A 'Reality Reckoning' & Psychology Behind Our Love-Hate with Reality Stars

In this week's episode of Easily Entertained, your host and pop culture sherpa, Maddy McClain dives deep into the 'Reality Reckoning' discussing the psychosocial elements and the impact of reality TV on its viewers and stars. 

We follow Bethenny Frankel, former Real Housewife of New York who is leading the charge for a deeper look into the handlings of reality TV stars & production. From the Vanity Fair exposé to the recent ABC special, she and other costars are sharing their experiences in hopes to create a safer workplace. 

From there, we're discussing the influence of reality TV, the exploitation of reality TV stars and debates the hints of a potential unionization for reality stars, including those from Vanderpump Rules, Love is Blind, Bachelor and more.

Of course, a bit of pop culture news & tidbits alongside the usual unpretentious, humor of being Easily Entertained.

Enjoy homies!

Resources mentioned:
- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/love-them-or-leave-them/202307/why-we-love-to-hate-reality-tv-contestants
- https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/10/real-housewives-bravo-reckoning

Transcript

 Hello homies, hello friends, hello everybody.  Welcome to another episode, another week of Easily Entertained. I'm your host, your pop culture sherpa, Maddie McClain. It's so good.  As always, to be sitting down here with you, I did not do this too long ago, given the kind of random little Friday epi that we left.

I hope you guys enjoyed that. And I'm back to feeling, you know,  normal. And normal slash just not coughing out my left part of my lung or You know,  yacking about is over and I'm so happy, you know, when you're like I'm never gonna take for granted this feeling of being just normal and healthy. Like I promise you you're kind of like bargaining with God to just,  you know, wake up and for your illness to be totally gone and you're like I promise I'll never take it for granted again only for you  To take it for granted again, as soon as you're healthy.

So, but you know what baby, that's the cycle of life. Cycle of life. Just a bunch of horse shit, round and round. Anyways,  I promise I'm fine. I promise I'm doing great, really. But,  it's that weird time of the year. It's that two weeker, I guess. Um, in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Or whatever holiday you celebrate, just basically. 

Um, where we sit around and kind of just wait for it to be time for us to just totally slack off at work and, you know, be on our merry holly jolly ways. So, I know how we all may be feeling, but hopefully this little bit of pop culture can bring those Christmas spirits right back up. I, I don't know. I don't know.

A girl can help.  Today, we will be largely talking about The Reality Reckoning. This is the name of a, I don't know, a quasi movement led by none other than past Real Housewives of New York, Bethany Frankel.  Ha ha. And I have seen So we want to get right into this video and talk to today's video, this video is  You know, streaming comps,  that's companies, that did not need to be abbreviated, but that everybody's gonna need to face.

Reality TV has always been super popular, has always been part of the zeitgeist, pop culture news. It's always, I mean, not always, but you know what I mean? It's been around and it's a huge part of why I I created this podcast and I think that there is so much to always talk about when it comes to reality TV and just how  realistic it really is, but it is also tells us a lot about our own psyche and the psychology behind why we're so entertained by reality TV and why, you know, keyboard warriors out there are so quick to be so nasty.

to everybody on TV. And yet, why do people put themselves in these positions? The, you know, contestants and reality TV stars themselves. So that will be the majority of this episode. Um, it's very interesting. I did a lot of me research. There was a long Vanity Fair article that kind of broke Bethany Frankel's, quote, reality reckoning.

into the ether, kind of on the backs of the strikes that were going on earlier this year for a long time with writers and actors in Hollywood.  But reality TV, as we knew then, kind of didn't really fit in that category, as they're not really protected by those same kind of AFTRA that do support and essentially are the unions.

Well,  anyways, the negotiating parties with those unions, but  it kind of opened up this giant can of worms especially with the fallout of Scandaval and the very epic, very dramatic, very public, and very much talked about cheating scandal that went down on Vanderpump Rules between Ariana Maddox, Tom Sandoval, and Rachel slash Raquel Levis. 

