can't stop, won't stop thinking about reality tv... hope y'all enjoy this one! // Thanks again to Bellesa! FREE TOYS OR GIFT CARDS FOR TOYS! Everyone who signs up to my giveaway with Bellesa wins something! www.bboutique.co/vibe/tiffanyferguson-yt
Please do a video on how family channels are using shirtless dads etc to attract viewers. From seeing the SAHM trend you analyzed in the past it reminded me of this
I really liked the video but I hope that you please emphasize the fact that reality TV is INHERENTLY exploitative and all for the entertainment of viewers and profits for producers... it's like using deformed people for circuses but with the excuse that "they signed a contract"... there's a reason some drugs are illegal... just because people do it willingly it does not mean it's good for them and we should let it continue
Thank you for making this video- it's so important to have a conversation about it, so well done for bringing it up! I used to really enjoy watching Love is Blind and Married at First sight, but the past few seasons of each have been awful because they're letting people on the show that should not be allowed in public let along on a reality show. Anyone who has had an abusive relationship with a narcissist, or even just a run- in with one knows how much damage they can do. At the very least they will drain your energy, at the worst...well - you've detailed that here in your video. It's one thing wanting to make good TV but putting people in danger by matching them with abusive people is never ok, and this seems to be commonplace now in these types of shows. It needs to stop.
They use to uave a reality show when you were alone in abox for like 100 days or just whoever lasts the longest. Now that one was brutal.😂 But people still signed up. Free country and capitalism.
And THIS is why I watch Bake Off. Contestants are obligated to go home each week and live their everyday life and just come to the white tent each weekend. I hope more reality shows follow that premise but sadly, I don't think it's going to happen with how much people love drama :(
a cooking show I really loved watching was School of Chocolate, because it was at the same time a competition and a masterclass taught by the chef Amaury Guichon (most people know him from being "that chocolate guy" who's always creating huge detailed edible sculptures). costestants win by accumulating points throughout the show, this way nobody has to be eliminated. if you loose a challenge, you get a mentoring and another chance to do better next time. I find this to be very nice and refreshing to watch
Agree, shows like Bake Off are the only ones I watch as well. May I recommend „The Great British Pottery Throwdown“? I love that show for the creativity and the wholesome teamwork it shows. The current season has just started…
Also with the writers strike that just happened, a TON of networks started pumping out reality shows because they don't need writers for that. Even more profit for the network.
This is not true - the networks are NOT pumping out reality shows and they did NOT pump out reality TV during the strike. I work in the industry and nearly everyone I know has hardly worked in 2023 - there was VERY LITTLE reality TV getting made in 2023 compared to previous years. There was no boom from the strike - if anything, the opposite happened, as the networks held their budgets while they waited to see how the strike played out.
It’s not that these shows don’t need writers at all, it’s that they don’t have to hire unionized writers. The producers of these reality shows are doing tons of storyline producing/guiding to create an attention-holding narrative, but because these are almost entirely nonunion productions, they don’t have to be paid in the same way or given the same title as their unionized counterparts.
i had ppl constantly asking me if i watched the new squid game reality show and i go “did… you… not watch the show? and the message you’re supposed to take away….?” i was dumbfounded and felt like i was in the twilight zone
There's a woman named Sarah who was a participant on the The Challenge. She actually won once but in a end of game twist lost a very significant amount of money to her teammate. She's now a psychologist who specializes in helping people recover from being on reality TV.
That was so devastating to watch!! After a grueling final, Johnny did her so dirty. And I don't think Challenge fans ever forgave him for that. And then, he didn't win any challenges for a lot of seasons after that, people thought he was cursed haha
The squid game reality show should have never been made in the first place. Did they miss the whole point of the original show? Anything is a cash grab no matter how morally wrong I guess. F*ck the producers and showrunners of that damned show
@@arianamitchell7050 lol I despise that argument so much, people desperate for money who will happily be filmed doing whatever for a chance to be out of crippling debt, it's literally the same thing, it's why I felt gross about Mr Beasts version.
The last reality show I watched was Terrace House...which was canceled after one of the participants committed suicide after the bullying she endured as a result of the producers forcing her to be the "villian" of the season. I think about her all the time. :(
I was on a reality tv show many years ago - isolated for over 3 months. We confirmed that there is an A and B cast. Producers forgot a piece of paper in the house when we were locked in a bedroom to prepare for a live show. It stated who was important and who wasn’t. The winner was one of the A cast. If you left without a medical issue yourself or your family, you would be fined. The show was definitely different than the experience itself when I watched it after I got booted off, which explained a lot of why I and others were bullied by the public. I was suddenly a villain, which really wasn’t the case in the house - I’m outspoken but treat people fairly, suddenly I was a bully. Therefore I also got a lot of death threats etc. We weren’t scripted or saw people from the outside, but 24/7 footage can be manipulated in many ways. After the show we did get free therapy for a year’s time, some used it, I didn’t. But I probably should have cause I did not like to take public transportation or walk around the city alone. I don’t regret doing it - it was a fun, hard, boring experience, and I learned a lot about myself. But I probably wouldn’t do it again.
The fact that the actual squid game reality show had the same (minus the unaliving obviously) terrible conditions as the fictional show? Disgusting. I can’t believe they even made that show. It’s dystopian.
Hilarious that Rosanna has come out saying that Mr. beast did exactly what these shows do: misrepresent the activity and more importantly who won and how.
And the thing is like... isn't there always a disclaimer like "portions of the show *not affecting the results* have been edited"? Ro was straight up saying the top 4 were shown wrong and that the winner should've been disqualified LMAO
I'm friends with Jackie, the deaf contestant on the show. And yup, she got lots of deaths threats, racism, ableism... after the whole TJ and women alliance thing. The only reason I gave in and watched it is because I remember when the drama came out, I talked about how I would be intrigued to see how it would work with a disabled contestant on it. I mean, I was one of those that didn't see the point in a reality adaptation, but... you know, still intrigued. There's obviously so much more she can't talk about legally, but the mess with Tim was a lot more than was shown on screen.
For those intrigued by these shows I really recommend the show UnReal - it's a (fictional) behind the scenes look at the producers on a bachelor style reality show and their outrageously unhinged manipulative behaviour. Like a car crash piling up and up and then being hit by a train. 😅
also relevant: the wave of suicides linked to love island and big brother in the uk - many linked to the person's narrative on the show as a villian. contestants who are vulnerable, mentally ill, have had difficult backgrounds are all often more compelling as narratives and to watch, will have more emotional / explosive outbursts and ofc will be so much more vulnerable to criticism. its totally within a shows power to make it a great show and have some ethical standard (for example shows that focus less on interpersonal drama and more on skill level and challenges or creative output) but so many productions (and viewers) just dont care and are happy to watch people in distress as entertainment
nobody who was on BBUK has committed suicide after being on the show. The majority of people from BBUK have faded back into obscurity/normalcy after their time on the show.
