Dr. Danielle Lindemann
Appearances
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Oh, that's a really good point. There's a reason why so many social media influencers are reality TV personalities. I think they paved the way for us kind of making these, we call parasocial connections, right? We feel like we know the people that
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
on our screens and it's that's heightened right when it's people who are behaving as themselves ostensibly versus playing characters and so those connections that we feel online right like on Instagram or whatever with celebrities are
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
What do I love about it? Well, Real Housewives definitely has a special place in my heart. I first encountered by accident Real Housewives of Orange County in like 2010 or something. And I just remember I had broken up with my boyfriend and moved out of our apartment. And I was like in my new apartment and this show comes on and Vicki Gumbelson gets beamed in the head by football.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And I was like, yes. Yes. And I was like, this is what I need in my life right now. And this is also one of the draws of reality TV. And she was fine, right? It wasn't, right? Otherwise I would not be, yeah, acting this way about it. But this is one of the draws of reality TV too, right? Is that the stakes are pretty low.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And in so much of scripted TV now and so much of life, obviously the stakes are so high and you can just tune into Real Housewives and the biggest conflict is like, will Bethany invite Ramona to her barbecue on Labor Day? And there's something soothing about watching something that's so low stakes.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And it's interesting because when things get high stakes on Real Housewives shows, you'll see the fans react negatively to it. Like, this is too real. This is not what I want to be seeing. I want to see like silly rich ladies hitting each other with their Gucci bags and fighting over stupid stuff.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I think on an individual level, I definitely experienced that, right? Where I just want to tune into something that I can just let wash over me. Although, of course, it's paradoxical because I can't just let it wash over me because I'm analyzing all of the sociological dimensions of it, right?
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
All the like microdynamics and gender, race, class, because it's such a rich text that can teach us so much about ourselves sociologically. So I'm kind of watching it on these dual levels where on the one level, it's like, okay, Ramona's barbecue, right? That can wash over me in an aesthetic way of
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
On the other hand, I'm like, oh, but like, what does that say about, you know, their interactions as a dyad and gender and race, right?
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I think actually it might be the reverse. I think sometimes, I mean, reality TV is potent, right? Because we're watching so much of it. And there is some research that shows that people who watch reality TV tend to think relationships are more conflict driven than they actually are.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And I kind of was like, oh, that's interesting. And then recently I spent a lot of time marathoning the traitors. which is a very like conflict-driven show, I feel like be in faculty meetings, department meetings and be like, feel like a level of tension that was not there.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And so I can see, right, like how reality TV can really affect us, maybe sometimes in a negative way if we're thinking that things involve more conflict than they actually do.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
More people are going to tune in to more conflict-driven shows, right? Like you see TLC, which was originally The Learning Channel, right? And now has been referred to as like a latter-day freak show, right? You have, you know, the families with a million kids and what have you.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
So, yeah, I mean, it Like it's economical, right? It's like a cost benefit analysis. People, they want things that are going to bring in viewers and that are relatively cheap to make. And that's kind of the history and the story of reality TV in general is that it's relatively cheap to make because for the most part, you don't have to pay the people who go on it. Right.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
You don't have to pay the crew union wages sometimes and you don't build sets. So there's a lot of reasons, right, like from the production side, why you'd want to create them. And then from the demand side, more people are going to watch the Duggars than they're going to watch a show about orcas. Now, whether or not we want that to be true is another question, but that's just the reality.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Oh, the Real Housewives title. I mean, we could write a dissertation about the title. I know. It's fascinating. First of all, none of them are housewives, right? I'm not the first to point this out. But this idea that they're kind of being defined through their relationships with men and is super fascinating.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
The fact that that still resonates in our culture, that they're housewives is super interesting, that they would be defined that way. And then like on top of that, they're not housewives, they have jobs. Well, they all have jobs because they're all in the show, which is another dimension of it. And now more and more, they're bringing down the fourth wall.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
This is a really interesting transition in reality TV now and really interesting development is that like more and more, we're like tearing down the fourth wall and they're talking about themselves as
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
as reality TV persona, as Real Housewives, because most of the conflicts now that they have are about things that happened because of the show, like happened at BravoCon or someone tweeted something about the show. And so that's been really fascinating to see as well.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
So that's a good question, right? Again, it's a super messy construct. I would consider like YouTube and TikTok to be forms of reality TV. And there are people who study those genres specifically, but that's just an arbitrary guardrail. I consider those things to be reality TV as well.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Yeah, I mean, so there's literature on this, right? So again, there is that voyeurism, right, where we want to watch the train wreck to feel superior to the train wreck. There are a lot of different subgenres of reality TV and people might tune into different shows for a different reason. Like probably we're not watching Top Chef for the train wreck.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