And she, Raquel Levis, is brought into this conversation, too, thanks to good old Bethany. So we're talking Vanderpump Rules, we're talking other reality TV shows, too, that are part of this kind of reality reckoning movement, including Love is Blind, one of the couples that actually did make it out, married and stayed together for a little bit.

Um, although, surprise, surprise, they are not still together now. Um, Nick and Danielle from, I believe, season one. But,  anywho, so, we have so much to talk about when it comes to that.  Before we get there, let's talk about just a few of our pop culture news updates for you. We have a sad one, in my opinion, because we have yet another Hollywood couple.

I don't know if I call them a Hollywood couple, that doesn't even feel right. Like, just iconic music  couple, I guess. Broke up. It was confirmed last week that Cardi B and Offset have broken up. They have a child together and it's very, very sad. Um, but they kind of were keeping it mum, I guess.  Whoever is able to be so sneaky as to, like, notice when these celebrities unfollow each other did so.

They noticed that Cardi B and Offset unfollowed each other on Instagram. Dun, dun, dun. Fueling speculation. And, I mean, I would say this also probably was a tip off on her story. She posted something like, you know, when you just outgrow relationships.  Um, and then another one was like, I'm tired of protecting people's feelings.

I gotta put myself first. So, I don't know. It's not like this couple has had it real easy, because back in 2020, Cardi B had filed for divorce. Because Offset had cheated on her. And then later she called off the divorce because they got back together.  It's just, it was crazy. And Offset did some sort of public apology to Cardi B. 

I think using Twitter, so.  If a Twitter apology doesn't scream romance, I don't know what does. I mean, just  seepin in romance. So that's another couple that's spittin the dust. Um, and somebody else that is leaving is Bobby Burke is leaving Queer Eye after this next season that is coming out soon. That's located in NOLA, or New Orleans. 

He, Bobby Burke, is the undisputed hardest working of the Fab Five, in my humble opinion, slash I think in nearly the entire nation's opinion. It's crazy. So of, in the show Queer Eye, which is a reboot of the original, you have five delightfully queer guys who basically help glow up. People's entire lives from different aspects including they have Tan who does like the styling and fashion Tan France, then you've got kind of hair grooming Aesthetics hygiene, whatever you want to call that which is our  person JVN and then we have  the Emotional, I suppose, glow up who's just like they're like a therapist really Karamo who now has his own talk show which makes total sense  and oh my gosh, then we have Antony who is the food and cooking guy, although  everyone's kind of joke is he essentially comes back with like  A melon with prosciutto, and it's like the most easy dish ever.

Um,  so then of course you've got Bobby, and he's out here doing Extreme Homemaker 2005. You know, out here just working his ass off. You hardly see him really in the show because he's working so hard. The way that these people's either you know, homes or bedrooms or whatever it is that they choose to redo, comes back looking like a different place.

And there hasn't always been peace, I guess, among the Fab Five.  I believe it was,  who was,  Antony got married and, like, didn't invite  Karamo and a few others. There's, you know, there's been whispers of it, them all not being close besties. But, I mean, they all got together and were put together because, for the show, Queer Eye.

So,  it's not that shocking that they wouldn't all love each other to bits and pieces.  You know what I mean? But, that's sad. So, Queer Eye and production and other castmates. Nobody has confirmed or denied or really said anything as if there is somebody to replace Bobby.  Who knows, maybe their expenses are getting slashed. 

Cause that probably took up most of the money, but that's a complete guess there. Although it is confirmed that there are two more seasons to follow the upcoming New Orleans season, so.  Um, and that is, Season 9 is the most upcoming one. So it's been around for a while now, which I love. It's such a good, like, feel good show.

You know, if you watch, like, a creepy or a, for me, true crime, like, docu series or some shit, you just need something to  To like sandwich that, you know, especially before going to bed. So sometimes it's New Girl. New Girl is a good one for that, but  same with Schitt's Creek. You know, one of those rewatchable, put it in the background, don't think about things. 

What else do we have here today for you all? I think we get right in to this reality reckoning.  So there was a very long, large, but detailed Vanity Fair article. That starts out honing in with a story of an over served, shall we say, housewife on a filmed trip with her castmates.  So if you don't watch Real Housewives, what are you doing?

