Culture Study Podcast - Love is Blind as a Cultural Skeleton Key

00:00:00.000 Hey, everyone. In case you missed the big news last week, Culture Study is now on Patreon.

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00:00:42.320 transition. It really means a lot to Melody and me. All right, on to today's show.

00:00:47.220 this is the culture study podcast and i'm ann helen peterson and i'm audi cornish i am a

00:01:00.980 journalist at cnn on their morning show and also an anchor for one of their podcasts but also all

00:01:07.160 the things because cnn is now streaming what do you like about love is blind i had to think about

00:01:13.920 this a lot knowing we're going into this conversation and i think what makes the show

00:01:18.440 work and there are a million things that that do make it work is it takes the entire arc of love

00:01:25.900 as as we know it and modern dating specifically and puts it on a tv production timeline yeah like

00:01:33.260 the bachelor or these other things i don't know what the hell timeline that is in the multiverse

00:01:38.360 it's like roses other people helicopters why yeah this just goes straight with the like talk a lot

00:01:44.700 talk a lot talk a lot giddy uh-huh sexy time uh row flags reality flags living together meet the

00:01:58.060 family oh my god are we getting married like it takes something that for a lot of people is at

00:02:02.720 this point in the culture taking 10 to 15 years yes and it brings that process down to like

00:02:10.420 what six weeks yes so that to me is like that is what makes it different from other kinds of

00:02:19.040 reality shows it's it's the full arc and I will also say there's less of like the competition

00:02:24.860 component that you get with a lot of other reality television well it's not built explicitly as a

00:02:30.200 competition although in the love is blind reddit threads where i live part-time um someone said

00:02:36.860 that at this point it's pretty much like pin the tail on the hot girl like the competition element

00:02:43.160 is like this sense that there is there are some hot people on the other side of the wall yeah and

00:02:49.040 if i do the right things i can get to that person they're not actually the idea of being in it where

00:02:55.140 you're like i'm gonna fall for someone i'm not quite sure what they're gonna look like and it

00:02:57.860 won't matter we're now in the part of the reality show you know tv arc where we're now just dealing

00:03:04.860 with like kind of semi-professionals yes and so it's very different from the first season which

00:03:10.920 i'll talk about later so for people who have not seen the show because we're going to try to make

00:03:15.940 this accessible oh absolutely who have not seen the show because it is a rich text so even if you

00:03:22.600 just know like what we're going to talk about now it's going to lead you in a lot of interesting

00:03:26.740 directions um but we also want to make this juicy for people who have seen the show no there's a

00:03:32.040 lot there this show is a to me a linchpin show in reality tv culture yes for a variety of reasons

00:03:39.340 both on set and offset so can you explain the premise as as concisely as as you can sure the

00:03:47.080 premise of love is blind is netflix gets a variety of fitness instructors and people who are like

00:03:54.440 instagram baddies and uh men who just like they actually have flags like red flags just like

00:04:01.580 tucked into their pockets and they put them in a very old-fashioned speed dating scenario for

00:04:08.140 people who are gen x and later you recall speed dating you all get in a room and you move from

00:04:14.320 table to table talking to each other so they they do the equivalent of this for this modern

00:04:20.880 phone oriented generation by having them move from room to room um have conversations with

00:04:28.980 someone they cannot see yes and they call this dating and they condense it into a period of

00:04:34.800 just a few days and through a combination of alcohol sleep deprivation um and this speed

00:04:44.520 dating process over time people reach a state of delusion that they do feel like they are falling

00:04:50.320 in love with one of the people on their speed dates yeah that's the first phase of the show

00:04:55.660 the second phase of the show is those people meet they spend time together in a tropical location

00:05:02.020 and then more amusingly in a apartment building where they are where they are like living

00:05:09.440 essentially with a stranger and uh leading up to the fact of the last chapter of the show which is

00:05:16.480 what people usually talk about which is when people meet at the altar and make the decision

00:05:22.720 about getting married in that moment in front of friends and family who have also signed up for what

00:05:30.880 has become in some episodes a kind of ritual humiliation of everyone you know

00:05:35.520 including your parents and other loved ones uh so the point is the show has these sort of three

00:05:42.820 phases and so you can enter at any phase and it's not like to my mind a real housewife situation