We might be watching it because we feel that it's educational in some ways. We're enjoying the conflicts that we're watching. And again, there is that paradox where at the same time that we're watching to feel smugly superior, we're also making connections with the people on the show, right? Saying like, oh, I'm more of a Bethany or I'm more of a Carol.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And we all kind of have one character that we can kind of grab onto, even if we don't support everything they do or we're unlike them in a lot of ways and say, you know, that's my character.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Oh, that's such a good question. I sometimes say that my love of sociology actually stems from my early love of reality TV. So I was definitely a fan of reality TV even before I knew what sociology was, you know, watching episodes of The Real World back in high school. And I was just hooked, you know.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think part of the time is people trying to convince themselves that what they watch is not reality TV. It's almost like challenging. Well, I watch House Hunters. That's not reality TV. Is it? Is it? Because they want to feel superior to the people who watch reality TV.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Is that true? That's what I've heard. Yeah. Yeah.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Well, I guess the sociology answer is we are all playing ourselves all of the time. Right. We are like all performing for audiences of others. So, yeah, my criteria is not are they acting because that's I mean, how do you parse that? Right. Are they acting or are they not? But are they basically playing themselves? whether or not there's any scripting involved.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Yeah, it's interesting because if you talk to people who are long-time reality TV personalities, they'll say that they eventually forget about the camera.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I can't imagine forgetting about the camera, but I mean, that's what they will say. Yeah, I mean, but obviously, right, like the presence of a camera is going to change the social dynamics of a situation. Now, is it going to kind of amplify what was already there? It's interesting because I think
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
A lot of people don't realize the psychological stressors that reality, or maybe don't even care, right? Because they'll just say, well, you shouldn't have gone on the show then, right? You knew what you were getting into. There's kind of that lack of sympathy there. I mean, there are multiple psychological stressors that these people are being pinged with on these shows.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
So, I mean, you could argue that under these conditions, any of us would behave badly.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Yeah, there's that issue of coercion in reality TV. I do think there's more of an understanding about that, the sort of coercion dynamics of reality TV now. I think that's slightly starting to change. With people realizing like, oh, like, hey, maybe these drunk people who have had no sleep, right, cannot consent to being filmed.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Or what about these kids who are on these reality shows who have no choice but to film, right? Like, is that ethical? Is that coercive? And of course, then they cast people who really need the money.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Right. And that's one of the major ways that reality TV has changed over time. More and more now we have people who already have influencer followings, right? And are going on these shows in order to increase their number of followers or get a hosting gig, become kind of a personality.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
A lot of people will say, well, you have to have like a narcissistic personality to go on the shows. I don't know if that's necessarily true. Well, I think part of it is people wanting to increase their number of followers, right? The whole like famous for being famous thing. But at the same time, I also think people don't necessarily know what they're getting into, which might seem naive, right?
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
We should know what we're getting into at this point. Reality TV has been around a while. We kind of understand. I mean, having never been on a reality TV show, I don't really know, but I would imagine it's one of those things where you think you know what it's like and then You get in there and you realize it's so much worse than you thought that it was.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And I think the same kinds of social dynamics that I saw on those shows are the same things that excite me about sociology. So then when I became a sociologist, I was like, well, I obviously have to teach a class on sociology of reality TV because there's so much there. So it was just an amazing dovetail of my two loves, sociology and reality TV.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Oh, is it by design? I mean, I guess I can't really speak to the motivations of the people who create the shows. But it seems like it's both, right? Like some of the things like they need to have bright lights on at all times. And that's not, you know, that's constraints of filming. But that's also something that's going to be like a psychological torture device.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
They certainly cast for people with certain psychological profiles. Sometimes they'll say that's to weed out people who are not fit for the show. probably, but also, right, it's to, you know, put people together who are going to trigger other people because these shows are conflict-driven.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I can't speak to what's in the producer's mind or the showrunner's minds, but it seems like that's the bread and butter of reality TV, right, is this kind of like these psychological manipulative tricks. Not every show, but a lot of the shows.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Yeah, I really appreciate that question because oftentimes when people are talking about the impact of reality TV on our culture, it's negative impact, which I think is absolutely there. especially because reality TV traffics and stereotypes, right? So like if the only black people you come in contact with are people who are being stereotyped on reality TV, that's going to be a negative impact.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
That's a good question. I would not say there are a lot of sociologists who work on reality TV. And I do think there's a lot of stigma around studying something that people see as frivolous. like reality TV. But at the same time, a lot of sociologists have sort of come out of the woodwork or come out to me as people who love reality TV because of what I study. And so that's really exciting to see.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
But at the same time, if you look at, you know, for instance, queer representation, and reality TV has not been perfect in terms of queer representation. There's stereotyping there, too. But I mean, even going back to the real world, people are probably too young now to remember Pedro Zamora, who was this gay man in the real world San Francisco.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And he was living with AIDS. But not only was he a gay man living with AIDS, but he married his partner, Sean, on the show. They had a commitment ceremony on the show. And even though people are often portrayed in unidimensional ways on reality TV, he was really portrayed as a multidimensional person. He wasn't just like that gay guy.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And he was really the first gay person or person living with AIDS that many people kind of got to know. And I would say that had a tremendous impact on the culture. And in terms of queer representation, reality TV has really been at the vanguard. you know, it was telling queer stories before scripted TV really started to catch up, trans stories, right?