And then, As a follow up, nearly every season there's at least one cast trip that they all take that production kind of pays for and  where the drama goes down, right? So,  it's, the,  the article surrounds Leah McSweeney who was on Real Housewives of New York for just two seasons. 12 and 13, so not very long, but she, it kind of follows her sobriety story and right as she had signed on to be in this new cast for season 12, she had just, um,  I guess she had just relapsed, but she is a recovering alcoholic and the production knew this and it kind of follows her journey on the show. 

They reveal a lot of the kind of the behind the scenes production secrets that we all  we all know exists But like they've kind of just confirmed some things like for instance They'll hold up cards the production in the background or put it on their phone in big letters They can see it like bring up Sonya's drinking Referring to Sonya Morgan to another cast of me, you know, they have these hot sheets or whatever that after filming The, the production assistants or whoever will write down kind of the major beats or the major  What what are plot lines that are going down and what's something that we can?

Kind of turn into a narrative make it bigger whatever at the end of the day. Let's all remember That these companies are businesses that need to make money, and we're signing on to watch these Real Housewives reality stars from, you know, which the first one was actually Real, real World on MTV.  Go figure.

Um.  So we open on this scenario of this, of Lea McSweeney who is really fighting to stay sober and we She had already kind of relapsed but before she went on the show and you kind of just watch her spiral and she's like Wild drunk she became known as Hurricane Lea for like throwing a tiki torch Like butt naked at somebody's party  Yeah, see this is why I watch this shit.

This is why we all watch this shit. That's crazy. That's crazy. But um, so we're following her story alongside kind of Bethany Frankel who  She's leading this pack, right, to essentially unionize, to make conditions better for reality stars on these sets. And before I dive into it, just know that Bethany Frankel, there was no Bethany Frankel before Bravo came along.

She was on I think 10 or 12 seasons. She was also a co producer. She started a business called Skinny Girl, which is the Skinny Girl Cocktails, that she ends up selling off for a hundred million dollars. This is, I mean, back in, she got her start back in 2005 with The Real Housewives. Um,  And now she's, I mean, she's sittin pretty, she's not asking for money, and she'll say that, and, you know, yadda yadda.

But, she'll also, in the same breath, say things as like, No, Andy Cohen did not make me a star, I'm not biting the hand that feeds me. Like, he built this on the backs of other housewives, yadda yadda. It's like, uh,  I don't think that your fame, your notoriety, your, the money that comes with that, would happen without it.

Which is why, There is the infamous, what they will call on Bravoverse, Bravo TV, the Bethany Clause. And the Bethany Clause was made because Bethany was the only housewife, I suppose, at the time, who, when looking at the contract that she was signing,  she removed a section that would have Bravo and the production company take a cut of whatever other business products That the housewives may promote or talk about on the show. 

So for her skinny girl, and they would have gotten a cut of that, but she took that out. So now this Bethany clause is so that no other housewives do that on their show.  Shitty? Yeah. Sounds like business? Yeah. So, I don't know. Can't fight it that much.  So,  I wanted to read a few passages, and we'll keep talking about this Vanity Fair article. 

So this is the deal Bravo stars make with the devil, and there are many stars. There are currently 10 Real Housewives shows and about 20 other properties in the Bravo reality space, including the Emmy winning Top Chef and improbable Emmy nominee Vanderpump Rules. The biggest series have 11 million viewers each.

Network exec turned Master of Ceremonies Andy Cohen hosts Watch What Happens Live, a nightly talk show in which non Bravo celebrities and cast play games as Coen pulls the at home audience with questions like Rich which real housewife of New Jersey has the better bad nose job?  Be like, Watch What Happens Live and Andy Coen is so friggin iconic because there's nothing else.

There is no other  Show like it. There really isn't. It's like a late night talk show with games, but it's so involved in this one sphere of reality TV. It's kind of like ESPN's like pre and post and during talking head shows and shit. You know what I mean? Like we all have, we all have our little interests and our little obsessions and our little worlds, right?