Maybe you're thinking of the Terrace House, which is a different show and tragically did have a contestant bullied so much she committed suicide. I think discussing BB would be really valuable too though. In a lot of ways it's different from what she's discussing here. We do see their treatment a lot (if you're in a country with live feeds still). When they cut feeds that obviously goes away, and the producers can talk to them in the DR privately. Even so, you see so much on feeds that people who solely watch the show on TV have an entirely skewed view of entire events and people. There's a lot going on there to discuss
tifffff!ferg!!!! i thought of you the other day because i heard someone say “current day adults are deconstructing from christianity, but when today’s kids grow up they will have to deconstruct from being exploited on social media/tv/mommy blogs/etc” and i was like omg i wish tiffany ferg would make a video essay about that topic!!!!! i also just watched a kurtis conner video about these insanely exploited australian bro squad kids and it is so scary to imagine what those kids will have to deal with in the future.
kelgore!! always love seeing your face pop up! and totally, I will always be fascinated about the impacts / effects of family vlog content. I'm sure we'll hear more and more from the kids as they grow up
I work in reality TV as a producer (primarily in post production). This past year has been HELL for our industry - there has been VERY little work, the networks haven't been buying and greenlighting anything. I was excited to see this video in my subscription box! I personally care a lot about treating cast members well - I care a lot about getting to know who they are, learning their stories, and figuring out the best way to tell their stories to audiences in a way that makes sense (because real life rarely makes sense or has a clear concise storyline!). Not everyone in this industry is like me - not everyone cares about the well-being of their cast members and making sure the stories we tell will make them feel PROUD and SEEN instead of erased and misportrayed. But unfortunately not everyone is like me! And I wholly agree about how the working conditions are harsh, unreasonable, cruel, and not conducive to a good work environment - and frankly, not necessary to make great television. Another thought - reality TV producers have no union, no working protections, nothing. We are routinely forced to work untenable hours without any kind of paid overtime (while other people on the crew who ARE protected ARE paid more for the overtime). We are all freelance and many of us are mistreated as well by the wealthy higher ups (the networks and production companies, who set the budgets and the schedules and make MOST of the decisions). And not a lot of people are talking about that! We're seen as the "guys in power" when most of us are being mistreated just the same as the contestants. Bethenny has actually been VERY supportive, and I think if anything is going to change, it's going to happen from someone like her bringing us together and leading the way. Anyways, I have a thousand thoughts about this video as I was watching, that's just a small part of it, love that you covered this topic and would love to see you cover it more (and if you ever wanna talk to a reality TV producer when researching a video, I'm totally down)
That's a really valuable insight - thanks for sharing your experience. It makes sense that the exploitation is a chain that keeps going. And what a surprise there are a few wealthy fat cats at the top raking it in at the expense of everyone else. Who'd have thunk it eh? Hope things get better for you and your next gig is at the very least a step away from this type of crap.
I used to know a woman who was a talent scout for reality TV. It was fascinating hearing her talk about trying to find contestants who were stable enough to not pose a threat, but unstable enough to make for good TV. Also about finding a group of people who's personalities would intentionally clash in order to cause more drama. Apparently the company she worked for also had a social media follower range they'd cast in. They didn't want someone who was an internet "nobody," but they also didn't want someone who already had a fully established following. I believe that could be because it would take too much power out of the producers hands and into the contestant's. Obviously ppl seem to assume that's happening already, but it was really interesting and sort of disturbing to talk to someone directly about that process
The irony of the squid game show 😭😭😭. It’s like society completely disregarded the actual meaning and instead chose to capatlise on it. Love humanity 👧
My friend works at one of the main UK broadcasters and she told me she was out having drinks one night with some people. One of them worked in the reality tv show division and was apparently complaining because of all the new uk regulations in reality tv, saying stuff like ‘we used to be able to do whatever we wanted with the contestants’. Given the pretty dark and tragic stuff that’s happened to contestants over here, that was pretty sickening to hear. I hope the manage to find a proper way to get protections.
I used to think that reality TV show contestants are desperate, fame-hungry talentless people whose only schtick is creating drama & exhibiting the worst human qualities…. This video essay gave me a new perspective. Even if the contestants are exactly like what I mentioned, that doesn’t warrant this downright cruelty & @buse.
I don’t really watch Reality TV but I watch Drag Race content and the stories and scandals and mistreatment that is so abundant in that series with basically no improvements or comment being made from production is frustrating. It low key feels like that franchise has a monopoly on drag itself and drag artists can’t risk taking action against the franchise because they also depend on it.
great video as always! fun fact nick thompson and jeremy hartwell from love is blind started the ucan foundation, which is a group that advocates for reality tv cast members/ provides mental health support and education about cast members rights, etc. and i heard about them from the game of roses podcast, who are also really vocal about exposing bad producing practices specifically on the bachelor franchise. definitely recommend for further listening on the topic!!
As a previous reality tv contestant, THANK YOU for making this. It’s so spot on. And many of us don’t even go on it for fame we just go on it because the challenge looks interesting/fun/life changing enough. For context I was on SAS who dares wins, I’m an adrenaline junkie and it was just my kind of thing.
This reminds me of Jenny Nicholson’s video on the 2010s show Opposite Worlds. A bad concept to begin with but also left multiple contestants with serious injuries.
This makes so much sense about red light green light bc the production themselves kept in these really weird shots where people were clearly not moving at all and were eliminated and they look extremely confused. Even tho they said they developed special technology to determine micro body movements, I don’t really believe something of that degree to be possible.
Listening to these shows' living conditions and contract rules is INSANE to me as someone who has done a psychology dissertation where I had human participants. The amount of ethical considerations (and clearances) I had to navigate were tedious but very necessary, and absolutely none of this would be even remotely allowed. It's inhumane.
I refuse to watch the Squid Game reality show as it’s honestly the dumbest decision any producers could’ve made. Did they miss the whole premise of the original show? About how atrocious the games actually are, even to the so called “winner”? How it’s meant to shatter the human spirit and degrade the players into a mere piece of chess for the rich to play with and laugh at their misery? What the hell. How did this reality show got approved? It’s sickening.
I highly recommend “Unreal”, a scripted drama about reality TV producers. One of the creators worked on The Bachelor, and the number of things it correctly predicted is scary, especially the season with the first Black “Suitor”. It gets pretty dark (my husband couldn’t finish it for that reason), but it’s really good.
thanks for talking about this!! i only watch a few reality tv shows, but love is blind is one of them, and it’s horrifying the kind of stuff that’s come out about how contestants have been treated
I’ll stick to bake off, it’s so wholesome and everyone seems nice and kind, all I know is they have to keep being on the show a secret as it’s filmed in advance
my manager's friend from college actually was The Bachelor once! it was crazy hearing from her what the show was like behind the scenes. i wish i remembered his name/what season it was, but she said he had a good time while there but it seemed to be different for the girls (though she didnt have too many details on that part) but that also the producers pre-selected already who would get a rose and continue on, and who would be eliminated, and apparently the girl that the guy really wanted to pick got villainized on the show even though she was apparently super duper sweet IRL so she got eliminated and they made him pick a girl he wasn't really vibing with at the end. their relationship lasted a very short time and later on he actually ended up asking out the original girl he wanted to pick and they dated for a while
This isn't really related to the exploitation side of the reality tv industry, but the premise of Love Is Blind is so damn ignorant of blind people's experiences. Can you fall in love with someone without knowing what they look like? I don't know, have you tried asking one of the thousands of blind people who are in loving relationships? That's a much easier way to answer your question. It's just another reminder of how invisible disabled people and our experiences are to most people.
Thiiiiiiis it was like.. if love is blind.., ask a blind person??? It was WILD. Also that there are no disabled people on the show, who would be automatically judged based on a mobility aid or something.
@@primarytrainer1 lol so the figure of speech comes FROM the disability! Blindness literally means people (not stricken with lol) who are blind. It isn’t JUST a figure of speech. It is a disability. That people use as a figure of speech.
I dont think this applies because blind people will never know what their partner looks like. The show wants to know if you can fall in love with someone you might think is unattractive if you fell for their personality first. And the answer is no
@@primarytrainer1 I get that its a figure of speech and that they weren't intending to invoke blind people with the title, but the word blind is in the title. The issue is that the question the show is based around (can you fall in love with someone without seeing them?) has an answer that must be ignored for the show to exist. You can fall in love with people without seeing them because blind people do it every day, but all of this must be ignored because it ruins the gimmick of the show. The experience of blind people must be invisible. And this, itself, is part of a larger issue which is that our lives as disabled folks are so often invisible to abled folks. Disabled stories and perspectives are not told, and our struggles are ignored, and so we very often can't join in with others because there aren't adequate accomodations for it. The show is just one example of it.
I do not watch reality tv. I remember the first season of survivor, my grandparents were so fascinated and I was horrified. People suffer enough, I’m not going to help build an audience to make more of it happen.
Tiffany thank you so much for mentioning PMDD. It genuinely had an impact on me, I feel less alone and it means a lot for someone who feels sort of like both a peer and an aspirational figure to be open about it. It's super underrated and rarely talked about. Wishing you rest, peace, joy and calm.
vaguely related to the topic but- PLEASE read laws, terms/conditions/privacy policies, contracts, etc, very carefully or have someone you trust read them for/with you if you can't understand them.