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Again, in terms of trans representation, there's absolutely some problematic representation in reality TV as well. But just sort of, you know, exposing people to people with queer identities who they might not have otherwise come into contact with, I think that has been a hugely positive impact on our culture.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
No, I mean, it tends to be a pretty female-driven genre. It's more often women on the shows. Women are more likely to tune in than men. I do think there's some effect of men... feeling like they are going to be more stigmatized for admitting that they watch the shows.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I hear a lot of stories from people who'd be like, oh, my boyfriend or my husband says he doesn't watch, but then he's in the background commenting like, didn't Madison get eliminated last week? So I think, yes, it's definitely a more female-driven genre.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And I also think that plays into maybe why it's more stigmatized because genres related to women and femininity tend to be more stigmatized or kind of looked down on. There was Duck Dynasty, Big Tuna. There are some kind of more masculine-driven shows. But yeah, for the most part, it's a pretty feminine genre.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Yes. How has it evolved over time? Well, it's certainly become more conflict driven. It's really interesting because if you watch the original Real World, I remember at the time thinking that was very conflict driven. Yeah. Looking back. It's like just Kevin sitting there being, yeah, I'm a little angry, right?
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
But I think oftentimes people, and this is just in general, like sociologically, people tend to think, want to feel like we're moving towards something or away from something. So I often get asked the question, like, why are these shows more and more outrageous? I don't necessarily think they're more and more outrageous.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I think, you know, there were outrageous shows in the year 2000, right, with the world's deadliest beast worms, number five, right? There were like five iterations of that show or The Swan. There were like these crazy shows that probably wouldn't happen now.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
But there definitely is still a kind of stigma around it in academia.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I don't think it's getting more outrageous. I think it's getting more conflict driven from the early days, for sure. And then there is that connection to social media that we talked about that is really like part and parcel of reality TV now, right? Like people are going on to increase their followings or they're going on to have followings. The two of them are really tied together now.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I do think in recent years, there has been more of an awareness of stereotypings like post-George Floyd, post-Me Too, moving forward from there. I mean, at least they're giving lip service to the fact that there are stereotypes involving gender and race on these shows. It'll be interesting to see if that's just like a blip or whether we move forward from there.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
But there are some shows that I would say probably would not air today. From, you know, like the early 2000s that just are overtly offensive on the face of them. But then again, I don't know, like a show like Cops, you know, in the wake of George Floyd got canceled, but now it's back. Really? Yeah. Really? Yeah, but now it's back. So...
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
When I say certain shows probably would not air today, I think a show like Bridal Plasty or a show like The Swan, I don't see a show like that airing today. Some of the more racially stereotypical shows I don't see airing today. There are some body positive shows like My Big Fat Fabulous Life. Yeah. I mean, The Biggest Loser... Yeah, there's super... There was a study done.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
This is kind of a divergence. But there's a study done on The Biggest Loser. And it was an experimental study. And it had people watch one episode of The Biggest Loser versus people in a control group who watched like a nature show. One episode. And then coming out of that, the people...