And I think Andy Cohen is one of the smartest businessmen out there to have  Masterfully put this all together and you have all of the watch what happens live is kind of like where all of the crossovers happen and now, of course, there's lots of crossover Bravo TV shows that stand up on their own. But  I mean, let's just give it to the man.

So as you can tell already, I'm just annoyed That somebody who's completely been brought up  because of Bravo and Andy Cohen is now kind of slapping him, right? Okay, so back to the article. Um,  they talk about the production team sending out the beats of each scene, topics they've written and want addressed.

And one of the large talking points of this is, you know, on the backs of what we talked about earlier, Leah McSweeney's sobriety story and alcohol kind of being a Quote, a character of its own. Right. From, really from all reality TV shows, from Real World, to Bachelor, to Bravo, you have, I mean,  if you are making a reality TV show, and you want drama, because that's what attracts viewers, then you're probably going to leave alcohol on the table. 

But I can definitely agree that there are lines, right? There are boundaries that should be drawn. Uh, Leah McSweeney also says and mentions, you know, at bars they're able to cut people off, you know, they can stop serving somebody if they seem too drunk. So in the same way, I totally agree with that.

Production should step in and maybe at least, as she's saying, get them some water if they're slurring their speech and they can't even walk. Probably Don't be recording them. I don't know. The thing is all of these companies know this shit And then the risks are in the contracts themselves and they're definitely made aware of what they're being paid to do, right?

Conditions and lines and boundaries can always and definitely and I support being improved for Reality stars. Um, but it's this re, this kind of rallying call against Bravo and Andy Cohen and just reality TV in general, which is like, I guess I understand. I've always come from the thought of when  celebrities and actors and actresses and what have you, no matter how they're made famous are now in this kind of  in this fame scenario, and they publicly Complain about the drawbacks of being famous. 

It just rubs me the wrong way and I'm, I, like many of you, I'm quick to be like, Yeah, shut up.  You know, like, just cry into your, your silk pillow and your wads of cash, right? Like, they'll take your tears, not us. Um, I do have a heart though, too, and We, as the public, don't have  the right to demand anything from these people.

Right? We're watching the show, like, they don't owe us anything. They technically owe the  production companies and the people behind these shows, producers and directors, or whatever, showrunners, because they signed a contract, on the other hand. Um, I don't know, it got so bad that Leah McSweeney went to a, she ended up checking herself into a mental health institution after her first season on the show.

She had relapsed and, um, was a mess, but then fans loved her so much for it because it was wild, and they called her Hurricane Leah.  She still, even after all that, comes back as sober for another season, and, um,  then her grandmother tragically passes and she claims that, you know, production encouraged her to stay filming, and she missed.

The passing of her grandmother, but  even so, after all of that, and that's terrible and horrible, she leaves the show, they don't invite her back on, but they invite Leah McSweeney to some basically kind of a revamp, it's called Ultimate Girls Trip, where they have like a lot of the all stars from different Real Housewives shows.

Go on a trip and they offered, they paid her, I think it was 250, 000 for one week of filming.  Which is, I mean,  I personally would take it and so she did too. Even though she's going through all of these, this is, she's explaining this kind of bumpy road that she's already had. Filming with them and she keeps going back and back and back.

And um,  Eventually after that, she is just, it's kind of forms, uh, the last straw, basically, and Leah McSweeney stopped filming with them. And now, after all of that,  reading from the article again, On March 10th, 2023, McSweeney and her attorneys at Edelman Matz filed an employment discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Bravo.

Shed Media, the production company, and its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Cohen, Shannon, Paparazzo, and Ward, those are all producers, citing a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.  On May, later an attorney representing all of those respondents denied the claims and response stated that McSweeney's disabilities were allowed for, as they had offered, And this disability is her, is her, um, addiction, is, um, her alcohol abuse, substance abuse, which is technically part of the ADA, which I did not know until this either, but apparently production had offered her.

