reality tv sucks 👎🏽 long live reality tv 👍🏾

On the people's format and why it ain't going anywhere.

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My first job “in television” was as an assistant in reality television. This was television that wasn’t inside the television but television that was outside the television, occupying the spaces around the system, turning industry scraps into art (“art”). Reality television was social media entertainment before such things were established. Before YouTube, before TikTok, there was reality television.

I started my job in 2008. I graduated from college, finished a play in the area, went home for a week, and moved my life to LA by the start of July, with only one suitcase and a carry on bag. I slept on the patio at my aunt’s house and found a job at the American Apparel on Hollywood and Highland. All my time outside of work was spent furiously scanning Craigslist and emailing people from my internship at MTV. Somehow, a star aligned with my star and a guy I kinda sorta maybe worked with at MTV was in fact looking for help. I met with him after a day working a morning shift at the short-shorts-and-tank-top Dov Charney job, changing one American Apparel outfit for another: skinny red Slim Slacks™, a white and black Oxford, a black tie, and a leather jacket. Know that it was August.

I met with the man and the interview wasn’t very remarkable, and neither was the man interviewing me: he was an early fortysomething guy who kept his hair short and only ever wore jeans and knock-off Lacoste™ polos from Target™. Despite my Hollywood fantasy, there was no sexual appeal to me as he was painfully straight and I was painfully not. He did think I was smart, which I knew because he mostly wanted to talk about the college I went to versus the college he went to, which he took pride in being a top party school. Did I like television? Yes. Did I have a car? No. Well, I would need one. He would call me — and he did. I got the job within the week, after just one interview. I put in my notice at American Apparel, but not before going on a shopping spree to use my discount. I never actually got paid for working there, since my time at the store was so short. (That is for another story.)

What followed were two of the strangest years of my life, of 3AM nights stuck at Kinko’s making copies of call sheets, buying a car and a Blackberry as required by my boss (but in no way subsidized), covering for my boss by telling his wife he was busy so he could go out with the head of the company and the head of the company’s nepotized hires, ripping scenes from DVDs at Rocket Video to cobble together sizzle reels for shows we were making that knocked off shows were getting buzz, shows with titles like Real Housewives and Top Chef: the list goes on and on.