"Being controlling in all the wrong areas" reminded me of Jarvis Johnsons video on The Bachelorette Hannah B. The show constantly disrespected her by 1. Allowing people in relationships to make it to the finals and 2. Disregard what she says when she kicked off someone known by everyone as being manipulative and aggressive and the show allowing him to come back two separate times
I work on a competition show in post production and it can't be understated how much craft is put into these to get to the final product. There is no reality being portrayed because in the eyes of post it's all a performance that you're shaping to serve your goal: do your job. The script is the format of the show, but it all truly gets written after the cameras are put away, with any mistreatment (rife throughout the industry) being used to write a better scene. The more content filmed, the more potential to boil everything down into an enjoyable final product. If Squid Game Competition took a day to film one challenge, then hundreds of hours of footage have been parsed to the most concentrated 15 minutes possible; a segment in a 60 minute long episode in a 10 episode series.
The financial diet had this really great deep dive into 1990s rom-coms and how they've sort of fallen by the wayside and I think that a lot of people who enjoyed romance as entertainment have moved over to reality TV . I think that reality TV that focuses on relationships is just incredibly exploitative because there's just so much pressure on the contestants to have relationships, whether they actually feel genuine feelings or just get caught up in the excitement of the show.
I worked in a film industry. Worked on some brutal 13-16 hours work days. I worked in a costume department and had contact with all the people on set. Always tried to be very nice to everyone since we’re all in this shit together. No need to make things worse in a 16 hour work day with only one hour free for lunch.
Oh my GOD PLEASE DO A VIDEO ON PMDD!!!!! I have this disorder as well and it's completely debilitating. I just got out of my funk yesterday, posting on reddit about the hormone "rush" you get right before you start. It affects me almost every month and this last episode was BAD. After the "rush" I was able to literally breathe so clearly, I could hear things again. It's a surreal, out-of-body experience that is a silent killer to women's mental health. It does NOT get the coverage it needs. Please, if anything next, do a video on PMDD🙏🏼
I rarely comment on YT videos but had to say something here as a fan. I also used to judge people on shows UNTIL I myself signed up for what I thought was going to be a fun, harmless UA-cam video by a very popular channel. The way the footage was edited gave an impression to viewers that was pretty different from what happened irl. I got a ton of support but also some pretty cruel and racist comments from strangers on TikTok and other platforms that were based on things I never even said. So I now have so much more empathy for ppl on reality tv shows. These companies really do take what you say and cut and chop it up to look like something else for drama because they know what's going to make viewers react. Plus, when you have to condense hours-long footage into a 30 minute show, you omit so many conversations and content. I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if that frat guy on Squid Game isn't actually the cocky jerk they portrayed him to be. They just need to have a "bad guy" for the drama, otherwise no one would watch if everyone were nice and "boring" and reasonable.
For the guy on squid games he said on TikTok that people were talking down to him which is why that scene in the stairway happened. And the guy he argued with was actually the problematic one according to many contestants. I with your points
Watching this sent me down a very dark rabbit hole of thinking about all of the similarities these reality shows have with Zimbardo's study into conformity to social roles (aka Stanford Prison Experiment). It's never been replicated bc of all the ethical issues, and YET some of the conditions of these reality shows are alarmingly similar.
loved this video and love when you talk about reality tv! such an unregulated and often exploitative industry and i hope we see a rise in unionization for cast and crew alike! no one deserves awful working conditions like that (not to mention the psychological torture of being sleep deprived, starved, and deprived of your support system!!!). also, good on you for taking time off to be with your loved ones and i also understand the struggle of chronic illness (don't have PMDD but I know friends who do struggle with it). please rest whenever you need to, we're here to support you whenever you have the time/energy to create. the videos you make are intentional, well-researched, and thoughtful and i have no problem waiting a while for them. thanks for making them!!
how is anyone surprised with the conditions of the Squid Game Challenge?? like did no one watch the Squid Game show at all? how did these contestants come in thinking it'll be a good time?
Another aspect of reality TV I’ve recently been disturbed by in the UK is the phenomenon of politicians going on celebrity reality shows. Definitely seems like they’re trying to create new ‘relatable’ images for themselves and trivialises some of their terrible political pasts and beliefs
I know reality tv is a popular guilty pleasure and don’t condemn anyone for that. But I do think it’s kind of inherently exploitative when you have producers turning people into entertainment and money is on the line/adding an invisible layer of control. I feel like the industry would just need to be overhauled pretty excessively to get past the exploitative nature of it all.
Watching the squid game reality show I could not for the life of me understand why people were falling so dramatically or even crying. But now it literally all makes sense
It’s ironic that this video is released the same day as the Unplanned podcast releases their interview with Jill Diggar about what’s it like being in a reality TV show.
Ok I know this is not the point but as a lawyer I can't help but give props to the drafters of the 'Love is Blind' contracts. Covering your client's a** to the max. Obviously it's messed up what they put the contestants through. This is a reminder that it is always a good idea to consult your own lawyer. It is never a waste of time and money to seek legal advice.
I'm surprise no one had mentioned the reality show "baddies" & how they filmed a girl in the middle of a seizure/ mental break down with vomit last sunday.
I would love for you to analyze "jury duty", it's "reality tv" technically but feels different. It felt truly ...wholesome? and I didn't feel like I was watching reality tv. Would love to hear your take.
Based on with the guy in it said it sounded like coming back to reality was very uncomfortable because he didn’t know what to believe. While it seems “wholesome “ it felt quite harmful
Unrelated to the video topic but I got a TurboTax ad during the video RIGHT after you said "Let's see how far we can push someone before they snap" that started out "Snap your W-2..." and I about spit out my drink🤣
I’ve always thought that reality tv producers are lowkey some of the most vile people on the planet, they don’t view the contestants as people, just puppets they can manipulate how they want to get the biggest reaction/most drama no matter how much it traumatizes them.
The only reality tv show I like watching is survivor. Sure there’s a lot of producer cooking for the final cut , but at least you know what you’re getting into when you apply to the show (ei conditions and what not). Being a villain is often respected, the downside is that being boring/being a goat will garner you tons of criticism the further you make it (ex: Australian survivor Pia controversies)
hey Tiffany! i was wondering if you were caught up on the AI situation, specifically regarding generative AI and how that has affected all types of art in the past year. would be really interested in hearing your thoughts and analysis of that. very sorry to hear about your PMDD btw, take care of yourself ❤
Just as I was about to logout from UA-cam to work on my 2024 resolutions, I get recommended a Tiffany's video... Well, I guess I'll spend another half an hour here 😅
One of my mum's more distant colleagues went onto love Island a while back, and one of her bosses was told to and payed to watch the show as it came out to make sure there was nothing that could ruin the company that got said. Apparently, she doesn't know if it was the guy or the producer, but his role in the company was pretty overblown to make him seem more attractive. The guy kept his job, idk if he's still there. Like i said, it was a while ago. But like, you gotta be careful with this stuff: you could ruin you're whole career due to thr whims of the producer. Heck, worse, you could loose you life like that one Japanese boxer girl who was driven to su*c*de over a scripted and out of context scene.