Plenty of services and mental health support at no cost during and after and all of this. Who's to say what really happened, but they've denied all of this, and they actually kind of flip it on her and say,  And only internally expressed frustration with the fact that she was knowingly misrepresenting what had transpired. 

Um,  yeah. So, I think that one's a little bit harder. There's no way.  I mean, I guess castmates kept bringing up things about her drinking and wanting to get her drinking. And that's, that's fucked up on its, on its own. Like, just let the girl be. But that's not really, I don't think, grounds for any sort of legal  ramifications, you know, like we all,  we all are, we all are adults here, so we can make the decision or not, but, and she kept going back.

So nothing's really going to happen there, but  Leah does in fact support this  almost creating a union for reality stars. And the article goes on to really just paint the picture of what other kind of toxic  Toxic work environment that does exist, namely, they're really focusing in on Bravo, um, because Bethany Frankel, that's her experience with it, but, um, including things like racism.

One of the more notorious housewives, also from New York, is Ramona Singer, who has always been problematic, uh,  just the things she says, she's just like.  Not all there, you know, not not all there upstairs not to absolve her of all the crazy shit She said but this article also expands on that She allegedly had told a black woman staffer, quote, There's so many of you guys here now, please don't change your hair, as I'm not going to be able to remember anybody's names. 

Ugh, that is a shit thing to say, that's horrible. Um, Singer says this was the kind of thing she commonly did. She said, oh no, it's just, quote, strictly a commentary on my inability to remember names. As an example, just last week, I saw a photo with me and Travis Kelsey. from 2016 on Watch What Happens Live, and I thought he was Jax Taylor. 

This is her actual response that she emailed back to Vanity Fair when talking about this. Um, so that really puts it into  perspective here of the kind of person we're talking about. Um, and she had allegedly also used the N word in a conversation, not calling somebody that, but that's just as bad, um, about another separate slur.

She was comparing some other slur. And she says this to a black producer of the show. Um, and that producer, of course, you know, after the fact, let people know what was going on and the obvious uncomfortability. Um, and when this had come out, people had known that she was already hired for another season of an Ultimate Girls Trip and had come on Watch What Happens Live, actually, relatively recently, like, sitting on Cohen's lap, so it was a bad look.

Um, eventually they did essentially fire her and she did not go to BravoCon, which is, as you may guess, like a three day convention for all Bravo Fans, they have pretty much all the Bravo Labradors there from all of the many TV shows. And, um, she was uninvited to that and did not come. So, they, they made some moves.

And after this kind of  dusted up a bit of drama, they're adding in additional mental health support and mental health opportunities for castmates and these stars to take advantage of. Um,  you know, and it's not something new, right? Like, um, the, the article goes on to say, on Kinetic shows, Kinetic being a, the, production company for Love is Blind, The Ultimatum, and Married at First Sight.

Professionals interview each cast member prior to filming to evaluate whether they're in a headspace to be on, and subsequently off, reality television. Similar protocols are in place on Love Island, The Bachelor, and MTV's The Challenge. Frankel says she underwent emotional and psychological testing during casting for The Apprentice, which aired on NBC.

That's how she, she was on The Apprentice for a season and then was made a housewife, um, a source of knowledge of the casting process. Clarified that while psych evals take place for competition series, like Top Chef and Project Runway, unstructured Unscripted series, like the Real Housewives only require partners to have already cast.

Talent speak with a psychologist in a meeting. NBCU calls, quote, intro to psych.  So  that sounds, and lots of other, um, reality starts have confirmed that too, that they took this kind of BSS course on, um, staying psychologically healthy.  But, um, after this, this article had come out, uh, in late November, during the time of BravoCon and I, obviously that was planned out and it didn't really, didn't really change anything, um, but the idea is still going around and you have Nick from Love is Blind, and all of the recent Love is Blind suits that have been filed that we've seen that actually have not affected its existence.

They recently came out and confirmed that there will be two more seasons  to start on Valentine's Day of 2024.  So, there is this reckoning with the kind of backbone of this argument. It really being that reality stars should have the ability to unionize, but if anything, there needs to be more attention paid to the conditions.

