuff, successful. Like, better looking in person. I was like, oh, I get it. Great job, Scarf. I was like a fan of, like, because he was like a writer at us and all for a long time. Yeah. And I had no opinion of his like on camera personality. But he, he, he, because he's like, Harvard guy is the like look of his cut of his jib. It's very easy to dislike him. But I found him quite charming in, uh, in both in, you know, weekend update. And then also his, uh, his hosting job here. I thought it was, I thought it was, I thought he did a really good job. You could tell he, when something, when a team was doing really well, he was really pumped. If,

he was like rooted. You could tell like, oh, if someone got something wrong, it like he was like, oh no, like it emotionally hit him. Yeah,

yeah, yeah, when someone like had like a big, you know. I feel like he had good, uh, there was no like punching down or demeaning. Like,

because everybody's there for, everybody's a nerd about something. Yes. And he, I think did a good job of, um, letting everyone know when he was doing a bit. You know what I mean?

Like it wasn't like putting, laying someone out to drive. And there was even like a thing that my boyfriend and I were commenting on on the first season of like, there's a little bit of like, I'm Colin Jost and I have to say like a rap lyric now. Like I think even that like kind of went away in the second season. Right.

This is all just equally trivia. And if something was, there were a few categories. Like we had one that was like it was the internet's boyfriends. It was like cute guys and like one of the answers is like slutty little glasses. So he was even more like, that's a fun thing that you got to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He like was having fun with that. But it wasn't like, he was like, I respect everyone here for knowing exactly what they're doing.

Yeah. Yeah. There's a very, I feel like, thin line that has at least started to be breached where, sorry, white people. Oh. Bunch people getting Dr. Strange knocked out of their body into the astral plate. Crossing off their bingo store. I think have like, what they think, they think it is affectionate to do a ukulele version of a rap song.

Yes. To be like, look how silly it would be if I was doing this. Just a juxtaposition here. Because it's obviously so different. There's no reason I would know this. Instead to just being like, I like this song. Yeah. There's a earnestness in not kind of othering the material.

It's like the rap song isn't from space. It's like we are all like humans. It's assuming that like black people will freak out if you just like it normally. Right. It's also like with that too, it's like there's like no other genres where we do that. We're not like, if there's like a country song, you're never like, well, I'm from a city, so I don't know what. Yeah, no. Boots scoot and boogie at my want.

I don't even know if I'm allowed. Like, there's nothing else we like do that with. And in the specific country example, you have like the Lowell Naz-X and Beyonce's of it all where it does seem like there's like an earnest play in that genre. And then people are still like, mm, doesn't look right. It doesn't look right. Right. So like, I don't know why I hate this. Something's wrong.

here. Not enough talk about beer. It can't be that, no, because one of those works at my office. I can't hate them. The only category that we all were like, no one knows what this is, what is happening, is they had like an AI slop category in one of the earlier games, but it was like knowing the names of the weird. It was like, Tung Tung, Sahoor and like the other one. It was like, ballerina, Capuchina.

Oh, yes. Jacob nodding. Oh, yes, I know them all. This episode of Sad Boys is sponsored by GLD. Okay, think about this for a second. Turn your noggin on and get thinking. Everybody has those go-to pieces, right? We're talking the shoes that go with everything.

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memes it was like describing memes or something I don't know it was I got all of them and no one else got in with them and I was like oh I'm I'm sorry I don't know I guess I'm too online it's a very sour victory yeah I was just like on my computer like Googling like Best memes, 2025? Funnyest memes? 2025? You're getting results for like AARP subscriptions.

Yeah, like my algorithm is messed up. We know your knees hurt, girl. Like you were looking up. What's a funny meme? Would you like a comfortable chair? Searching best memes just forwards you to Facebook and says this one's for you.

This is right. And you should be here. But then they asked about slutty little glasses. Right. And we were just like, yeah, you can't study. that. You had to have seen slutty little glasses in real time. You had to be there.

Real time. Would you? As it like went by on the top before your timeline. Like 6-7, I don't know how long. Like 6-7 had such a brief window in the spotlight. I think 6-7 went from. I think 6-7 is, in my opinion, actually a pretty

successful in its longevity in the same way that like 6-7 full. Because it went from 10 in the presence to four in the culture and has ridden for the entire way. It's like an actor that's in like three very successful movies or a musician that makes like two very successful albums disappears and people are like they are such a failure. They have millions of dollars.

Whatever happened to this guy. Oh, they're resting on their billions of dollars. The six seven is going to keep being numbers is the issue. Yeah. There will always be six and seven. And they'll often appear near each other, if not together. In succession. If you have to greet someone and you say tongue talks a hell, that's just a word for hello.

You're like, well, that one's sticking around. That happened. Oh, lost my train of thought. Something about 6.7. Oh, I was like, it was, thank you. I was watching the NFL. I was watching the NFL last season. And as soon as like Tony Romo said a 6-7 joke, I was like, it's over.

Like, pack it up. We could have done better. Um, the, uh, before we get on to some of our things, I can tell Anastasia wants to move us along. I can feel it. Yeah, yeah. You don't want to talk about trivia for 45 more than me. I actually am really enjoying hearing about your experience because it's a dream. I wanted, I had one follow-up question, which is, would you apply for other games slash reality shows? Uh, I think I would you enter the world on which you comment. I would love to be on other game shows and like, it was a dream to be on Jeopardy.

So to do pop culture Jeopardy, like, oh my God, we narrowed in really on my like area of expertise. But, and like afterward, my boyfriend was like, you really, he's like, he could tell. He's like, you were thriving. Like, you were loving it. You should try for regular Jeopardy. So like I really want to.

There's a lot more I have to study to be able to do that. And then I think for like reality shows, it's like I would be so bad at a physical challenge. Like, I really like to sit comfortably. So, so was Surrey. That's true. That's true. And then a long career of success.

Right. And so I think like maybe the right show eventually will like there's a show on Netflix. It's from Korea. It's called The Devil's Plan. Does anyone watch? Wait, I've seen the poster. It is a series of incredibly difficult puzzles and games. Whoa.

And like there's games where you have to like do math and like do like grammar puzzles and like and I'm like if there was a game like that where you're just like playing increasingly difficult board games. or like role playing experiences, like that would be super fun. I feel like one thing that might prove it my success is my admittedly kind of weak ability to speak Korean. Yeah. There is one guy who's like he's, I think he's from Canada, but he's like ethnically Korean. Oh.