00:05:50.420 which to me at this point is basically the marvel universe they're on phase three i've missed the

00:05:55.540 first 21 movies it's like i have a vague idea who's who but i'm not committed enough love is

00:06:02.600 blind to me is much more you drop in yes and drop out you fast forward i mean it's the perfect

00:06:09.000 dating show for the age of streaming and specifically one and a half speed yes and

00:06:17.140 I'll say that it is uh it is a perfect second screen show amazingly if you're scrolling your

00:06:24.380 phone but also I've watched it the past week while dividing Dahlia tubers so like you could

00:06:30.440 be quilting you could be cooking you could be doing anything and it's just there and like

00:06:35.840 there's a great recaps like a lot of other things on netflix this is what netflix is trying to be

00:06:39.860 yeah which they're doing on purpose but can i ask you a question why was love is blind in your

00:06:44.420 cultural blind spot um because there's so many i'm the same way there's some things that i'm like

00:06:50.180 i just don't even bother and why for for you was was this in that space so i do not watch much

00:06:59.800 television as a second screen that's my general answer because i like i totally understand like

00:07:04.700 all of the like melodrama of the bravo universe like i love celebrity gossip all of this stuff

00:07:10.620 would be catnip to me but when i am doing a second screen activity i'm usually listening

00:07:17.680 to a podcast does that make sense like so that i mean yes so that is the thing that i'm doing if

00:07:24.300 i'm like if there's another input coming in yeah when i watch television i because i'm on my phone

00:07:30.580 all the time I actually I like make I put my phone in the other room so that I can really

00:07:35.300 be concentrated but but I also think maybe your reality television is TikTok because you and I

00:07:42.280 spoke on my podcast we were talking about rush talk yes and you had a knowledge of rush talk

00:07:47.860 that other people have about the real house no 100 so when I and that's why I also like

00:07:53.980 only on specific times I'm like okay I'm now I'm watching TikTok yeah I think for me reality

00:07:59.980 television is too boring to put all of my focus on it interesting but only because you happen to

00:08:06.440 treat television specifically as a one and only screen experience yes but so I have to tell you

00:08:14.140 when you told us that this is what you wanted to talk about on the pod I was like you know what

00:08:18.980 I will watch it and it will be really interesting to watch it to talk to you about it yeah and also

00:08:24.860 I think that this is a fascinating way for us to discuss the show as someone who has a long history

00:08:30.620 with it and someone watching it for the first time and I watched it with my partner Charlie

00:08:35.360 who also had never seen it before so there was a lot of like I told you just to watch season one

00:08:41.660 because season one is like the President Obama of Love is Blind it's like the the version of

00:08:47.240 the show as we thought we may be as a people right and and the way it is now is what we're

00:08:53.360 living in now like the same season of America yes where you're like I'm not sure everyone here has

00:08:58.340 good intent like it's a very but that first season like all reality shows the first season of the

00:09:06.240 conceit yes is the most amazing because nobody really knows what they're doing and why and how

00:09:12.740 it's going to be cut and what it's going to look like and love is blind to me at this point it's

00:09:18.320 like anyone who watches it for a first time you actually should just start with season one and

00:09:23.060 then like maybe never watch again when you start with season one um you you have this this like the

00:09:30.360 romance factor is very high and you have like multiple weddings and like if there's a runaway

00:09:35.740 bride it's a big like what is happening and all these seasons later it's kind of flipped it's

00:09:41.180 harder to make a match and easier to run away which is a lot closer i think to dating reality

00:09:47.380 But the show is this weird it's a funhouse mirror specifically, I think, of modern dating culture and the people who feel ground down by it.

00:10:00.420 Yes. As much as it is a funhouse mirror of also how how right now in the culture we talk about the role of a relationship in our lives.

00:10:13.000 Yes. Because everyone on the show at some point says.