Oh gosh, I had the most intense pmdd episodes during 2020-2022 and it was AWFUL. It just got worse each month. I feel for you sooo much, it was like losing myself for 2 weeks every month. Going into (reversible) chemical menopause has been the best thing that's ever happened to me. I have myself back all the time. I highly recommend looking into it if you haven't already ❤️❤
so youre telling me... a real life squid game was made and people subjected themselves to true punishment for money and they didnt even show the real footage as "reality" but instead cleaned it up so that it was basically just the movie again?, what a wild world
Most "Reality" shows straight up give me the creeps. The more we find out the gladder I am I don't watch them. I wonder sometimes how hard it is for "contestants" etc. to return to normal life. And what do taxes etc. look like on winnings and/or stipends? Like, there's gotta be people who've made negative income from reality shows. Edited for spelling
I'm still convinced when Survivor did their Monty Hall Problem twist Jeff rigged it so the player would survive each time (in order that the show wouldn't miss a chance to still have a tribal council vote in the same episode). The way he opened the 2 boxes that turned out to be safe is totally different than the way he opened the boxes that weren't, so I think each box could've been safe or not depending on the manner in which Jeff opened it.
if you think what you saw on netflix was bad...bad girls club was the OG in cast mistreatment. they got sued for allowing castmates to destroy other castmates' belongings. those same women actually peed in a tub and filled it with a bunch of other gross stuff and the victims were fishing their belongings out of that same tub. when new castmates arrived, they broke out in hives because the girls peed in the beds that belonged to the victims! and then there's zeus network who literally just got done airing an episode of a tv show featuring a woman having a medical emergency and they FILMED. ALL. OF. IT. even when she was appearing to have a seizure, they kept filming.
about the squid game red light, green light game: even anyone who has worked on one short film set would know that a NINE hour shoot for the equivalent of one round of a live sporting event is SO dumb for no reason. they could’ve used different lenses and shot it like a track meet, there didn’t need to be handheld cameras and closeups. not only was it cruel (most likely on purpose tbh) it’s too expensive. of course it would be different if it was fiction, but this is reality tv, not cinema
When I was a child, there was someone on Survivor who was from my hometown. He got pretty far. I have pictures with him after he returned home. Anyway. Around 2017-2018, he gave a talk about his experiences on the show. After he was selected to participate, he literally had to get up and leave. Nobody outside his immediate family and employer knew where he was - not even his coworkers. Nobody knew where he was till he was on TV. He says that he still keeps in touch with some of his castmates. And that the production is better and ensuring their casts have basic necessities. But there were a LOT of things he wasn't allowed to talk about. He said that he isn't allowed to talk about some stuff until six years AFTER Survivor as a show ends. He was on the show in the early to mid 00s. About twenty years ago. And he's still not allowed to talk about some stuff. Like, I get keeping the mystery to it. But like, that's a weird amount of time.
Despite the weirdness, it makes me happy that he had a pretty positive experience. Survivor is the only reality show I watch and I feel like most cast members don’t have anything bad to say about their experience.
@@caseytrimpin5220 He didn't talk much about Jeff, which I wonder if that's in regards to the NDA. And he never talked bad about anyone he was on the show with. But, he said that most of the cast still maintains contact. Of course I don't know what happened post-COVID. But he says he's kept regular contact with a few in particular, but they have larger casemate gatherings every few years. They even have talked about the changes that have been made to the show and such. As much horrible stuff comes out of reality TV, I'm glad to know that there's people like him that have had good experiences. He did the show and came back to his job. He didn't come out as someone with a large social media following or anything. Just gained a few friends from his cast and some cool stories that don't violate his NDA.
The reason why Bethany is so controversial in this conversation is because she was actively pursuing new opportunities for new shows with Beavo up until this past summer. It wasn’t until after they passed on her show that she suddenly wanted to have this “reckoning”.
People say, why do people still go on these shows? I have friends that know about the neglect on shows, and still think they could make it through these shows. They think they would make great tv and think they couldn’t actually be manipulated by producers.
The whole producer manipulation aspect is why I thought the TV show "Unreal" was so groundbreaking, especially season 1 (season 2 was too over-the-top, it felt a bit absurd). The main plot was meh, but the way they portrayed the reality TV sets and the producers' relationships with the contestants was incredible and horrific to watch
Would be interesting to analyse the difference between a season that did isolation Vs a season of the same show that doesn't. There is a season of bake off that was filmed during Covid restrictions so everyone was living together, not going home in-between episodes Vs all the other seasons that were made without that element. Didn't notice that much at the time but looking back I think it definitely changed elements of the show :)
Wondering if anyone else saw the scripted show UnREAL in the mid/late 2010s about the (dramatized) producer world behind shows like the Bachelor. Stories like this make me wonder how dramatized it really was.
I really liked the TV series Unreal that was about the behind the scenes of a Bachelor-like show. Would recommend! Though I think it got cancelled a couple of seasons in.
Which speaking of all of this i would definitely recommend the series UnReal. Its literally co-created by a former Bachelor producer and its about a similar show but how the producers manipulate contestants for drama
A lot of the issues we see with labor rights and regulations in reality TV production are a natural extension of why the genre is so explosively popular in the first place. Consider how reality TV had such a big cultural boom after the 07-08 writer's strike. There's a producer here in the comments even talking about how they themselves are freelance workers. It all ultimately boils down to the same problem that every industry everywhere has: Executives cutting corners to make as much money as possible. There's a deep cultural sickness there that I don't think we can get away with papering over for much longer.
You guys should check out the show UNREAL, it's about this exact topic, it's a drama series about the "behind the scenes" of a reality dating show and how toxic and manipulative the producers are :o it's a really good show!
yeah i’ve never liked most reality tv because to me it just comes across as manipulation of the cast and the audience (especially emotional manipulation on shows like the bachelor) and it gives me the ick. i’m kinda amazed that reality tv is still so popular
I agree with the conclusions in this video, but the first lawsuit mentioned at the end seems pretty silly. "Reality TV contestant" feels like one of the most obvious instances of a contract employee. They definitely deserve better compensation in that contract-no question-but I don't think that lawsuit is going anywhere. I hope all the best for the rest of them though!
I watch Ru Paul’s Drag Race and I’m wondering if anyone has seen anything come out from that show? I haven’t seen anything from former participants…has anyone seen or read anything about the contestants’ treatment while filming?
can't stop, won't stop thinking about reality tv... hope y'all enjoy this one! // Thanks again to Bellesa! FREE TOYS OR GIFT CARDS FOR TOYS! Everyone who signs up to my giveaway with Bellesa wins something! www.bboutique.co/vibe/tiffanyferguson-yt
Please do a video on how family channels are using shirtless dads etc to attract viewers. From seeing the SAHM trend you analyzed in the past it reminded me of this
I really liked the video but I hope that you please emphasize the fact that reality TV is INHERENTLY exploitative and all for the entertainment of viewers and profits for producers... it's like using deformed people for circuses but with the excuse that "they signed a contract"... there's a reason some drugs are illegal... just because people do it willingly it does not mean it's good for them and we should let it continue
Can you pls talk about Rupaul’s Drag Race?????
Thank you for making this video- it's so important to have a conversation about it, so well done for bringing it up! I used to really enjoy watching Love is Blind and Married at First sight, but the past few seasons of each have been awful because they're letting people on the show that should not be allowed in public let along on a reality show. Anyone who has had an abusive relationship with a narcissist, or even just a run- in with one knows how much damage they can do. At the very least they will drain your energy, at the worst...well - you've detailed that here in your video. It's one thing wanting to make good TV but putting people in danger by matching them with abusive people is never ok, and this seems to be commonplace now in these types of shows. It needs to stop.
Are you planning on publishing a survey about the topic of public housing in the US?
When "isolation" and "sleep deprivation" came up, I was like, um, those are considered psychological torture methods!
that was my thought exactly! they're the exact tactics cult leaders use to make their followers more submissive to them
They use to uave a reality show when you were alone in abox for like 100 days or just whoever lasts the longest. Now that one was brutal.😂 But people still signed up. Free country and capitalism.
Enhanced interrogation
And THIS is why I watch Bake Off. Contestants are obligated to go home each week and live their everyday life and just come to the white tent each weekend. I hope more reality shows follow that premise but sadly, I don't think it's going to happen with how much people love drama :(
It’s the only reality tv I watch. It just seems so much kinder, and there’s less of the manipulated editing.
The on,y one I watch, all they have to do is keep being o nether show a secret as it’s filmed in advance
a cooking show I really loved watching was School of Chocolate, because it was at the same time a competition and a masterclass taught by the chef Amaury Guichon (most people know him from being "that chocolate guy" who's always creating huge detailed edible sculptures). costestants win by accumulating points throughout the show, this way nobody has to be eliminated. if you loose a challenge, you get a mentoring and another chance to do better next time. I find this to be very nice and refreshing to watch
There's also Great British Pottery Throwdown and Blown Away for shows that are very sweet and supportive of the contestants
Agree, shows like Bake Off are the only ones I watch as well. May I recommend „The Great British Pottery Throwdown“? I love that show for the creativity and the wholesome teamwork it shows. The current season has just started…
Also with the writers strike that just happened, a TON of networks started pumping out reality shows because they don't need writers for that. Even more profit for the network.