And he like knows Korean, but not a lot. Like at least once an episode, he's like, what are they talking about? Yeah. And you see someone have to be like, okay, this is what's going on. He's like, can you re-explain the rules? And then they have like monkey bars to swing on. He's like, well, yeah, great. We have those.

This is, I guess, technically, a reality show. But it's not like game-oriented per se, but has anyone besides Jordan and I seen Battle of the Fates? Oh, I mean, I've just heard you talk so highly about it. It's another Korean reality show where they take, what is, what is it is, like 49 shamans and have them compete as to who can, like, re-gienerty-old. who can like read people better. I'm so in. It's incredible. It's amazing.

I like I was the kid that like had a tarot deck as a kid and like learned palm readings. I'm like, I'll brush up on those skills. One of the best part is that it is like so many. One person is a foot reader. One person has a TV for a head. One person.

There's like taro, but some of them have like trendy new taro. Yeah, man. Listen, they know what they're doing over in Korea. They've really cracked the code on some of these shows. It's very fun to like follow along and. try to like see if you can predict it. Because there were a couple runs where like I was getting a bunch right and then Jordan was getting a bunch right.

We were both kind of freaked out by. I appreciate the, you're for the sake of my brand, gesturing some success my way. You were a child omen freak. The first like three episodes, your eyes were rolling back and you were getting them all right. There's another show where it's like, I forget the name of it, but it was on Netflix where it's like they go and they get into like a fake crime scene and they have to like solve a crime. And I'm like,

honestly, would love to do that. Or Phoenix Wright or something. Yeah, I would love to do that. Like, set me up with like some encyclopedia brown shit,

like solve various riddles. There was one show. I got, I got something inbound once from a reality show, but it was like their first go of it. And so, because it wasn't like an established show,

I think we passed, but it was like, hey, you're a nerd. This is a game about puzzles. And I was like, okay. It's called,

puzzle. My brother, my older brother got approached to be on like one of those TLC dating shows of like get married after like three weeks. And he was like he wasn't dating anyone and he was like in a like a transition period in his life. He was like maybe I could do it. What was the catalyst for that? Is he just essentially on an email list after?

No, they see they look at you and they go, well, you must be single. Some of these producers, they will make dating profiles. and then they like go in the city where they're casting. And like he had like really great dating picture because he had a friend like to do a photo shoot. Yeah. So he like he looked really like photogenic. And so they were like, oh, this would work.

And so we like sat and was like, okay, what would be your sad backstory? Right. And we had a family member that had like a health scare. So he was like, okay, my sad backstory is like after we found that like we all had to get scanned for like this some disease, but none of us. ended up having it. And he was like, that was like reaffirming like you have to live for today. Like so we were like, let's make your like fake back story. The British is like, oh, could you get the disease?

Yeah. It'd be great if someone in your family actually had the disease. I don't know how much of a regional barrier we had on this. You familiar you with Darren Brown? No. Oh, yes. The mentalist? Yes.

He's a mentalist. He had one, he had a brief run of a show in America. but I want to say on HBO or something or Showtime, but he didn't become super big here. So the thing about Darren Brown is like he's very much like, he's very indexed on like, this is not magic, this is not a spell.

Yeah, yeah. I am not reading your mind. This is a trick in a very traditional sense. He did a like big reveal where he flipped heads on a coin 10 times in a row and then elaborately talked about it for a while and then revealed he just flipped a coin for two days. Yeah. until it happened.

Sure, yeah. And then it was like, oh, right. But he had a show, it's called like Darren Brown's doing something crazy or something. Yeah, yeah. But he specifically, I was going to mention this to you because it is like, very unethical, my opinion, but it is also a kind of like specific kind of. I think it was mind control. Mind control of Darren.

That first. Look at the mind is what I'm thinking of. Yeah, I think the mind control thing is what I saw because I remember the promo for it was like him, taking someone's watch off of them. The thing is a big part of the whole, like the conceit of, I think it was trick of the mind. It's also possible to think of a completely different man.

Trick of the treat. But the whole pitch is that like he would have a show where a person would submit to be on the show because they wanted to work through a personal issue. And sometimes it would be like, my wife cheated on me and I've found it hard to trust people ever since.

I lost my job and I'm struggling financially, but I'm too intimidated to reach out for another one. That, you know, actual personal stuff that like, you know, maybe would benefit more from... A therapist. A group therapy session. Yeah. I need magic. Therapist?

Sorcerer. Necromancer. Let me talk to the spirits. Yeah. But there's one particular episode where someone is, I don't even really remember their, like, primary concern. But their friend had written in for them. and the people in question never find out if they've been accepted on the show. Okay.

And their friend had written in for them and said something in the vein of like they have, I think they're afraid of driving, I think it was, of getting in a car crash, which, fair. But it was like a devastating fear that they had and it was prohibiting them, you know, from driving, from living, blah, blah, blah. And they lived in like a semi-remote area so the train wasn't upshed. The friend rides in, I want to have with this. Darren Brown's genius wizard player is to stage a car crash crime scene. Oh, no. I'm remembering correctly where none of the actors on set will acknowledge this person.

They can talk to them, they can touch, like the person can shake them and they will not look or talk to them at all. Then the cadaver is wearing an elaborate prosthetic that makes like... the person. Oh my God. To give them, mind, this is to make them not want to explode

in a car. They instead create a phobia of elaborate like crime scene recreations. They go to fear of becoming a ghost. On today's episode,

we go kill this mother. I found it really helpful when Darren killed me so then I realized he didn't. Seeing myself dead really opened my eyes to being alive. Like, we're gonna make you

go to your funeral. We're gonna tell your kids. Oh my God. Darren, Darren helped me by killing my kids in advance. And now I don't worry about them at all. Oh,

yes. Oh, that is horrifying. Oh, no. Oh, my God. What the hell? This is, it's like I've woken up and I'm a ghost. Like,

you would think that you were a ghost. Yeah, exactly. The color grading on this too is like scary. It's a ghost. Great shot, by the way. Bush confirmed. The woman is like looking at her hands.

like, am I real? Yeah. Which is, and she's not in the wrong here. Like, that's what I would also be wondering. This is not, this is so far from helpful. Yeah. It's absolute matters. Because like, what you would do is like, why don't we take you to like a test car

tracks? So you can see like the car is safe. Your seatbelt works. And he was instead, he was like, what have you looked in your own corpse's eyes? I'm scared of just like physical confrontation and they're just, yeah. You find out. I don't know why the solution.

is ever like an extended Truman show like situation? This is so far from what would actually help me in any It should be called Darren Brown, gotcha. Yeah. So the situation is that her friend wrote in saying that her friend Jules was not a safe driver. Oh.