00:10:17.380 why they want to be in a relationship, why they don't think they are, what they think is getting

00:10:22.240 in the way of that. It's very different from some of the other reality shows where they're just sort

00:10:28.980 of leading with a vague sense of persona. Yep. Yeah. And I'll also say that it's super interesting

00:10:34.220 to watch as someone who is past the era of my 20s, because everyone, at least on this season

00:10:40.080 that I watched, everyone is between the ages of around 25 to like 37. Yeah, for sure. They had

00:10:46.740 like a 33 year old on and like season two and the whole season was sort of like her theory the

00:10:53.020 theory of her case was like she was like a cougar you know what i mean and i was like this is perfect

00:10:57.980 for the porn generation because to them 30 is milf status you know what i mean like you cross

00:11:03.800 some threshold there which is insane when you look at the actual age of marriage in this country

00:11:09.000 absolutely you're far more likely yes to be pairing off at that age than you are in your

00:11:15.080 early 20s at this point in u.s history yes but again it's another one of those weird

00:11:20.460 this is what it would look like through the instagram real uh mirror of culture so we're

00:11:27.500 going to talk broadly about the show for the first part of the episode and then if people want to

00:11:33.660 really avoid spoilers which melody was trying to produce this show without spoilers i can do that

00:11:40.580 i just forgot no but the npr in me still knows how to do that i was like melody you're gonna get

00:11:47.000 spoiled uh yeah but then in the last part of the show we'll we'll get absolutely yeah okay so first

00:11:54.100 question comes from rachel and it's about it's a version of like the most popular question we

00:12:00.780 received i'm wondering why love is blind only casts conventionally attractive people particularly

00:12:07.160 the women it's always seemed paradoxical to me that the show intends to prove love is blind

00:12:12.880 but only under the conditions that a pretty person is behind the wall it feels like a 0.93

00:12:18.080 combination of upholding beauty standards and fat phobia but it's also just so ridiculous to

00:12:24.160 me considering the show's hypothesis that's true no lies detected i remember this being like a huge

00:12:32.260 point of conversation during the first season but it seems like this is not this has been

00:12:36.560 standard and to me i actually think it's a way that they are trying to make the show less about

00:12:44.020 ritualistic humiliation but in the right like they're trying to avoid a scenario yes but it

00:12:51.020 keeps happening it keeps happening you routinely have couples that really just don't come together

00:12:55.800 after the reveal this comes up about race quite a bit this season especially yeah yeah but in the

00:13:01.560 past like it's come up what I'll say is that um this is gonna sound mean-spirited

00:13:07.740 but the hotter they get the more I feel like I'm allowed to put distance between me and them

00:13:15.300 yeah and I'm allowed to dehumanize them in a way yeah because I'm like well who cares none of this

00:13:22.040 is real you know what I mean I'm just like looking at veneers and eyelashes and tattoos and and they

00:13:28.480 don't coalesce as a person yeah and it's a little different from watching something like

00:13:32.520 love on the spectrum you know which is people who like are on the autism spectrum and all that stuff

00:13:38.440 and people you know kind of consider that show like heartwarming yeah and think of it very

00:13:42.880 differently and i do think it's not an accident that the pairings on love is blind over the years

00:13:48.600 where people are more air quotes normal looking and let me just say they're still gorgeous people

00:13:54.400 right um i think people have they become kind of fan favorites like you're rooting for them

00:14:00.680 and you whereas you're you're much more um inclined to indulge your guilty pleasure uh

00:14:10.460 instinct that lets you watch exploitation yeah without without wanting to write a white paper

00:14:18.220 on it yes yeah there's a character i see how i say character exactly there it is perfect there's

00:14:24.320 a character in this season and season nine named Casey who I think they actually cast by reaching

00:14:30.840 out to her on Instagram like she's an influencer she's incredibly like exactly what you think a 1.00

00:14:36.260 blonde white lady influencer would look like and there are parts of her conversations where she 0.99

00:14:43.680 actually is I think trying to be pretty vulnerable about like how she's never known if anyone likes 1.00

00:14:49.420 apart from her looks like but I also like I couldn't take her seriously yeah because a hundred

00:14:55.740 percent you know in the early seasons you know there's a person who's like a scientist there's

00:15:00.740 like a couple where they're like we're both really into wolves illustrations you know and those people

00:15:06.120 you're just like I'm into it like you know girl you know totally and and there were these what

00:15:12.220 makes reality television work even when you look through the history of reality television the very

00:15:16.720 earliest shows there was one show black and white i remember seeing where housewives had to get up

00:15:23.300 and basically tell sob stories in order for a day queen for a day and the audience had to be like 0.79

00:15:29.420 which of these moms deserves help and support yeah and the things they were asking for now 0.97

00:15:35.100 you would just be like what in the hunger games you know they were like i need a babysitter for

00:15:39.720 a week so i can have a surgery like i need a stove and everybody was like you know it's like

00:15:45.800 The Truman Show. Everyone's totally like laughing about it. And just that was entertainment. And that this is our version of that.