Because at the end of the day, it is a workplace, just like any other, they're getting paid to do this. Some, not so much. And some are getting super exploited and taken advantage of.  But at the very least, I think that, yes, there should be more, at least, at the very least, like third party. companies that keep an eye on these sets, you know, how long have they been filming for, how much, you know, like in the case of Love is Blind, are they getting enough food and water and not just fed alcohol, which they've of course denied, and things like that, but At the end of the day, there's always going to be people that want to be on reality TV.

And there's always going to be people that want to watch it. And  I do think there could be some more, you know, just safety. But also,  everybody's an adult at the end of the day. And we all have an ability to make our own decisions and choices. And  It just, I think the fact that Bethany is leading this charge is funny.

Also because she still has a podcast called Rewives that's totally based on interviewing and talking with other housewives about Bravo shows  while this is happening, right? Like it just, that doesn't.  It doesn't really work here. And I suppose we could call that something like Stockholm syndrome. If we're going real dramatic, like she's still with the person and like, she just can't get away from this reality life, even though she's filing like.

She's kind of publicly combating them,  but nah for me. I'm just gonna say that makes no sense. She's  She's very much a outspoken and we'll tell you what she thinks kind of Personality so much so that she got herself in like a public feud  with Dave Portnoy  from barstool sports  Um, how that came about. So, you know, the frat bro y barstool sports, like, I'm still a fan, like, I like chicks in the office, BFFs can be entertaining, like, I'm a fan.

Um, but yeah, there's no denying it's definitely a bro culture y.  Shindiggery going on over there, but there was some rumor that went out recently that Dave Portnoy, who had recently broken up with his girlfriend, um, had hooked up with Rachel Raquel Levis from Vanderpump. But in reality, I suppose they'd only, they'd happened to be in the same city at the same time, and it was just fake news.

Um, and when Dave was addressing this on his podcast, he called Rachel Levis a trash bag. I mean, that's just him too, like, very  Northeastern, frat boy, says what he thinks, but hilariously, in my opinion. Um,  and Bethany is like, tell, you know, thinks that Dave has no business calling her a trash bag, and it's basically like, take that back,  you know, what your teacher would do, but. 

And yeah, let's not call people trash bags, but come on!  We can't all, like,  I don't know, at this point everybody wants to just, like, sit around and kumbaya and And, I mean, I'm here for kumbayas. I love peace. I love kumbayas. Love it.  But I also want to sit back and watch some grown people yell at each other on my TV, you know?

You know what I'm saying? So, I looked into this for us, you know? Why do we love to hate it? Like, reality TV is also something that you kind of like, you know, it's a dirty little habit.  Um, and I, according to Psychology Today, there are quite a few different reasons behind this, right? So,  Why do we love it so much, and why is there this kind of,  we feel the entitlement, right, to speak on these people in really harsh ways, and one of them is just kind of the sociological history of how we all existed, right?

So, when we're back in the day, And we,  this is, this is pre, pre DoorDash, pre  Netflix, we're talking, we're scratching our armpits and we're banging bones around.  I don't know where that came from, but you get what I'm saying, right? Flintstones, kind of. Back in the day, of course, much of the dependence on us making it relied on our ability to get along with and to exist within social groups You needed a social group and you needed people to like you in that social group to protect you too, right?

We depend on the safety and the support in order to survive the men they go out. They hunt down that  Dinosaur  for us to eat. Um, I'm obviously kidding, but yeah, and anyone who violates those codes, they were punished. Um, and if somebody, you know,  didn't get along with people, well then they would receive public backlash.

And that was kind of, back then, of, a little bit of a shaming, right? So that people learn the code of conduct. If you're not disciplined and people don't see somebody be disciplined, then they don't,  they realize that they can do that and it must be okay. So back then, you know, that's how we survived. And we still have that part of us, um, in our, deep in our psyches, right?

And we're almost kind of playing that out on the reality TV contestants and stars themselves, right? We see the villain on The Bachelor have no regard for anybody else's time, and  then kind of be an asshole. And we see that and we're like, hey, that violates our code of conduct,  F you,  da da da da, you're the worst.