And so made her believe that she was experiencing her death as a ghost. You know what? She's not a safe driver. I'm back in. Yeah, yeah. Great. Oh my God.

Oh my God. Yeah, good, good. Get her ass. I hope she got the other person too. Yeah. I need to talk. Okay, so I want to talk about your book and kind of what, like, what sorts of reality we cover.

But this did remind me of one of the darkest shows on television, Moment of Truth. Are you familiar with Moment of Truth? No, I'm not. 2006, Dark Time for Television. Yep. 2006, it's like the Iron Age. It's hosted. It's hosted.

It's hosted. Before the Bronze Age collapse. Yeah. The sea people came and filmed Moment of Truth. Yeah. A vote of truth betrayed Zeus's law. It was hosted by Mark L.

Wahlberg who it hosts Temptation Island. It is a beloved figure these days. And a moot of mine. It was his birthday recently. So happy birthday, Mark L. Wahlberg, no relation. But then the,

but moment of truth, he was just a host. And the show is essentially contestants. they answer a series of 21 questions, increasingly personal embarrassing, where they are rigged up to a lie detector test, which is not admissible in court and is a fraught system, the polygraph. But the way they do it is that they rig you up with a polygraph ahead of time. And so you don't know what the polygraph said. So you're incentivized to say exactly the same thing you said on the polygraph.

you have to match. And this got so dark, so quickly. And a lot of the show, like, they say Fox ordered 13 episodes. It was supposed to be in Fox's fall lineup, was pushed off. There's a lot of episodes that didn't air. There's some episodes that aired in other countries. There are some things that were revealed that are like, completely, you know, like just crimes. But one of the most absurd ones that aired,

The famous one is a woman saying that she was still in love with her ex. When she was like married or something. Yeah. Uh, ex comes out. And, uh, that's a whole like they, thank you. And then she was like, uh, it was, it was at a time when you, uh, everyone would be like, so we hate this lady. And then they get her on all the morning shows.

And it's like, we, you're, what bad. Um, welcome to electric chair test. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, it was real easy. to tell everyone to hate a lady at that time. They used to do polygraph on Love Island. Yeah. And I think there was, I don't remember exactly what happened,

but they had like a series where it did like ruin someone's life or like horrible. And they were like, yeah, we can't do these anymore. So that's like the one thing they like will not do on Love Island. So the one, yeah, it's that. We will make you like sit on a cake and do fetish content. We will not hook you up to a polygraph. Yeah, that would be. You weird.

We will shoot an extreme close-up of you kissing someone to the point that it's grotesque somehow. Yeah. But the worst one that I've seen that did air in the regular run of the show was a family. It was like a woman in the hot seat. She had her kids like in the panel. Your family is the panel, whatever. You're revealing these things.

It comes out at the top that one of her kids was hit by a drunk driver when he was like five years old and he survived, but it was like a near-death experience or whatever. I write. And so... Not really like appropriate for a game show. And so then they halfway through when the questions start heating up, they're, they're asking some questions, do you forgive this person, blah, blah, blah. And then they're like, we have a special guest.

It's the drunk driver who hit your son. And we're just like, what the fuck? And then you can choose to win a new car. Yeah. No, it's like, yeah, literally, though, it reminded me of the, the Darren Brown thing because it was literally that. And he's like, I've been trying to contact you for 21 years. Like, to apologize, I guess.

Whatever. Like, why? Like, we don't, we don't have to do this. Think of the content. We don't have to see, like, we don't have to see these things. Like, in the early days of reality TV, like, there is an era where they're like, what is this thing going to be? Like, what is this thing going to be?

And there's, like, a. a nice slice where it was just like, what if we just put the worst moment in people's lives on television? Like, what if we just, like, embarrass someone? What if we, like, have them be, like, rejected publicly? What if we just, okay, so we got this coliseum. What about, like, a guy from Carthage and a bunch of lions? Yeah.

And, like, I think as a culture, we were like, less of that. Yeah. Some of it fine, but not all. I think it's an underestimating of, like, especially at that time, I think. there's such an antagonistic relationship between media and the public. It's like, these pigs, they'll take whatever slot they need. Kind of like, disrespect for like audiences just as though you need like professional media literacy to empathize or care about people.

Right. And like, there can be, there's certainly a pretty significant degree of that, I think, escalated by current media phase that we're in. But like, people do feel bad seeing people suffer. They will feel bad. They feel bad when it's fictional. And I think like, if you. look at like where there were regular people on TV, it was like a game show or honestly like cops. Like there was not like a like for a long time there kind of wasn't like a middle ground

where we were just like seeing and interacting with like normal people that weren't famous or celebrity or something like on TV. And like if you were choosing to do that, that was like, okay, you're either on a game show or something's like really wrong with you. So I wonder if that also impacts of like who how we want to empathize with people that like choose to do these things. So like if you think about shows like Joe Millionaire where it was like we're going to tell these women on a dating show that this guy's a millionaire. And then we're going to reveal that he's just like a guy with no money. And it's like the vibe is sort of like, well, that's what you get for going on TV.

Yeah. Yeah. If you choose to go on TV. You vapid loser. Yeah. If you go on TV, something's wrong with you. Yeah. You're telling me the material circumstances of the person you're dating.

matter to you? Yeah. Who is this? Or like things like the swan where it's like we're gonna do like extreme plastic surgery on people

but it wasn't sort of like well this is what it's like to be a woman like this is the toll that like living in a society with a beauty standard it acts upon you it's like ew

on a plastic surgery like no look at these freaks they feel this way because of the world it's more like it's a moral failure failure on their part

and not a representation of circumstance. Yeah, like, that there's, like, there was an era where reality TV

was the freak show. Yeah. And I think, like, we've definitely gotten away from that. And I think, like,

where we see it now is stuff where it's like, here's a weird subculture that we're not a part of where, like, you know, they would have stuff where they'd be like,

it's Roma people, like, on TV. Yes. I saw that one. Isn't it strange that they, like, wear this outfit or have these big family gatherings

or, like, there was a, like, where it was like, Amish people, people or something. And so I think like a little bit of that like I listen, I love I love that breaking homage show where they were off.

Oh yeah. Jordan's big. I love that stuff. We've been. We've been. One might call us connoisseurs. Yeah, but like that freak show sort of doesn't exist. And then I think.