This is not true - the networks are NOT pumping out reality shows and they did NOT pump out reality TV during the strike. I work in the industry and nearly everyone I know has hardly worked in 2023 - there was VERY LITTLE reality TV getting made in 2023 compared to previous years. There was no boom from the strike - if anything, the opposite happened, as the networks held their budgets while they waited to see how the strike played out.
Yep and yep!!!!
The writers strike in 2007 definitely spurred a lot of reality TV.
It’s not that these shows don’t need writers at all, it’s that they don’t have to hire unionized writers. The producers of these reality shows are doing tons of storyline producing/guiding to create an attention-holding narrative, but because these are almost entirely nonunion productions, they don’t have to be paid in the same way or given the same title as their unionized counterparts.
Good point! I knew there'd be some kind of writing/production, thanks for pointing out where that comes from! @@specialj67
i had ppl constantly asking me if i watched the new squid game reality show and i go “did… you… not watch the show? and the message you’re supposed to take away….?” i was dumbfounded and felt like i was in the twilight zone
Lmao huh
Thank you! I was beyond baffled... it made me question any bit of faith I have left in people and their intelligence 😂
It's because most are completely media illiterate
There's a woman named Sarah who was a participant on the The Challenge. She actually won once but in a end of game twist lost a very significant amount of money to her teammate.
She's now a psychologist who specializes in helping people recover from being on reality TV.
That was so devastating to watch!! After a grueling final, Johnny did her so dirty. And I don't think Challenge fans ever forgave him for that. And then, he didn't win any challenges for a lot of seasons after that, people thought he was cursed haha
The squid game reality show should have never been made in the first place. Did they miss the whole point of the original show? Anything is a cash grab no matter how morally wrong I guess. F*ck the producers and showrunners of that damned show
ppl would justify saying they don’t kill the contestants 😀😀 like ok good for them!!
LITERALLY.
Exactly!!!
It's fine! You see, it's not like they *forced* the contestants to participate...
@@arianamitchell7050 lol I despise that argument so much, people desperate for money who will happily be filmed doing whatever for a chance to be out of crippling debt, it's literally the same thing, it's why I felt gross about Mr Beasts version.
The last reality show I watched was Terrace House...which was canceled after one of the participants committed suicide after the bullying she endured as a result of the producers forcing her to be the "villian" of the season. I think about her all the time. :(
💔💔💔
That’s so sad omg
That's too much. They need to be held accountable.
oh no, i didn't know that :(
Hana Kimura 💔💔
I was on a reality tv show many years ago - isolated for over 3 months.
We confirmed that there is an A and B cast. Producers forgot a piece of paper in the house when we were locked in a bedroom to prepare for a live show. It stated who was important and who wasn’t. The winner was one of the A cast.
If you left without a medical issue yourself or your family, you would be fined.
The show was definitely different than the experience itself when I watched it after I got booted off, which explained a lot of why I and others were bullied by the public. I was suddenly a villain, which really wasn’t the case in the house - I’m outspoken but treat people fairly, suddenly I was a bully. Therefore I also got a lot of death threats etc.
We weren’t scripted or saw people from the outside, but 24/7 footage can be manipulated in many ways.
After the show we did get free therapy for a year’s time, some used it, I didn’t. But I probably should have cause I did not like to take public transportation or walk around the city alone.
I don’t regret doing it - it was a fun, hard, boring experience, and I learned a lot about myself. But I probably wouldn’t do it again.
Wow this sounds intense! Thank you for sharing, I hope you're doing better now
The fact that the actual squid game reality show had the same (minus the unaliving obviously) terrible conditions as the fictional show? Disgusting. I can’t believe they even made that show. It’s dystopian.
no it isn’t lol
@@alexandria65you don’t think it’s disgusting? Or you don’t think the conditions were actually that bad?
Hilarious that Rosanna has come out saying that Mr. beast did exactly what these shows do: misrepresent the activity and more importantly who won and how.
And the thing is like... isn't there always a disclaimer like "portions of the show *not affecting the results* have been edited"? Ro was straight up saying the top 4 were shown wrong and that the winner should've been disqualified LMAO
I can’t stand Mr. Beast and wish the cult around him would fucking stop.
I'm friends with Jackie, the deaf contestant on the show. And yup, she got lots of deaths threats, racism, ableism... after the whole TJ and women alliance thing. The only reason I gave in and watched it is because I remember when the drama came out, I talked about how I would be intrigued to see how it would work with a disabled contestant on it. I mean, I was one of those that didn't see the point in a reality adaptation, but... you know, still intrigued. There's obviously so much more she can't talk about legally, but the mess with Tim was a lot more than was shown on screen.
Hope your friend is getting the help she deserves! ❤ that’s awful :(
Lol no she didnt "abelism" 😂
@mariomario1462 very nice. Alot of Deaf or HOH people don't spell or type the best.
@@katc2040 and?
@@katc2040 Eh? My spelling is fine. "Ableism" is a word and our lovely pal, Mario, is the one who spelled it wrong.
For those intrigued by these shows I really recommend the show UnReal - it's a (fictional) behind the scenes look at the producers on a bachelor style reality show and their outrageously unhinged manipulative behaviour. Like a car crash piling up and up and then being hit by a train. 😅
I was about to suggest the same show. From s3 it becomes quite unhinged but s1 and s2 show a lot of what really happening behind the scenes.
I loved that series!
Fun fact: that show was created by a former producer of the Bachelor!
I loved this series!
If you're interested in reality tv critique/parody, watch Sex House on YT. I recommend watching it all at once; it's a slow descent into madness
also relevant: the wave of suicides linked to love island and big brother in the uk - many linked to the person's narrative on the show as a villian. contestants who are vulnerable, mentally ill, have had difficult backgrounds are all often more compelling as narratives and to watch, will have more emotional / explosive outbursts and ofc will be so much more vulnerable to criticism. its totally within a shows power to make it a great show and have some ethical standard (for example shows that focus less on interpersonal drama and more on skill level and challenges or creative output) but so many productions (and viewers) just dont care and are happy to watch people in distress as entertainment
nobody who was on BBUK has committed suicide after being on the show. The majority of people from BBUK have faded back into obscurity/normalcy after their time on the show.
Maybe you're thinking of the Terrace House, which is a different show and tragically did have a contestant bullied so much she committed suicide.
I think discussing BB would be really valuable too though. In a lot of ways it's different from what she's discussing here. We do see their treatment a lot (if you're in a country with live feeds still). When they cut feeds that obviously goes away, and the producers can talk to them in the DR privately. Even so, you see so much on feeds that people who solely watch the show on TV have an entirely skewed view of entire events and people. There's a lot going on there to discuss
sorry my bad, i think i got my reality tv shows mixed up, at the very least point still stands cause of love island but my apologies to BB@@abbyzinger
tifffff!ferg!!!! i thought of you the other day because i heard someone say “current day adults are deconstructing from christianity, but when today’s kids grow up they will have to deconstruct from being exploited on social media/tv/mommy blogs/etc” and i was like omg i wish tiffany ferg would make a video essay about that topic!!!!! i also just watched a kurtis conner video about these insanely exploited australian bro squad kids and it is so scary to imagine what those kids will have to deal with in the future.