And, um, we kind of, we're.  Almost admonishing them for our codes of conduct and seeing them as if they're in our little Groups of survival that we depend on but the problem is that we're no longer in those small tiny Roger, Roger Flintstone. Is that one of the Flintstones? We're just we don't longer need that right?

We don't all no longer need to reprimand each other in that way  but in this  In the way that we're, we feel as if we know these people that we see on TV, we have these kind of  parasocial relationships with, uh, influencers or, you know, it can be taken a different context, right? That it makes us feel entitled to participate in regulating their behavior.

According to psychology today, but you know, we aren't actually entitled to this and there's obviously the argument of the heavy, heavy editing that is done in these shows to create the narratives, but  another one is or kind of a concept is called the fundamental misattribution error, which sounds yikes.

You know, like most scientific things, sounds a lot scarier than what it really is, but it is a concept that quote, states that we view other people's behaviors as an indication of their character. But, when considering our own behaviors, we factor in the context and situational factors.  So for example, we are driving in traffic, somebody cuts us off, and we're like, You know,  stick it right there and you yell and, um, you know, totally couldn't relate, totally don't have road rage myself,  but, um, right.

But then if we do that and we kind of pull an asshole move and cut in front of somebody, we're like, okay, yeah, you know, I'm, I'm really late for an important meeting. I'm usually, I'm not the asshole, whatever, like it's okay. Cause it's me. So in this same manner, that's the fundamental misattribution error.

of giving the benefit of  context and situational background reasoning behind somebody's actions versus not doing that for others. We do this with reality TV show members or castmates or whatever, so instead they get the full, you know,  they're a bad person, but like, you know, for us we were probably like didn't hangry, so I'm fine.

Right? Um, and then this one that kind of relates to To what I was talking about earlier of this kind of  famous people shouldn't complain kind of scenario, and what psychology is  calling this is the illusion of fame as a fix, right? So we think that those people that are famous celebrities. They must be livin sittin pretty, and have the happiest, most, highest level of achievement and contentment available to them.

But as we know, money doesn't always buy happiness, and they tend to be real unhappy. So, it's kind of like when we see that happening to them, and they talk about their struggles, it is human nature to  feel as though they have no reason to be complaining, and, um, You know,  they must have it easy and  don't suffer any issues or whatever, have any problems with it.

But in reality, that's obviously false, but that's kind of some  psychological reasoning behind why the behavior that we all take with, um, As viewers of reality TV shows and obviously I can't go an episode without using the word schadenfreude.  So I had to throw that out there. We also just kind of love watching misfortune happen to others and we feel a little bit better about our own lives.

So  yeah. But reality TV is here to stay. I hope there is something to make at least the people that are putting their lives out there to be totally taken apart. Um.  You know, make their lives a bit easier, right? And that they get paid residuals and shit. I mean, look at Ariana Maddox. Ariana Maddox, after being cheated on now,  was on Dancing with the Stars, basically won, had all these  ad and sponsorship deals, including Uber, and now she's going on to Broadway.

To act, uh, on Chicago. So, she's living her best life. I mean, even Tom Sandoval went off and went on, um, a show called, it's  Forces, Special Forces. Um,  and apparently did not redeem himself whatsoever, so. But we all knew that. He's a little worm with a mustache. Um, I know this was a very reality TV heavy episode, but let me know what you thought.

I hope that you got something out of this and enjoyed this. And, um, I'm always open to feedback. Please, please, please.  And I had so much fun. And there are only two more episodes of 2023 to come.  I swear the year, I mean every single year, it's like when it gets dark outside earlier. I'm like, whoa, what the hell?

This hasn't happened before even though it happens every year. So happy holla days! What a good time of the year. Get ready for the next few episodes. And there is so much more in store coming up for you in 2024 with this podcast. I'm excited. We're stepping it up, baby.  We're stepping it up, buttercup. And I appreciate you listening and I hope you share with a friend, share with the fam and give me a follow on Instagram at easily entertained pod.

And I'll talk to you next time. Goodbye, homies. Goodbye