Or it's like it's it's coded now. Yeah. Or if you yeah, like if you have something like scandival where you have these people doing this big moral breach. Yeah. The feeling of like punish the freak is like. They did this moral transgression. You cheated on your girlfriend.

And like, we're going to morally punish you. Yeah, we're allowed to kill you now. I think they even went that direction with the new, the new show in the Amish series of suddenly Amish. Very funny. That sounds like a joke. Very funny. They just steal your fun. Jordan and I watched all of breaking and return to Amish.

Yes. We had such a fun. Return to Amish. Return to Amish. Is it after your rum spring? You return to Amish. It's 30 years later and it's the son of Luke Skywalker. Wait, so was that season four of Lost when Jack is like,

we have to return to Amish? It honestly is kind of a nonsense name. It's just a continuation of Breaking Amish, except as much as there is in the original series, sometimes they're like, you know, I kind of miss having a big hat. Don't go wear it for a while and then leave again. And like, oh yeah, but everything else sucks.

It's calling like the Green Goblin Mask. I talk about it in the book of like Jersey Shire. was like one of the first like mainstream ones where it was like here's a subculture that you are not like privy to unless you're from this part of the country and it really was like these people are freaks I know I never saw the show they're so tan and I grew up with like I was like told to like think of Snooky like uh Boulder board yeah it's like this big like yeah we all hate her don't know what she's from what she looks like right but it's like for me it's like like I Jersey Shore is like one of my favorites because it's just like it's stupid physical comedy

they're all like getting drug and falling down it's also like a great reminder like I talk about in the book too of like it was a much more like casual attitude towards sex and drinking and partying so like as I was in like going to date myself but like I was in like my senior year of college like when that show came out and I was like oh these people are partying as much as I are like Or I'm like, I'm not this bad. Getting drunk and falling down is a genre. And I, if you haven't written that down, bottle that. That's such a funny concept.

This is a getting drunk and falling down show down. Because I was, I watched the real world. That was my like intro to reality TV. It was real world, Road Rules Challenge, like that like MTV universe of stuff. And it was just like, okay, so everybody's like ripped and they're drinking and partying a lot. And that's kind of it. that they're like, wasn't more

to get Trump fold out. But now they're in Austin and they're going to South by South West. Yes. And like one of the things

that like for the chapter on the real world one of the things I talk about is like MTV and like the real world specifically was like the world promised to the millennial

of like you will get to live in a cool loft in a cool city you'll have like a job at a radio station. The fri-fifcation like three of your friends will be black

and one will be gay. But not too black. Not too black or gay. Like the black they put in medical commercials. Yeah. But it's sort of like this problem of like you will get to like experience people different than you. You'll get to share and learn from each other. And I think it sort of like has coded a big sector of like the millennial like outlook of like we want to meet people different than us and we understand like living in a big city and like having a cool job is like

something we all want to do. And so like, you know, like, you know, you can look at all these different shows as like, okay, it's a little time capsule of like, yeah, what was going on at the time or. I felt that we're watching Survivor. Oh, yeah. Like, because I went last year, I went back and watched a bunch of seasons of Survivor starting from season one and then like watching kind of like the highlight seasons that are often referred to up up to some of the modern seasons.

And the way people talked about the world in the first season of Survivor where like Richard hatch is like a gay guy. and it's like, that gay guy's always doing weird gay guys. He's making a fire. Yeah, I was like, and then to their credit, he was a weird guy. That was like always naked. That was a specific individual.

That was just his specific weird guy thing. He loved being naked and he hated taxes. He famously went to jail. Oh yeah, he didn't pay taxes on his winnings. Hold on a hero? Yeah, yeah, okay. A sovereign citizen. A sovereign citizen for us all.

But then there's also, I'm not not paying my taxes. There's also in season eight, which is their first all-star season, he essentially harasses one of the other contestants in a, like, sexual manner. You could say, oh, he's gay, he's not, like, attracted to them. But it doesn't matter. He's violated someone's space in a sexual way. And that person, and I can't remember, Jacob, could you Google who Richard Hatch? Who he's sexually harassed? sexually harassed in season eight because it's another one of his castmates from season one.

Oh, okay. The 2000 word Wikipedia article. Yeah. Listed. Yeah, it's like a list of things. A Sue Hawk. Yeah. So then Sue, who is kind of painted to seem irrational.

Yes. Because they're in a context where they have to pass each other on like a long plank or something. And he just like kind of like whips and waves his like junk around. her and she's like because he's naked I don't know he's in like he's in like a loincloth or something like shorty shorts or something it's like enough to where like the message is received you know yeah and everyone's kind of like why is sue making such a big deal about this and then she to use a modern term the kids are saying she crashes out valid crash out and everybody's just like sue's being so unreasonable it's people fighting against their vise like which one do I hate more yeah okay I really

don't like this gay guy guy, but I fucking hate women. And I was going to say like there's all, then, I don't know if there's more to it, but there's also, I was just going to say that's in the edit. And that's how, that's how the edit is presenting it, how it presents you. And it's even, um, even Jeff is like not super empathetic. Yeah. Like, well, I forget what season it is, but there's a season where one of the, it was like at a ceremony and the person who's trans and the other person, the person who was trying to,

they were like up like up, like, pair, you know, set against each other. And one guy was like, as proof of this other person's untrustworthiness, outed them as trans. They're deceitful. They're deceiving people. And, but that's a moment where you see the other contestants be like, that's not cool. Yeah. Like, that's who this person is.

That's not part of this. It's a commiserating Colton callout. Yeah. It's a Michael Rappaport moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This guy is a little sneaky. A little sneaky. But you see what I'm saying is I want to.

eat my pizza like a weird lizard. I swallowed the spoon when I eat. But then it's also like as a bachelor person watching Colton, Colton has the weirdest history of any bachelor contestant because he put a lowjack on his fiance's car after they'd broken up and she had a street like all he tracked Cassie. He stalked her. He stalked her.

He used a burner phone to text her all the time. And, but it's like you see these moments of like this mess. like where you have someone like you're on the like it's surreal to look at like you're in the survivor like at tribal council and someone like out and you're like there's like palm trees and everyone has like their buffs and everything around them but then you but then it like switches into this moment of like hey let's not do that or you see these moments of like it becomes like a lesson right but i think it like it forces the viewer to like hold the nuance like of all these different things and at one time to be able to see Colton on the traders and be like,

Colton is a bad person. Independent of. Independent of this. But Colton has had this like second like life in reality because he came out and like found himself and got married and he can have this like pushback on Michael Rapapur who is another terrible person. Pound for pound. It's a heavyweight bout.