00:15:52.720 You know, sometimes you have people on the show, especially again, early seasons.

00:15:57.200 I remember there was one character who she got sort of turned down and she just looks in the camera and she's like, I don't know, like, am I unlovable?

00:16:04.080 Like, I can. Yeah. Why can't I make this happen? And I just thought every single person watching has had that feeling.

00:16:11.640 yeah has absolutely had that feeling yeah and and of course now when you're watching an influencer

00:16:17.680 just sort of be like I don't know if this is the lifestyle I want to have you just you don't have

00:16:26.580 that you know you're like that's not and it becomes the stakes are way lower yes but it

00:16:32.820 allows you to enjoy it more yeah and this is relevant because you know I'm gonna like this

00:16:39.240 is public knowledge there's a class action lawsuit against the makers of the show because people want

00:16:46.120 to be recognized as employees and this is why this show to me like i mentioned it having implications

00:16:52.460 inside and outside it's it's a it's a show that has been very revealing about both reality tv

00:16:59.780 itself as well as us so the original question your person called in and said why are they all hot

00:17:05.960 i think they're all hot so that we can feel less empathy for them yeah i think that they get

00:17:13.960 recruited we hear them say things like someone reached out to me on linkedin

00:17:18.100 yep and what results is that people who essentially are walking out of a job interview

00:17:24.540 rather than having a transformative experience bound up in intimacy and vulnerability and and love

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00:22:09.000 60% off your first box. So our next question is about the appeal and this comes from Kristen.

00:22:20.420 Why can't I look away from the show? They don't trust deep conversations. The real connections

00:22:25.360 and authentic intentions are few and far between. The editing and dragging out of storylines

00:22:31.020 it all makes me cringe and also i'm seated with my dinner every night new episodes drop

00:22:36.680 i consume arguably too much pop culture and media i'm an avid reader i go to the movies

00:22:42.580 at least once a week i know so much of this is built in a lab to appeal to us but how do they 0.90

00:22:47.840 hook us on this ridiculous show with the silliest and most inappropriate hosts i must say even as i 0.95

00:22:54.820 have a sort of out of body experience as i binge it yeah i get it girl i'll say it is a little 0.96

00:23:03.060 reality television in this particular kind of show it's a kind of um i don't know if you've

00:23:09.200 eaten something like a cheeto or a dorito or something that has that moment of tang sweetness

00:23:17.500 bitterness and then and melts kind of in your mouth yeah and that's what it's like watching

00:23:23.180 these shows is you're just like, what is this? This doesn't smell right. And then all of a sudden

00:23:28.480 something happens on the show that really hits you because the person has become a proxy for a

00:23:35.560 wider sentiment. Yes. So I'm just going to list one or two. I remember in the early seasons where

00:23:41.120 one female character says to her partner, hey, you know how you say I'm the best sex you've ever had 0.89

00:23:46.340 and I don't say it back. And I remember being like, ah, like watching through my fingers

00:23:51.760 because everybody's been in a relationship

00:23:54.380 where they're like, I don't,

00:23:55.560 the bed chem, so to speak,

00:23:57.420 as the kids say, is not there.

00:23:59.660 But all of a sudden you had that moment.

00:24:01.340 There was another moment in later seasons

00:24:03.640 where there was a character

00:24:05.040 who had always talked about

00:24:06.220 his trouble with commitment,

00:24:07.540 his trouble staying faithful to women.

00:24:09.700 And lo and behold, on his wedding day,

00:24:11.820 air quotes, his dad shows up.

00:24:13.980 And his dad had been a playboy in his era,

00:24:17.460 had been unfaithful to his mother.