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
in the Biggest Loser group, had more of a dislike of fat people than the people who watched just one episode of a nature show versus that show. So my understanding is that there is kind of more of an awareness of that type of show. Reality TV is always kind of a chameleon and changing and rising like a phoenix. So, you know, I don't know what's around the corner.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
We might revert to bridalplasty next week.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean, it definitely depends on the show. It tends to be like this, what we call like homophilous experience where people are searching for people who are kind of like them, quote unquote, demographically, not only in terms of race, but also in terms of social class and relative age and where they grew up and religion and political values.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And it's interesting because a show like Love is Blind kind of tries to take that away. Mm-hmm. Although at the same time, how much does it really take away? Because when you hear someone talking, you're already getting clues about their demographic identity.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
But a show like Love is Blind is fascinating to me from this perspective because the overt point of the show is that it's trying to take away these demographic constraints that we have.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
But at the same time, it's showing us that these constraints exist and that we can't actually take them away because once the people come out of the bunkers, there's still these barriers that exist that we've put into place in our society that So something like that's really fascinating.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And then, of course, notoriously, right, like the Bachelor, Bachelorette franchise has been so white for so long. Not anymore, right? Like, finally, there are protagonists of color on these shows, but it took a really long time. And for a really long time, right, like the people of color who were on these shows were not presented as serious contenders. There are a few exceptions, right?
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Oftentimes they like fell into that trap of representation where they were just kind of there to lend an ear to like the white people on the shows who were, you know, talking about their experiences. So, yeah, I guess that speaks to your other question about are things changing? I mean, yeah, OK, we've had black bachelors and we've had black bachelorettes now.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Oh, yeah, for sure. There are tears in terms of this kind of ladder of respectability. In fact, there are a lot of people who tell me that they don't watch reality TV. And for the most part, they do. It just turns out they watch things like HGTV or the Great British Bake. You know, they feel more wholesome because they're kind of trying to teach you something. They're less conflict driven.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And so we do see like a little bit of incremental change in that respect.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Yeah, I mean, I think about that more in terms of like queer representation. There's like a sexually fluid season of Are You the One on MTV. And that got a lot of press. And I think that I was pretty excited about that, especially because there's like a long history of like, people who are
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
bisexual or pansexual being extremely stigmatized and so having a whole season of people who are like I'm not like fitting into one box one way or the other was fascinating for me and also the fact that they were being presented like not in a negative way just as people on a dating show but that was kind of a turning point that was I found really exciting.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Where's the Catholic reality show? Seriously. I confess all your sins to this old guy. Yeah. Literally, we were the first confessional booths.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Although I would still classify those shows as reality, like House Hunters, I would still say is reality TV. But I think there's a sense of some shows that are maybe more education, overtly educational, less conflict driven. People see as more kind of wholesome and acceptable.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I think we can learn cultural norms from reality TV, but we also have to kind of be wary there. Right. Like a bunch of penises out does not represent all of Britain.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
It must be so cold. I mean, what if you're like a grower, not a shower? I mean, there's a lot of problems with this.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I mean, we do have Naked and Afraid, but... That's true. The privates are blurred out on that. Right.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Well, it's nuanced because on one hand, people don't want to watch overtly political reality shows because, again, it's supposed to be this kind of escapist realm apart from politics and But there's always been a tie between reality TV and politics, right? Like from Bill Clinton tooting his saxophone on a talk show or Richard Nixon on Laugh-In. That tie has always been there and been a part of it.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Did The Apprentice make Donald Trump our president? I mean, I think that's maybe too simplistic. It seems like it helped and it aided his rise. And oftentimes when people talk about the negative impact of reality TV, that's often what they're referring to. And so I don't have any like hard data on this, but I mean, there's some like anecdotal evidence.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And it's kind of interesting because when people tell me they don't watch reality TV, oftentimes they'll say, well, I mean, I don't watch the Kardashians. I don't watch Real Housewives. That's what they think of when they think of reality TV. But most people are watching reality TV in some form.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I know people who campaigned for Hillary in the first election, they would go door to door in Pennsylvania and people would say, you know, no, I'm voting for Trump. I saw him and then they apprentice. I liked him. Right. And it's interesting because we talk about reality TV being a female coded genre and
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And oftentimes women are represented very stereotypically, very materialistically in this genre. But when men are represented, especially white men, when they're straight white men on these shows, they're not represented in any kind of negative stereotypical way. I think it also plays into the way that Trump was represented on that show.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Because if he had been represented as a kind of like a bozo... I don't think it would have had that same impact as someone who's being represented as, I'm a businessman, I'm sitting behind a desk, I'm making important decisions, I'm always right, I'm wearing a suit. And so I think that gets into people's brains as, oh, this is a person that I want in charge.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