Or even like I had friends that were watching the train. and they had no idea who Tom Sandoval was. And they were like, this guy's so funny. And I was like, this man is a monster. Tread lightly. And so it's like, you have to, it forces you to like hold all of this like nuance and understanding. And I think the more that people try and like moralize around these people on reality TV,

we like lose the actual like interesting thing that the genre gives us of like people are weird and contain contradictions and the more that we can like rationalize and reconcile the figures that we watch and their contradictions, I think it makes it more okay for us to hold contradictions and to like be a messy person because like I know there's people in my life from the period they met me where they're like, Allie sucks. I hate that bitch. I was sick of you. Yeah, exactly. Earlier today.

And you changed so much than Z. I grew so much. But then there's people like at peers where they're like, I had Ali as a teacher and she really like helped me or whatever. But it's like to hold all of that. And I think when people watch a lot of TV now, it's like, well, Dr. Ravi has to be all good or all bad. Right. Oh my God. The pit discourse is so bad.

But it's like it you can't watch Real Housewives. I think Bear's actually the villain of obsession. I'll say it. It's like you can't watch Real Housewives and be like, Fadra is all good or all bad. Nini's all good or all bad because they are just like, incredibly. incredibly complicated, weird, chaotic people. It's the weakness of, like, media being out. Currently, the media you consume and espouse is you.

That's like the great American novel that I read that makes me a good person is so. Whereas, like, actual life experience, the number one thing you get out of it is realizing how, in a really good way, incredibly boring most interactions are. Yes. And everyone is most of the time. Like you, the most valuable thing to see on reality TV, or rather the most valuable person to meet for your own biases is not a very, very charming trans person. That's great. You have a friend.

But to actually get perspective, you have to meet a completely vanilla acquaintance that you have nothing in common with. And you can say like, oh, that's just most people. Yeah. I see. I get it. As opposed to like people being like, no, it's, in fact, if someone, if someone, if, a marginalized community does something I don't like. They're actually not part of it.

Yeah. You're actually not trans anymore. You bothered to me. I remember when I would teach, I would have students bring me scenes and I would watch it. And it would be just like this amorphous, weird meandering something. And I was like, what was that? What are you trying to do? And they would go, well, that happened that way.

Like that's what happened in my day and day life. And I go, cool. I have to put this into a scenic structure because what we're making theater. Right. I have to make, I have to give this scene some structure. And our lives don't have structure. Like we do not go on a five point like journey. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The story circle, hero's journey. Yeah, we don't do that. And I think like it's also important when you're watching a reality of like they had to take all this footage and put it into 42 minutes and commercials. And then it's like the edit, right? It's like the edit becomes. I think that that's a thing where like for like Anastasia and I worked on a lot of the reality TV videos that I. done together and there's always this thing where it's like this is a character because we don't know the three-dimensional person.

No. We know the edit and in- Getting angry at the actors from heated rivalry kind of mindset. In the end- Which people do. People do. Oh my God, I think media discourse is in the can because the pit stuff is crazy. Like Dr. Robbie, why is he being so mean? He's supposed to be a doctor and they're all good. I do wonder, sorry.

No, no, no, please. I do wonder and would love your thoughts on this, Allie, if the producers from like 2006 to now, if you feel like has their, was their hand heavier back in the day or I just hear so many stories of like how fake and constructed they tried to make things in that early. reality TV landscape. And also the edit and like trying to make someone the villain or convincing someone to give answers that made them the villain or whatever. I think like two things are probably happening of like one, a lot of reality TV, the very early seasons, they are trying to map on to something scripted. So like real housewives was like not like a parody, but it was drawn. It was like this is the real version of desperate housewives.

Right. And like the O.C was a or Laguna Beach and all those shows are a real version of the O.C. Right. And like NYC prep of Gossip Girl and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they were really like, okay, we have. And sometimes you go and watch some of those early shows and it's like, oh, they're really making it hit like there's like, there's like, act breaks like sitcom like act breaks um or they're trying to hit like a

documentary film sort of structure so if you look at something like the real world that feels a little more like a documentary it's a little word loose right and so i think as reality tv has like come into like come of age sort of um it like has its own conventions so you can like make what you want to have happen in a different way yeah that you can rely less on the edit because you know how to make it happen in the moment and like you know how to like ask the questions in the moment. And there's people that are like that would show up to like a lot of the people in those early seasons at the real world like they are just like a dude or just like a lady that are just like that my one of my favorites is um from real world New Orleans. Kelly she like got a

boyfriend that lived in town and just was never home. So she's like not in any of the scenes at a certain point because she's just like with her and her boyfriend like didn't want to be on camera. So she's like, I'm just going to go stay at his house. I also love real world. I watched Real World from the first season and San Francisco had a doctor. So she's never home. And a cartoonist who was just like a normal dude. They ended up getting married.

The doctor and the cartoonist? Yeah. That's a show I'd watch. Wow. But you or you wouldn't. because they pretty much cut them out of the real world because they were so boring and normal. That is where all, now, some dark stuff happened

just because of the nature of audiences with reality TV, but have you ever seen Terrace House? I've heard of it. So Terrace House, I feel like, is a Japanese reality show where it essentially is like six strangers pick to live in a house. They do kind of just do all the mundane stuff. And then maybe there's some light nodding, oh, let's go to the beach. Oh, let's do this thing.

But then some of the content comes from taking mundane interactions and then having a panel of comedians on the couch, like discussing it in the moment. And, and. That's like a cultural convention, right? Like that's the type of Japanese show. And it was like a show that me and my coworker, Maiko, like used to love watching and talking about. And it felt like kind of like that old era of reality TV with some like levity of the like comedian stuff.

But also it's like there wasn't forced romance. There weren't like seemingly forced storylines. There are like one of the guys, Hanson for those who are ball knowers, was just like an architect. And he's like mostly giving everybody advice and doing his job. You know what I mean? He's like minding his own business. And then like, sadly though, with that show, because it was doing the thing

kind of like Love Island does in the States where it's coming out as it's still happening, there was someone who for their body type was being bullied and ended up, you know, doing self-harm and ended up passing away. Oh. And the show was canceled. And it's, I don't know if it'll ever come back,

but like for like how it captured like the mundanity of life i think it's a really interesting case study um i always feel as though if an american show it maybe would take hiatus yeah yeah i mean uh i mean bachelor just had that with um what's your face the mormon wife lady oh oh uh taylor frankie paul she had a domestic abuse charge yeah that video of it came out Well, they were going to, they knew she had this domestic abuse charge or domestic violence charge, whatever it was legally. But it was mainly that video of it came out and you could see. You forced our hand now. Like you could see like how involved she, it.

