How the Reality-TV Industry Mistreats Its Stars
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2024
⏱️ 28 minutes
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Summary
On the reality-TV dating show “Love Is Blind,” the most watched original series in Netflix history, contestants are alone in windowless, octagonal pods with no access to their phones or the Internet. They talk to each other through the walls. There’s intrigue, romance, heartbreak, and, in some cases, sight-unseen engagements. According to several lawsuits, there’s also lack of sleep, lack of food and water, twenty-hour work days, and alleged physical and emotional abuse. The New Yorker staff writer Emily Nussbaum has been reporting on what these lawsuits reveal about the culture on the set of “Love Is Blind,” and a push for a new union to give reality-TV stars employee protections and rights. “The people who are on reality shows are a vulnerable class of people who are mistreated by the industry in ways that are made invisible to people, including to fans who love the shows,” Nussbaum tells David Remnick. Nussbaum’s forthcoming book is “Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV.”
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| 1:03.0 | I feel optimistic that my person is here. |
| 1:06.3 | I don't really give the nice guy a try, but I really want something real. |
| 1:11.5 | You've probably heard about the show, Love is Blind. Here's how it goes. A group of people |
| 1:17.4 | enter tiny individual rooms, and they're called pods on the show. Each person goes in alone. |
| 1:24.6 | There's a comfy couch, no windows, and on the other side of the wall in another |
| 1:28.9 | pod sits someone else. Same situation. Through the wall, they compare hometowns, astrology |
| 1:35.7 | signs, and their future goals. And then they do it all again with another person. And after 10 days, |
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