So this is a long answer, all to say, did reality TV make Trump our president? I don't know if it's like a one-to-one correlation, but it certainly seemed to accelerate his rise.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Okay, so I wish existed. I always say, so my mother-in-law is in like a retirement community. And oh my gosh, the stories. Because it's like high school, but it's people who DGAF anymore.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And so it's amazing because they will tell you exactly what they think and they will tell others exactly what they think. And there's clicks and there's romances. And I think there have been a couple of reality shows that's focused on senior living communities. But I think that's an untapped mark. Plus seniors would watch those shows as well.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
all engaged in impression management. We're all performing. Anytime we're in a social situation, we're performing for others to some extent.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I mean, yeah, we're all social selves inextricably, right? And it's interesting because reality TV, oftentimes the people on the show are like, this is my authentic self or be authentic, be real, right? But there is no real authentic self divorced from our social contacts, right? From the moment we're born, we're being socialized.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
So it's impossible to kind of extract some authentic self that's untouched by our socialization unless we're raised by wolves, which almost never happens.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Oh, interesting. So the viewer... Okay. So I thought you were going to ask about the nuances of the people on the shows who say, I'm not here to make friends. But the viewer, that's interesting, is kind of there to make friends in a way. Yeah, yeah. Studies have shown this, right? That's part of our attachment to reality TV is that
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And also, reality TV, as we've talked about with influencing, functions on multiple platforms simultaneously. So it's not just I'm going to watch Kim Kardashian on the show, but also I can tweet at Kim Kardashian, follow her Insta, and maybe she'll even comment on my comment. And I'll actually have that back and forth with her.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And then I can buy her beauty products and her clothes and her skims and play her video games. And so I can interact with her on these multiple dimensions simultaneously. Which is why these parasocial relationships are much more potent with reality TV personalities because
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
We are interacting with them as themselves versus, you know, I watch Sex and the City and I'm more of a Miranda than I am a Carrie. Who's a Carrie? I don't know. She's awful, right? But it's not like I'm feeling a, and so I can kind of feel a parasocial relationship with Miranda, but it's not like I can then like go off the show and interact with Miranda in various domains.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I mean, I love what I do and study. I do think there is that stigmatization aspect where people, academics, but also non-academics, we'll just say why. You know, I remember like one time I was in a bookstore and I was doing a reading for my book and this woman came up and she was like, what's this about? And I was like, oh, it's a book about reality TV. And she goes, ugh, why? And she walks away.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And I think that really summarizes how a lot of people feel about what I study. So it's interesting, right? Because studies show that more people than not are watching reality TV, even if they don't think they're watching reality TV. And I often say I'm an evangelist for reality TV, not in the sense of I think everyone should watch it. I have no stake in that or whether they enjoy it.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
So it's kind of an unsatisfying answer. But as a sociologist, I often say reality TV is a social construct. And so there isn't any one definition of it. So it's kind of messy as a construct. The definition that I use, there's two things, basically, is people behaving as themselves rather than as characters. And you can already see how that's kind of messy, right?
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
You can find it problematic. I find it problematic in many ways. But I think it's really important to study reality TV because I think people think of it as this kind of a lot of people think of it as this kind of like sideshow, right? This kind of frivolous thing, you know, but as we've talked about here, right, there are really huge consequences to our consumptions of these shows.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And also these shows can really teach us about a lot of dynamics of our social lives. So whether people watch or enjoy the shows or like them, I mean, I have no stake in that. But I do think it's really important to actually look at this thing that's a cultural juggernaut and that really has a vast potential to change the ways that we live our lives.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I mean, certainly teaching. I love, I mean, I love teaching in general, but I just love when students make their own connections between these shows and, you know, like the dynamics of our social experiences in ways that I'm like, oh yeah, Floribama Shore is doing that. Or Four Weddings is totally like showing us how weddings are stratified by class.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And so like the connections that the students make, especially when they're connections that I wouldn't have thought of are super exciting to me.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Thank you. I think people often think that, you know, if you're studying reality TV, then that's kind of a tacit support of everything that goes on on reality TV when it's just, you know, I'm just looking at the sociological nuances of the genre. And yes, I am a fan, right? I position myself as a fan. I like a lot of these shows, but I also see a lot of these shows as deeply problematic.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
So I think studying the genre is not endorsing everything that goes on within the genre.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Thank you for having me on. This was so fun.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
If there's some scripting involved, you know, it's all kind of performative. People are still performing. But basically, it's, you know, Kim Kardashian is being Kim Kardashian. She's not playing a character.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And then the main intent is to entertain rather than educate. So like the news wouldn't be considered reality TV, although again, that gets messy, right? Because... pick what stories to tell in the news to entertain. But the main purpose of a documentary allegedly is to educate. But again, a lot of messiness, right? You can probably think of a lot of exceptions, right?