Because I think they were sort of spinning it of like everybody was doing it. We don't even know what happened. But it's like you see her like hurl a metal stool like Donkey Kong like over her child's head and near her partner. And you're like, okay, she's involved there. Because then it's real. You are what is published. You can feel the like studio execs like, okay, but how do we make, I mean, we just film this whole season.

Right. And then they, like, there was some sort of, there was some sort of resolution in the legal sense where both parties were held culpable or something. And then I heard tell that they were bringing back that season. Yeah. Like, my conspiracy theory is they're going to like drop it on Hulu. in the middle of the night and just like a random night

like over like a holiday it's like oh it's up who knows put the USB in the wrong thing but it's one of those things of like they picked her this like her history was very well known before this happened

and like she's someone who like was very messy on secret lies and Mormon wives very messy before that and it's also like the Bachelorette was in a slump they didn't know what to do like Bachelor Bachelorette

like that's my lane It's like they were in a slump. They didn't know what to do. They were already on hiate, on a pause. And they picked someone because they had name recognition, because they were messy, they wanted to deliver a messy season. But it's also like there's no other woman, especially no other woman of color that could have ever had this kind of backstory and been picked to be the Bachelorette.

So it's like, I can't, there's only so outraged that I can be because it's like, you want it. You knew what you were getting. Like you wanted her to get in fights and send people home and do. do all this other stuff, but we just can't have footage of her. Yeah, and you knew that domestic thing was out there. Yeah, they knew it was out there. Right.

Because it's a years old situation. Right. And I think like sort of going back. You put it Mel Gibson in your movie. Yeah, like going back to your question of like they want someone now all these shows like Real Housewives, Vanderpump Rules. You have these people that are like, if I don't deliver a season, I know I'm getting cut or I'm getting demoted. I'm not going to be a cast member.

I'm going to be a friend of. I'm going to be whatever. So you have these people like. There's all, there have been accusations against Kenya, one of the greats, that she like hires someone to be her boyfriend for the season. And so she can have a storyline that she is a boyfriend. And they're like on Vanderpump rules after Scandival. The producers were getting to some of the other cast members of like,

if you can't get Ariana and Tom to film a scene together where Tom can apologize, the show's going to get canceled. So then you have the cast being like, I have to produce this season of this show. And like the way that sometimes people talk about it, like at the reunions or in these other moments, or they're like, you're not bringing anything. You're not giving anything. Like, why are you here?

But it's so now you have people like the producers don't need to push that hard because Erica Jane will, she'll produce herself for the season and be like, well, I got to have a record come out this year. So I can have a storyline this year. Who was the housewives person who accused Colton of like cheating in the traders? Who accused him of cheating? Is it Lisa Rina? No, no, no, it wasn't Lisa Rennett.

It was the one who said let's do a conga line. Oh, Candice. Candice. Yeah. Candy, yes. And like I felt, I was upset by the fact. I used to recap Potomac. So I like watched a lot of Candace and like she's she's such an interest.

She like really wants to self-produce but like is 5% is always a little off. Or like she takes it a little too far. I was like one. I was like I don't like it almost and I don't know how traders works but like survivor where it's like it's a game show. So there's certain like rules and stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And so I'm like you don't I know you're trying to do like some self-producing. thing here. But like what you're actually accusing is, is, you're accusing him a fraud. A fraud, which is actually like, now Colton's done a lot of stuff and, you know, but this particular thing kind of is, this is below the bell.

You would validate the season. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could hold. And like, have it, this is like very not the same thing, but like on Jeopardy, on Pop Culture Jeopardy, they really make sure you know exactly what you can do or say. Like, they run you through it. There's all

different kinds of things where they're like, if you do this, we will not pay you out. You will not, your episode won't air. Like there's alternate, like there are alternates. Like swearing or even more kind of. There's like, okay, so this is very, very behind the scenes. There's certain things you can't wager. There's certain numbers you can't wage.

Of course. So like, for example, you cannot wager 420 or have your bid, like have, you know, what you bid equal 420. So there's lots of, there's. And so you can imagine what some of. those other numbers would be that are like meme numbers but also like

that would be like dog whistle numbers right oh my god I didn't even think about the dog whistle oh no oh my god yeah so there's stuff where they're like we will like

and so like there's moments where like if you've watched a season like you can probably think of like a situation I'm talking about but it's like they will make you like do something over or like you know or if there's a thing where it's like

if you think someone is cheated they there's a mechanism for if you think someone's cheated or you saw an answer or something like there's all these different mechanisms because it's like it is the FCC is involved because it is like a game show there's money like there's all this different stuff so and they make it we had to sign like you to sign a thing before you went they did it again on the day they had someone who's like I'm the person that like is a liaison with the FCC that's like I'm standards and practices You know, you can't swear, you know, on and on and on and on.

Can't grab Cullin. Can't grab that. Give me the answer. He's still smiling? You like, whip your buzzer. But it's like, anyone that's like not clear on it is you don't live on our planet. Like your mind is like not, you're not clocked in. So like, yeah, if you have someone.

And it's like that would be a real housewivesy thing to be like, they were cheated. They did. Right. Yeah. It's like you don't know. And that's like on selling sunset, like that Christine got fired. So if anyone wants to selling sunset, she approached a client and said, I'll give you $5,000 to stop working with this other broker and like work with me. And like a great reality TV move.

That is illegal as a real estate agent. Yeah, that's crazy. And so they were like, we have to fire you. It's like when those tic ticongs are coming out where people were like, so like financial life hack, you just take somebody else's wallet. Yeah. And so it's like, you can. You can't do that. But like Christine, she did interviews.

Like after she was fire, she was like, I moved to L.A. to be an actress. I took an acting class and improv class. I was working as a realtor because it's like a flexible job. But when I was approached to be on Selling Sunset, I was like, oh, I'll be a villain. Like that seems like a more fun thing to do. Right, right, right. So you, yeah, it's like there's, but it is a thing of like you can't, you can't let your gig like fuck up your day job. Yeah, that's so crazy.