kelgore!! always love seeing your face pop up! and totally, I will always be fascinated about the impacts / effects of family vlog content. I'm sure we'll hear more and more from the kids as they grow up
I work in reality TV as a producer (primarily in post production). This past year has been HELL for our industry - there has been VERY little work, the networks haven't been buying and greenlighting anything. I was excited to see this video in my subscription box! I personally care a lot about treating cast members well - I care a lot about getting to know who they are, learning their stories, and figuring out the best way to tell their stories to audiences in a way that makes sense (because real life rarely makes sense or has a clear concise storyline!). Not everyone in this industry is like me - not everyone cares about the well-being of their cast members and making sure the stories we tell will make them feel PROUD and SEEN instead of erased and misportrayed. But unfortunately not everyone is like me! And I wholly agree about how the working conditions are harsh, unreasonable, cruel, and not conducive to a good work environment - and frankly, not necessary to make great television. Another thought - reality TV producers have no union, no working protections, nothing. We are routinely forced to work untenable hours without any kind of paid overtime (while other people on the crew who ARE protected ARE paid more for the overtime). We are all freelance and many of us are mistreated as well by the wealthy higher ups (the networks and production companies, who set the budgets and the schedules and make MOST of the decisions). And not a lot of people are talking about that! We're seen as the "guys in power" when most of us are being mistreated just the same as the contestants. Bethenny has actually been VERY supportive, and I think if anything is going to change, it's going to happen from someone like her bringing us together and leading the way. Anyways, I have a thousand thoughts about this video as I was watching, that's just a small part of it, love that you covered this topic and would love to see you cover it more (and if you ever wanna talk to a reality TV producer when researching a video, I'm totally down)
thank you for sharing your perspective! so many workers of the audiovisual industry are underpaid and overworked...
That's a really valuable insight - thanks for sharing your experience. It makes sense that the exploitation is a chain that keeps going. And what a surprise there are a few wealthy fat cats at the top raking it in at the expense of everyone else. Who'd have thunk it eh? Hope things get better for you and your next gig is at the very least a step away from this type of crap.
Thank you for sharing your perspective! This is really interesting and I'd love to hear more! can you email me at tiffanyfergusonbiz at gmail .com?
I used to know a woman who was a talent scout for reality TV. It was fascinating hearing her talk about trying to find contestants who were stable enough to not pose a threat, but unstable enough to make for good TV. Also about finding a group of people who's personalities would intentionally clash in order to cause more drama. Apparently the company she worked for also had a social media follower range they'd cast in. They didn't want someone who was an internet "nobody," but they also didn't want someone who already had a fully established following. I believe that could be because it would take too much power out of the producers hands and into the contestant's. Obviously ppl seem to assume that's happening already, but it was really interesting and sort of disturbing to talk to someone directly about that process
The irony of the squid game show 😭😭😭. It’s like society completely disregarded the actual meaning and instead chose to capatlise on it. Love humanity 👧
My friend works at one of the main UK broadcasters and she told me she was out having drinks one night with some people. One of them worked in the reality tv show division and was apparently complaining because of all the new uk regulations in reality tv, saying stuff like ‘we used to be able to do whatever we wanted with the contestants’. Given the pretty dark and tragic stuff that’s happened to contestants over here, that was pretty sickening to hear. I hope the manage to find a proper way to get protections.
I used to think that reality TV show contestants are desperate, fame-hungry talentless people whose only schtick is creating drama & exhibiting the worst human qualities…. This video essay gave me a new perspective.
Even if the contestants are exactly like what I mentioned, that doesn’t warrant this downright cruelty & @buse.
I don’t really watch Reality TV but I watch Drag Race content and the stories and scandals and mistreatment that is so abundant in that series with basically no improvements or comment being made from production is frustrating. It low key feels like that franchise has a monopoly on drag itself and drag artists can’t risk taking action against the franchise because they also depend on it.
That's pretty much it. The whole top tier international and online drag infrastructure is connected to Wow and to each other.
RuPaul's drag race also infamously treats their cast members terribly
RPDR was the first thing I thought of when clicking on this video
Americans Next Top Model 😬
great video as always! fun fact nick thompson and jeremy hartwell from love is blind started the ucan foundation, which is a group that advocates for reality tv cast members/ provides mental health support and education about cast members rights, etc. and i heard about them from the game of roses podcast, who are also really vocal about exposing bad producing practices specifically on the bachelor franchise. definitely recommend for further listening on the topic!!
As a previous reality tv contestant, THANK YOU for making this. It’s so spot on. And many of us don’t even go on it for fame we just go on it because the challenge looks interesting/fun/life changing enough. For context I was on SAS who dares wins, I’m an adrenaline junkie and it was just my kind of thing.
This reminds me of Jenny Nicholson’s video on the 2010s show Opposite Worlds. A bad concept to begin with but also left multiple contestants with serious injuries.
I will never watch Opposite World, but I do watch Jenny talk about it a couple times a year. I can't get over how insane that show was.
This makes so much sense about red light green light bc the production themselves kept in these really weird shots where people were clearly not moving at all and were eliminated and they look extremely confused. Even tho they said they developed special technology to determine micro body movements, I don’t really believe something of that degree to be possible.
Listening to these shows' living conditions and contract rules is INSANE to me as someone who has done a psychology dissertation where I had human participants. The amount of ethical considerations (and clearances) I had to navigate were tedious but very necessary, and absolutely none of this would be even remotely allowed. It's inhumane.
I refuse to watch the Squid Game reality show as it’s honestly the dumbest decision any producers could’ve made. Did they miss the whole premise of the original show? About how atrocious the games actually are, even to the so called “winner”? How it’s meant to shatter the human spirit and degrade the players into a mere piece of chess for the rich to play with and laugh at their misery? What the hell. How did this reality show got approved? It’s sickening.
I highly recommend “Unreal”, a scripted drama about reality TV producers. One of the creators worked on The Bachelor, and the number of things it correctly predicted is scary, especially the season with the first Black “Suitor”. It gets pretty dark (my husband couldn’t finish it for that reason), but it’s really good.
thanks for talking about this!! i only watch a few reality tv shows, but love is blind is one of them, and it’s horrifying the kind of stuff that’s come out about how contestants have been treated
I'm just wondering why you are surprised lol
I’ll stick to bake off, it’s so wholesome and everyone seems nice and kind, all I know is they have to keep being on the show a secret as it’s filmed in advance
okay.
You can look into other craft shows of the same inkling like “throw down”(pottery) and “sewing bee”
my manager's friend from college actually was The Bachelor once! it was crazy hearing from her what the show was like behind the scenes. i wish i remembered his name/what season it was, but she said he had a good time while there but it seemed to be different for the girls (though she didnt have too many details on that part) but that also the producers pre-selected already who would get a rose and continue on, and who would be eliminated, and apparently the girl that the guy really wanted to pick got villainized on the show even though she was apparently super duper sweet IRL so she got eliminated and they made him pick a girl he wasn't really vibing with at the end. their relationship lasted a very short time and later on he actually ended up asking out the original girl he wanted to pick and they dated for a while
This isn't really related to the exploitation side of the reality tv industry, but the premise of Love Is Blind is so damn ignorant of blind people's experiences.
Can you fall in love with someone without knowing what they look like? I don't know, have you tried asking one of the thousands of blind people who are in loving relationships? That's a much easier way to answer your question.
It's just another reminder of how invisible disabled people and our experiences are to most people.
Thiiiiiiis it was like.. if love is blind.., ask a blind person??? It was WILD. Also that there are no disabled people on the show, who would be automatically judged based on a mobility aid or something.
it's just a figure of speech though, it isn't meant to be literal about people stricken with blindness
@@primarytrainer1 lol so the figure of speech comes FROM the disability! Blindness literally means people (not stricken with lol) who are blind. It isn’t JUST a figure of speech. It is a disability. That people use as a figure of speech.
I dont think this applies because blind people will never know what their partner looks like. The show wants to know if you can fall in love with someone you might think is unattractive if you fell for their personality first. And the answer is no
@@primarytrainer1 I get that its a figure of speech and that they weren't intending to invoke blind people with the title, but the word blind is in the title.
The issue is that the question the show is based around (can you fall in love with someone without seeing them?) has an answer that must be ignored for the show to exist. You can fall in love with people without seeing them because blind people do it every day, but all of this must be ignored because it ruins the gimmick of the show. The experience of blind people must be invisible.
