Hello and welcome to Mind of Myka. Today is part four of Myka's Reed of the Week where we are

chronicling 20 years of reality dating shows.

Thanks to our friends of the Washington Post.

As always, you can subscribe to the newsletter version of Mike as Read of the Week at the link in the

description of this podcast. I would encourage you to do that. If you've been

following us the rest of the week we've been going over this piece from the Washington Post entitled

The Revealing and Disturbing Story of America told through 20 years of reality dating shows.

And we are now where we've gone through one show a year every year since 2000. We are now on to 2012.

This show is called The Choice. It was on Fox. I don't remember this show.

The Choice was like The Voice, obviously a name as well, except for dating instead of singing, a group of celebrities for some reason, signed up to sit on swivel chairs and listen to men or women describe themselves.

If they like what they heard in these blind auditions,

they turned around.

The show was truly as ridiculous as it sounded

and shocked us because it showed that famous folks

who had just as many other means of dating,

including Joe Jonas, Carmen Electra, and Mike the Situation Sorrentino,

turned to TV.

The dating show remained a powerful platform.

Of course no one took it too seriously.

At the beginning of each episode, producers aired a recap of what happened when a celebrity went on a date with the person of their choosing.

Results varied from texting ever since to better office friends to promise to keep in touch

and I think we all know what that means.

...