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
What side of the line a certain thing goes on.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Yeah, that's right. Again, I think you nailed it when you said the closer to documentary it is, people see it as more kind of legitimate. I think you used the word smut, right? Like less smutty if it's overtly trying to teach us something. Although, of course, I argue that all reality TV is actually can be educational for us if we know where to look.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
And so people tune into different shows for different reasons, right? And there probably are people who are watching like Bake Off or Top Chef to like learn how to sous vide meat or make a souffle. Right. I also cannot do those things. So there is that educational element. But so there's a lot of research that looks at why people tune in.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
One of the things is that kind of voyeurism element where you're watching the train wreck to remind yourself that you are not of the train wreck to feel slightly superior. Right. Like. Well, my life might be messed up in some ways, but at least I'm not like competing on The Bachelor or eating bugs for the camera. So there definitely is that, you know, there's also that sort of community.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
But, you know, we can come into community with people, you know, from a wide demographic array just by saying, you know, I like The Real Housewives. And we can have conversations around the water cooler online. So we have there's that community aspect to it as well.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
But also paradoxically, even though we watch it to remind ourselves that we are not of the train wreck, oftentimes the people on the shows kind of resonate with us or we feel a connection with them. because reality TV tends to traffic in these broad archetypes, right? Like there's the shy one, there's the bossy one, there's the smart one.
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Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
So usually there's like someone you can grab onto and say, well, I'm not exactly like this person, but you know, I'm more of a Chloe than a Kim. I think we need to do some soul searching. Speak for yourself. Or you can kind of grab onto and feel that kinship with the people on the shows. And that's by design.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I mean, it also speaks to the question of is reality TV reality? Mm-hmm. Right. And I think most people at this point don't think reality TV is a hundred percent reality. Like we're pretty savvy. We know that people are being cast to fit these particular archetypes and anything that falls outside of the realm of that storyline of that archetype is cut out.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
So we don't really see people as kind of whole people oftentimes, right? If there's someone who is the worst 5% of the time, then we're going to see that 5%, right? We're not going to see that like the other 95% of the wonderful things that that they do. And then, you know, they're prodded with producer questions, free-flowing alcohol and sleep deprivation and all that stuff.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
So are they 100% the worst? Probably not. But they do use the kernel of something that's there.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Well, actually, I had the syllabus before I started writing my book, but it was basically like the sub areas of sociology. So we would have sociology of gender and we would read
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
a classical sociology piece about gender, and then we would watch RuPaul's Drag Race, and we would talk about how those principles were being played out on RuPaul's Drag Race, like performing gender, the difference between biological sex and gender, those types of things. So it's basically kind of a tour of sociology through the lens of reality TV. So like sociology of gender, sexuality...
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
We have the sociology of work, sociology of race and intersectionality. And then for their final projects, what the students have to do, which is the thing that I posted on Twitter that probably led you to me that went viral, was then I have the students say, I tell them, pick a realm of sociology that we have not talked about in this class and write about that in a particular TV show.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Someone did the sociology of work hierarchies in Below Deck. So that was something we hadn't covered in class and we hadn't looked at that show in class. So we had a lot of angry people who were like, why didn't you do this show or this topic? It's because we had already done those. We had already done, for instance, Real Housewives. I love Real Housewives.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
I'd love to see a presentation on Real Housewives, but We had already covered Real Housewives in class.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
That's interesting. Do they pick topics that are relevant to their own life? I mean, some of them pick topics about kind of young 20-somethings partying. There was a great presentation on Floribama Shore this semester.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Which was super interesting.
Ologies with Alie Ward
Reality TV Sociology (‘TRASH’ TV) with Danielle Lindemann
Yeah, like Southern, yeah, Southern etiquette. or lack thereof. So that was interesting. And this person actually was from that area too. So I could see that there is that resonance there.