And this, itself, is part of a larger issue which is that our lives as disabled folks are so often invisible to abled folks. Disabled stories and perspectives are not told, and our struggles are ignored, and so we very often can't join in with others because there aren't adequate accomodations for it. The show is just one example of it.
I do not watch reality tv. I remember the first season of survivor, my grandparents were so fascinated and I was horrified. People suffer enough, I’m not going to help build an audience to make more of it happen.
Tiffany thank you so much for mentioning PMDD. It genuinely had an impact on me, I feel less alone and it means a lot for someone who feels sort of like both a peer and an aspirational figure to be open about it. It's super underrated and rarely talked about. Wishing you rest, peace, joy and calm.
vaguely related to the topic but- PLEASE read laws, terms/conditions/privacy policies, contracts, etc, very carefully or have someone you trust read them for/with you if you can't understand them.
"Being controlling in all the wrong areas" reminded me of Jarvis Johnsons video on The Bachelorette Hannah B. The show constantly disrespected her by 1. Allowing people in relationships to make it to the finals and 2. Disregard what she says when she kicked off someone known by everyone as being manipulative and aggressive and the show allowing him to come back two separate times
I work on a competition show in post production and it can't be understated how much craft is put into these to get to the final product. There is no reality being portrayed because in the eyes of post it's all a performance that you're shaping to serve your goal: do your job. The script is the format of the show, but it all truly gets written after the cameras are put away, with any mistreatment (rife throughout the industry) being used to write a better scene. The more content filmed, the more potential to boil everything down into an enjoyable final product. If Squid Game Competition took a day to film one challenge, then hundreds of hours of footage have been parsed to the most concentrated 15 minutes possible; a segment in a 60 minute long episode in a 10 episode series.
The financial diet had this really great deep dive into 1990s rom-coms and how they've sort of fallen by the wayside and I think that a lot of people who enjoyed romance as entertainment have moved over to reality TV .
I think that reality TV that focuses on relationships is just incredibly exploitative because there's just so much pressure on the contestants to have relationships, whether they actually feel genuine feelings or just get caught up in the excitement of the show.
I worked in a film industry. Worked on some brutal 13-16 hours work days.
I worked in a costume department and had contact with all the people on set. Always tried to be very nice to everyone since we’re all in this shit together. No need to make things worse in a 16 hour work day with only one hour free for lunch.
Oh my GOD PLEASE DO A VIDEO ON PMDD!!!!! I have this disorder as well and it's completely debilitating. I just got out of my funk yesterday, posting on reddit about the hormone "rush" you get right before you start. It affects me almost every month and this last episode was BAD. After the "rush" I was able to literally breathe so clearly, I could hear things again. It's a surreal, out-of-body experience that is a silent killer to women's mental health. It does NOT get the coverage it needs. Please, if anything next, do a video on PMDD🙏🏼
I rarely comment on YT videos but had to say something here as a fan. I also used to judge people on shows UNTIL I myself signed up for what I thought was going to be a fun, harmless UA-cam video by a very popular channel. The way the footage was edited gave an impression to viewers that was pretty different from what happened irl. I got a ton of support but also some pretty cruel and racist comments from strangers on TikTok and other platforms that were based on things I never even said. So I now have so much more empathy for ppl on reality tv shows. These companies really do take what you say and cut and chop it up to look like something else for drama because they know what's going to make viewers react. Plus, when you have to condense hours-long footage into a 30 minute show, you omit so many conversations and content. I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if that frat guy on Squid Game isn't actually the cocky jerk they portrayed him to be. They just need to have a "bad guy" for the drama, otherwise no one would watch if everyone were nice and "boring" and reasonable.
For the guy on squid games he said on TikTok that people were talking down to him which is why that scene in the stairway happened. And the guy he argued with was actually the problematic one according to many contestants. I with your points
Been a fan of this series since 2018? 2019? Keep up the amazing and thorough research, writing, and thank you for your hard work Tiffany!!
aw thank you for sticking around!! glad you've been enjoying it :)
Watching this sent me down a very dark rabbit hole of thinking about all of the similarities these reality shows have with Zimbardo's study into conformity to social roles (aka Stanford Prison Experiment). It's never been replicated bc of all the ethical issues, and YET some of the conditions of these reality shows are alarmingly similar.
loved this video and love when you talk about reality tv! such an unregulated and often exploitative industry and i hope we see a rise in unionization for cast and crew alike! no one deserves awful working conditions like that (not to mention the psychological torture of being sleep deprived, starved, and deprived of your support system!!!). also, good on you for taking time off to be with your loved ones and i also understand the struggle of chronic illness (don't have PMDD but I know friends who do struggle with it). please rest whenever you need to, we're here to support you whenever you have the time/energy to create. the videos you make are intentional, well-researched, and thoughtful and i have no problem waiting a while for them. thanks for making them!!
aw this is so sweet, thank you! appreciate it
how is anyone surprised with the conditions of the Squid Game Challenge?? like did no one watch the Squid Game show at all? how did these contestants come in thinking it'll be a good time?
Another aspect of reality TV I’ve recently been disturbed by in the UK is the phenomenon of politicians going on celebrity reality shows. Definitely seems like they’re trying to create new ‘relatable’ images for themselves and trivialises some of their terrible political pasts and beliefs
I know reality tv is a popular guilty pleasure and don’t condemn anyone for that. But I do think it’s kind of inherently exploitative when you have producers turning people into entertainment and money is on the line/adding an invisible layer of control. I feel like the industry would just need to be overhauled pretty excessively to get past the exploitative nature of it all.
I’m still confused about how people were shocked over the Squid Game … like we all watched the show???
Watching the squid game reality show I could not for the life of me understand why people were falling so dramatically or even crying. But now it literally all makes sense
I still don’t know who saw Squid Games and thought it would be a fun reality TV show!
It’s ironic that this video is released the same day as the Unplanned podcast releases their interview with Jill Diggar about what’s it like being in a reality TV show.
Ok I know this is not the point but as a lawyer I can't help but give props to the drafters of the 'Love is Blind' contracts. Covering your client's a** to the max. Obviously it's messed up what they put the contestants through. This is a reminder that it is always a good idea to consult your own lawyer. It is never a waste of time and money to seek legal advice.
I'm surprise no one had mentioned the reality show "baddies" & how they filmed a girl in the middle of a seizure/ mental break down with vomit last sunday.
I would love for you to analyze "jury duty", it's "reality tv" technically but feels different. It felt truly ...wholesome? and I didn't feel like I was watching reality tv. Would love to hear your take.
Based on with the guy in it said it sounded like coming back to reality was very uncomfortable because he didn’t know what to believe. While it seems “wholesome “ it felt quite harmful
seconding this would love to see a vid about jury duty, such an interesting show
I didn't hear about that, was that said in the show? very good point, would be good to know more about how he feels about it@@artareon
Unrelated to the video topic but I got a TurboTax ad during the video RIGHT after you said "Let's see how far we can push someone before they snap" that started out "Snap your W-2..." and I about spit out my drink🤣
I’ve always thought that reality tv producers are lowkey some of the most vile people on the planet, they don’t view the contestants as people, just puppets they can manipulate how they want to get the biggest reaction/most drama no matter how much it traumatizes them.
The only reality tv show I like watching is survivor. Sure there’s a lot of producer cooking for the final cut , but at least you know what you’re getting into when you apply to the show (ei conditions and what not). Being a villain is often respected, the downside is that being boring/being a goat will garner you tons of criticism the further you make it (ex: Australian survivor Pia controversies)
We are less than a generation away from having actual gladiator death matches for groceries on TV
I found your channel about a month or two ago and Ive been watching your catalog, very excited to see a new video! And I love reality tv discourse
hey Tiffany! i was wondering if you were caught up on the AI situation, specifically regarding generative AI and how that has affected all types of art in the past year. would be really interested in hearing your thoughts and analysis of that. very sorry to hear about your PMDD btw, take care of yourself ❤
so good to see you back!