You can't actually hit the other wrestler with a real sledgehog. Exactly. You have to cut up. Yeah. Just going back to the kind of way that things have changed over time. When I look at The Bachelor today, I feel like they're in a prison of their own design where it's like this kind of pure Americana. Yes, very traditional. And it's like a 23 year old getting married.

And it's like you just like the well has been completely poisoned. The people that would go on the show in earnest don't exist. Right, yeah. Or they've never heard of the show and they live like in the middle of nowhere and you don't have the way to source them. Yeah. And seeing that show is in this very weird, like the way they get to Taylor Frankie Paul is like, man, we've really kind of cooked ourselves on this. And then and, uh, because there's so much of, um, I guess like, I think about Chris Harrison getting fired and that all of these like controversies. Yeah. And I think like with The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, especially like they're kind of two audiences. that watch, like there is the very, like, traditional, like, Heartland Americana. They want a white Christian bachelor and bachelorette. And then there's, like, a group of progressive people that are like, I watch this to turn my brain off, but I still want it to, like, be a little bit of, like, a female fantasy or, like, you know, some sort of, like, romantic fantasy.

Yeah. And so I think, like, starting with, like, Caitlin's season, Caitlin Bristol, and this is a while ago, of like you're seeing these audiences like interact. Yeah. And like sort of bump up against each other where you have a bachelorette that had sex before the fantasy suites. And it's like, yeah, it's like having sex with a guy on the third date. It's like pretty normal. Yeah.

Yeah. But like it's outside of this like conscripted time. And then you get like, I was talking at my one of the other book events of like my friend and I were watching the ultimatum like the most recent season. Yeah. And like the men on that show are spiked. outing like Manosphere content. So it's like how are so to source now contestants for these shows,

how do we like, you know, find people where it's like, okay, what women want to go on a show where the guys are all going to be Manosphere? Or do we say like we're going to do like Christian influencers? And that was a thing too of like maybe there was like a Mormon audience on ABC, which is like why they also went with like Taylor Frankie Paul like, The Secret Lies and Mormon Wives was huge. Right. There's a data scientist somewhere who's like, I've cracked it.

I've cracked it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, you know, but also like there is an aspect of the Mormon religion of like to promote and like show the values of your religion. So it's like what's the way to get to a lot of people very quickly? Yeah. Social media or reality TV. Right, right. And so you are like on a show like The Bachelor, a lot of these dating shows you're watching like this like, you know, these two segments of the culture like running up against each other.

And even on the most recent season of Love Island, they were accusing one of the women of being lustful. And again, it's like, you all did a twerk contest with Megan the Stallion where you sat on cake and then some guy like licked it off your thighs. It's like, how are you too lustful? There's such a weird. Yeah, Love Island is one where it's like, granite slate with. I don't know if you've checked this guy. There's 10 rules to give in rhyme. Like what was her name?

The, um, uh, she had a dash in her name. season before last Love Island USA who like she Bella Bella Bella where she was like hey I actually don't unless it's on a challenge I'm not going to like kiss and hook up because that's not my style and the amount of conversations they had where it's like well she's old fashioned you know like this would and in there they're like but she looks like the Instagram model so and then oh the thing I was going to say about the bachelor and being in a prison of its own design is that it also, you can also see it with the way that reality TV used to be produced, where there's so, the Bachelor more than anything else I've seen does so much audio surgery

and clipping. Yes, the Franken bites. The Franken bites. The just outright lying about what a cliffhanger will be like before. It's, it's so much setting, the amount of disappointment you'd get if you earnestly believed that something was going to happen on each of these commercial breaks? You know what I mean? It's just like they can never deliver on the promise.

They're like, I'm gay. And then it comes back from commercials like, I'm gaining great esteem for you. It's so frustrating. Yeah. And I think that would be bowl confusing. This, this season or what's the phrase they say?

It's on a. The most dramatic season. The most dramatic season ever. And it's like. The most dramatic finale. I'm going to kill a guy Oh my God There's going to be a murder

There's only like three outcomes Like that could ever happen on the finale They stay together They get engaged They stay together don't get engaged Stay together get engaged Or don't stay together It's like yeah unless like aliens arise

Oh my God It becomes that 911 show They like look up and it's the meteors fall My gosh Colton unhinged his jaw and swallowed one of the other. Oh my God. Trastity and Michaelo got stung by bees.

Oh. And then did you see it's the Netflix show where they bring it's the second chance show. Oh, what is it? Perfect match. Perfect match. Yeah.

Where they had a Clayton and one of the finalists from his bachelor season. They were like hashing it out in a way that's like, felt like D.L.C. for like their their season. I was like this is so like that is truly just someone being like,

okay, I'm going to stoke as much drama as possible. Can we cast this person and this person who if they're in the same room together have something that the world hasn't seen them resolve? Exactly. Yeah. And like, but also like there's moments where it's like, oh my God, this is the brilliant version of that. We're on Pilot Pete season, they brought Hannah Brown in for a challenge. Yeah.

Pilot Pete. And they genuinely were like, our story's not finished. And they like had to delay starting a challenge for like an hour while they were like hashing it out backstage and it kept cutting to them. And they both like had their head in their hands being like, why did you come here? And she was like, they wanted me to come here. And he's like, but don't you know? Like, and they had this really, really deep conversation that they eventually were like,

do you join the season? And I just bring you on as a contestant. But it's like, yeah, like that to me is so more interesting than just like, whatever Clayton has I'm hot dogging for Colton By the way shout out to What was their name? It's either Kristen or Caitlin

She on the Bachelor Because she became like an autism influencer Oh Demi? Demi! Yes It didn't have any of those sounds you It sounds exactly like It's Demi Christmas

And Jimmy Christmas to you. No, Dimmie. Because she, like, it's so interesting seeing how she was edited versus like her when she's in charge of her own narrative. And I was like, oh, my, because she was like a villain in the Colton season in like Caddy and Mean. And she's just like, here's how my autism presents. And I'm learning about like how to, you know, like, it's such an, it was, it's like actually very cool. but I feel like that story is not the type of story we're told because what's autism? That doesn't exist in my my pure world.

Yeah, my fantasy. That's something that I like want. Burnett. It seems like there's a separation right now between like Bachelor style content and love on the spectrum style content. But I'm like I almost wish. It's an it's that underestimating the audience again. Like this, people love seeing the veil get torn a little. They don't want it broken.