NEW TIFFANY COMMENTARY VIDEO DROPPED! you always do the best topics
Just as I was about to logout from UA-cam to work on my 2024 resolutions, I get recommended a Tiffany's video... Well, I guess I'll spend another half an hour here 😅
One of my mum's more distant colleagues went onto love Island a while back, and one of her bosses was told to and payed to watch the show as it came out to make sure there was nothing that could ruin the company that got said. Apparently, she doesn't know if it was the guy or the producer, but his role in the company was pretty overblown to make him seem more attractive. The guy kept his job, idk if he's still there. Like i said, it was a while ago. But like, you gotta be careful with this stuff: you could ruin you're whole career due to thr whims of the producer.
Heck, worse, you could loose you life like that one Japanese boxer girl who was driven to su*c*de over a scripted and out of context scene.
Oh gosh, I had the most intense pmdd episodes during 2020-2022 and it was AWFUL. It just got worse each month. I feel for you sooo much, it was like losing myself for 2 weeks every month. Going into (reversible) chemical menopause has been the best thing that's ever happened to me. I have myself back all the time. I highly recommend looking into it if you haven't already ❤️❤
I was just thinking yesterday “huh I wonder when we’ll get another Tiffany Ferg vid” :)
so youre telling me... a real life squid game was made and people subjected themselves to true punishment for money and they didnt even show the real footage as "reality" but instead cleaned it up so that it was basically just the movie again?, what a wild world
Most "Reality" shows straight up give me the creeps. The more we find out the gladder I am I don't watch them. I wonder sometimes how hard it is for "contestants" etc. to return to normal life. And what do taxes etc. look like on winnings and/or stipends? Like, there's gotta be people who've made negative income from reality shows.
Edited for spelling
Let's goooo! Hope you're doing well Tiffany:-)
I'm still convinced when Survivor did their Monty Hall Problem twist Jeff rigged it so the player would survive each time (in order that the show wouldn't miss a chance to still have a tribal council vote in the same episode).
The way he opened the 2 boxes that turned out to be safe is totally different than the way he opened the boxes that weren't, so I think each box could've been safe or not depending on the manner in which Jeff opened it.
if you think what you saw on netflix was bad...bad girls club was the OG in cast mistreatment. they got sued for allowing castmates to destroy other castmates' belongings. those same women actually peed in a tub and filled it with a bunch of other gross stuff and the victims were fishing their belongings out of that same tub. when new castmates arrived, they broke out in hives because the girls peed in the beds that belonged to the victims!
and then there's zeus network who literally just got done airing an episode of a tv show featuring a woman having a medical emergency and they FILMED. ALL. OF. IT. even when she was appearing to have a seizure, they kept filming.
about the squid game red light, green light game: even anyone who has worked on one short film set would know that a NINE hour shoot for the equivalent of one round of a live sporting event is SO dumb for no reason. they could’ve used different lenses and shot it like a track meet, there didn’t need to be handheld cameras and closeups. not only was it cruel (most likely on purpose tbh) it’s too expensive. of course it would be different if it was fiction, but this is reality tv, not cinema
When I was a child, there was someone on Survivor who was from my hometown. He got pretty far. I have pictures with him after he returned home.
Anyway. Around 2017-2018, he gave a talk about his experiences on the show. After he was selected to participate, he literally had to get up and leave. Nobody outside his immediate family and employer knew where he was - not even his coworkers. Nobody knew where he was till he was on TV.
He says that he still keeps in touch with some of his castmates. And that the production is better and ensuring their casts have basic necessities.
But there were a LOT of things he wasn't allowed to talk about. He said that he isn't allowed to talk about some stuff until six years AFTER Survivor as a show ends. He was on the show in the early to mid 00s. About twenty years ago. And he's still not allowed to talk about some stuff. Like, I get keeping the mystery to it. But like, that's a weird amount of time.
Despite the weirdness, it makes me happy that he had a pretty positive experience. Survivor is the only reality show I watch and I feel like most cast members don’t have anything bad to say about their experience.
@@caseytrimpin5220 He didn't talk much about Jeff, which I wonder if that's in regards to the NDA. And he never talked bad about anyone he was on the show with. But, he said that most of the cast still maintains contact. Of course I don't know what happened post-COVID. But he says he's kept regular contact with a few in particular, but they have larger casemate gatherings every few years. They even have talked about the changes that have been made to the show and such.
As much horrible stuff comes out of reality TV, I'm glad to know that there's people like him that have had good experiences. He did the show and came back to his job. He didn't come out as someone with a large social media following or anything. Just gained a few friends from his cast and some cool stories that don't violate his NDA.
The reason why Bethany is so controversial in this conversation is because she was actively pursuing new opportunities for new shows with Beavo up until this past summer. It wasn’t until after they passed on her show that she suddenly wanted to have this “reckoning”.
People say, why do people still go on these shows? I have friends that know about the neglect on shows, and still think they could make it through these shows. They think they would make great tv and think they couldn’t actually be manipulated by producers.
Yay!! Tiffany ferg upload on my birthday- the best gift of all
The whole producer manipulation aspect is why I thought the TV show "Unreal" was so groundbreaking, especially season 1 (season 2 was too over-the-top, it felt a bit absurd). The main plot was meh, but the way they portrayed the reality TV sets and the producers' relationships with the contestants was incredible and horrific to watch
love the new setup Tiffany! 😊💕
Would be interesting to analyse the difference between a season that did isolation Vs a season of the same show that doesn't. There is a season of bake off that was filmed during Covid restrictions so everyone was living together, not going home in-between episodes Vs all the other seasons that were made without that element. Didn't notice that much at the time but looking back I think it definitely changed elements of the show :)
Have you watched The Curse? In the context of this video, you might find it very interesting.
Clicked so fast lol reality tv is a serious gulity pleasure of mine
The series UNreal barely scratched the surface on the inner workings of reality TV.
Wondering if anyone else saw the scripted show UnREAL in the mid/late 2010s about the (dramatized) producer world behind shows like the Bachelor. Stories like this make me wonder how dramatized it really was.
I really liked the TV series Unreal that was about the behind the scenes of a Bachelor-like show. Would recommend! Though I think it got cancelled a couple of seasons in.
Which speaking of all of this i would definitely recommend the series UnReal. Its literally co-created by a former Bachelor producer and its about a similar show but how the producers manipulate contestants for drama
A lot of the issues we see with labor rights and regulations in reality TV production are a natural extension of why the genre is so explosively popular in the first place. Consider how reality TV had such a big cultural boom after the 07-08 writer's strike. There's a producer here in the comments even talking about how they themselves are freelance workers.
It all ultimately boils down to the same problem that every industry everywhere has: Executives cutting corners to make as much money as possible. There's a deep cultural sickness there that I don't think we can get away with papering over for much longer.
excellent video! happy new year to you
You guys should check out the show UNREAL, it's about this exact topic, it's a drama series about the "behind the scenes" of a reality dating show and how toxic and manipulative the producers are :o it's a really good show!
yeah i’ve never liked most reality tv because to me it just comes across as manipulation of the cast and the audience (especially emotional manipulation on shows like the bachelor) and it gives me the ick. i’m kinda amazed that reality tv is still so popular
ok
Love your videos!
Thanks TFerg!
I'm very happy that these issues are being brought to light, I can only hope that legislation will follow
I agree with the conclusions in this video, but the first lawsuit mentioned at the end seems pretty silly. "Reality TV contestant" feels like one of the most obvious instances of a contract employee. They definitely deserve better compensation in that contract-no question-but I don't think that lawsuit is going anywhere. I hope all the best for the rest of them though!
If you want to look at reality tv controlling contestants you should look into the rupauls drag race contract
Pursuit of Wonder has made a great video about how dystopian reality TV is 👍 I highly recommend watching it
I watch Ru Paul’s Drag Race and I’m wondering if anyone has seen anything come out from that show? I haven’t seen anything from former participants…has anyone seen or read anything about the contestants’ treatment while filming?
I have a premise for you. Lock a bunch of commentary channel YT folks in together for a month. They'll tell us how it really is
this is the highest quality video ive ever seen. literally im looking into 2050 rn I swear
Seems like the Squid Game reality show did capture the torturous monstrosity that was the 'real' game.