They do want the k-fabe. But seeing like, oh, they're not, that room doesn't have proper lighting. Oh, they're filming this handicam style because stuff moved around. It's like gossip. The un-Garilla, like, video. It's the same thing in the romance novel of like, there's only one bed. How are they going to get through the night? Like we want, you do want to see like, all right.

What if we put these two in a sexy situation? Colton's jumping the fence. See what happens. We got a runner. It's the same thing with like any kind of, like you were saying, it's these shows kind of run maybe a little conservative. Yeah. And part of me wants it to unveil a little more of the outliers.

And I know like queer dating shows are very rare. I know their queer ultimatum happened. And also the producers of Terrace House made a show called The Boyfriend, which is all gay men who live in a house together. Oh, interesting. And it's very cute and sweet, and I enjoy it. It's a battle royale. And they still get made fun of, which is... Oh, well, I'm back in.

I think part of why they, why it can be an issue to produce a show, a dating show with queer contestants, is you have the option to be like, well, I don't like The Bachelor. Do you want to go? Yeah. And they're like, no, no, no. You know, like focus up. So they did a season of The Bachelorette in New Zealand.

I believe where the Bachelorette was bisexual. So they had half men, half women. Oh my God, the tequila tequila effect. They did a teal tequila. And then there was on, it was like the Bachelor Vietnam maybe at where there were two women on the season that did not come in as like queer. But they were like, I've fallen in love with this other person. And they have a rose ceremony where he's like giving out the roses.

And one is like, stop. I have something to say to this person. And she's like, leave with me. And they like, you're going to manufacture something. See, I love that. That's your drama. It's funny how they have to like. Imagine social media if that would.

It's like so obviously it's like a, if it was like maybe Thanos doesn't get the glove. And then he goes home. It's funny. But there's also a show is, are you the one come one come all? where it was all queer people and they, the premise of the show is they match you by a matchmaker, and you have to find who the matchmaker decided is your perfect match. And if everyone finds their match by the end of the season,

you split like a pool of money. Oh, cool. That's cool. You split up the other couples. But so they did a season where it was all queer and pansexual people and bisexual people. So it was like, suddenly you went from like, oh, I can, my match is one of these 10 guys to my match. be anyone in the house.

So like the mathematical odds of it skyrocketed. But then you also just had a house full of like, it was on MTV like queer people that were drinking. So they were like, well we can just have an orgy before we decide to like and like there was one contestant who was like a recently out trans man.

It was like I'm gonna like all these people think I'm hot. Let's go hook up. But it was they had some really interesting conversations because there was one contestant who was convinced that their perfect match wouldn't be a a feminine presenting man or non-binary person. And there was a person who they had had a connection,

but there was, you know, and the person was like, you have to confront that you don't think femme people are attractive or are the person that you should end up with. Because if you look at like how these other couples are pairing off, we have all the same like characteristics. You need to confront that you think you can't, be with someone who's non-binary or feminine.

You've been to analyze something a while ago that is like presenting. And like you see the person be like, you know what? Yeah, I do. That is what is going on. But it's like, yeah, it's like those are way more. You make me want to watch. I know. This feels like the difference between the,

are you going to be my first? Yes. And Virgin Island, the British show. Because we watched. Have you seen Virgin Island? No, I haven't seen that one. It's like it's more of like a sexual. It's more of like a sexual.

education documentary style show than like a traditional reality show. It feels like love on the spectrum and in how gentle and sweet it is. But it's like a bunch of people go to a camp to understand their sexuality. Oh my gosh, great. And I cried most episodes.

Yeah. There's also the... No, but there's also the... It was like a Hulu show that was like, are you going to be my first? Where it was like, we found an island of virgins. Boom.

You know what I mean? And it's like, I think I could lose my sex. Lose my sex. I think I could lose my virginity on this island. And then like it's just like all played up. No one loses their virginity on the island. There's no like.

And it was like puns. Oh, I remember this. Because it was hosted by Colton. Yeah. Which I, okay. And Caitlin Briscoe, right? I knew there was a,

where I was like, when Colton described his virginity, I was like, a straight man has never described why they didn't have sex for the first time in this way. He was like, I never got around to it. I was like, you were a professional football player.

You're telling me, like, nobody. I do my taxes yearly because I'm going to miss the dates. I'm going to miss, oh, God. But I was like, this, something is happening. I also love it, like, Colton, like, barely had. He had my forgotten to do. Yeah. Colton barely had time on, like, an NFL practice squad,

and they describe him as this, like, NFL star. and The Bachelor has this way of building people up where it can be like, I took algebra one in high school and it would be like a math expert. King of numbers. There's like on Rachel Lindsay's season in her final three, two of the guys were both personal trainers.

They described the black guy as a personal trainer and the white guy who was a personal trainer as an entrepreneur. Okay. All right. That's awesome. And he made it to the final two. And I remember like in the fandom when people were like, wait, he's also a personal trainer.

What is going up? But he does it with his mind. But like the people that they like, they give a better like occupation. And you also see like for a long time they wouldn't label anyone as like a content creator. Right. And now they'll label people as a content creator and an influencer on the bachelor like as their job. A lot of coverage. I think if you are hiring for medical device sales, there should be an interview question that's are you planning to leave to go on a season of reality television?

There's actually a, there's no dental hygienist left. They all went on reality TV. All right, Allie, this has been such a pleasure. Oh my gosh, it's been a treat. Where can people purchase your book? And can you remind us of the name? Yes, the book's called Reality TV for snobs. You can purchase the book and the audiobook.

Anywhere that you purchase books or audiobooks, I get royalties just the same. Please just go buy it. Even if you just want to hear the funny voices you chose. funny voices I do. Please buy it. Leave a review. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at W.T. Flankstake or my website, Allie Barthwell.com. If you don't buy the book, we will simulate you. Oh. In a crash. It's not making you think you're against. I mean, Emmy winner, by the way. What did you say? I said Emmy winner by the way. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. I totally forgot that as a part of your. I'm in town for a book event and then the Creative

Arts Emmys are on Saturday. Wow. And they said, the sad boys would never talk to an Emmy winner. I've heard that. Yeah. It keeps coming up. Yeah, it keeps coming up. Jordan and I are going to hang out on Sad Boys Nights, our Patreon podcast. But thank you so much, Ali, for joining us.

And we end every episode of Sad Boys with a particular phrase. We love you. And we're sorry. Goochie girl. How you doing? How you're moving on? Moving all. How's you dead looking that future girl?

Future girl. Yeah, we're on now. Take my money. Go away, oh you want it. Go too rich for me.