00:24:20.180 And all of a sudden,

00:24:21.000 the mom and the dad were there on the wedding day and the mom was like you were not good to me

00:24:27.360 you were not a good role model to him and the doubts he's having on this day are the result

00:24:32.300 of your behavior oh and it was like this epic people started writing about like generational

00:24:37.240 trauma on the message boards it was this weird uh you shook the gold thing yeah and out of all

00:24:44.940 the silt was this piece of gold where suddenly i i remember thinking like not only am i glad i saw

00:24:52.700 this moment i wish other people saw this moment i wish other men saw this moment yes because what

00:24:57.380 it does is put people on camera sometimes and they engage in behaviors that they don't actually even

00:25:03.200 realize are holding them back and so even though show is called love is blind i think the show is

00:25:08.440 actually called like love is therapy um and and we all watch it because we're now it's a proxy for

00:25:16.540 conversations we wish we had we wanted to have we should have had with ourselves and uh every once

00:25:22.600 in a while that kind of jumps out you know and you can be really struck by it this goes back to

00:25:27.000 what we were talking about before the perspective of watching it in my old age of 44 and just like

00:25:33.460 recognizing there's this character on the current season named joe who is like every dude in their

00:25:39.040 20s who like is interested in dating but like not really interested in dating and then you have like

00:25:45.760 a woman who is on a different timeline has different asks for commitment is not receiving

00:25:52.340 them and has never received them from this person but is desperate to receive them yeah and then it

00:25:59.260 just goes back and forth and back and forth you're not giving me what i need and they're like i don't 0.87

00:26:03.400 don't know what to say to you right you can stay you can go i don't fucking care you know and like 0.76

00:26:08.500 part of me is like is it better that that's happening in eight days instead of eight years 0.95

00:26:12.740 right there are plenty of people who are in that kind of relationship way longer and the same thing

00:26:18.940 and the same thing happens to them which is you know in a way just i'm gonna apply this here

00:26:22.840 sunken cost fallacy where it's like i've put in so much time effort all the things to make this work

00:26:29.880 and I need to make it work and you can't do it by yourself right um and you know one caveat I should

00:26:38.280 say you and I are the same I also got married before the smartphone you know what I mean we

00:26:44.740 had palm pilots like it was Craigslist and uh Friendster like I got married young yeah and

00:26:51.700 actually I do wonder in in some ways if that's also the appeal of the show for me because they're

00:26:55.860 forced into the world in which I dated which is like without digital interference you just talk

00:27:02.260 you just talk to people you just talked and talked and talked and talked like you met a friend of a

00:27:07.000 friend or like someone who like some odd connection like oh we went to the same school for a year or

00:27:13.480 something like that yes and that was the basis to like have further conversation you might be

00:27:18.840 seeing other people this idea that you can like be in a virtual relationship for flirting for a

00:27:27.060 long time letting that peter out it's like our version of that it wasn't quite the same it still

00:27:33.380 had its own pitfalls I'm not one of these people that's like romanticizes meeting in the grocery

00:27:37.840 store or whatever it had its own anxieties but this kind of emotional bread crumbing that you

00:27:44.440 can do left and right that really just leaves you in the end with crumbs was not what we lived with

00:27:51.260 and so maybe in some ways I'm like and maybe this other person is connecting to the thing of the

00:27:58.520 stuff of life that is really rich which is like personal connection interaction rejection the

00:28:04.540 stuff Shakespeare writes about right but that stuff happens face to face it doesn't happen when

00:28:09.520 someone just walks away from their phone chat with you and never comes back you know one thing

00:28:15.700 i've been thinking a lot about reading the discourse on reddit and other places especially

00:28:21.600 about this season welcome to our community by the way not only and and i also have to shout out a

00:28:28.240 culture study listener named jeanne who um did like made a whole dossier for us like basically

00:28:33.940 summarizing all of her learnings from reddit after i'm obsessed she has also watched all of

00:28:40.000 the international versions so like oh pointed out all of these differences yeah amazing but i people

00:28:49.080 seem not to like season nine as much and not because of what the outcomes were necessarily

00:28:55.060 but the thing i've seen again and again is this time it seems like there are so many people who

00:29:01.900 just very obviously needed therapy and for some reason that threw them out of the enjoyment of

00:29:07.940 the show yeah because remember what I said about dehumanization yeah yeah yeah it's very hard for

00:29:13.960 me to be dismissive of the ridiculous things you do if I'm watching it and I honestly have learned 0.62

00:29:19.300 so much about your biography that I'm actually concerned about your mental health and repeatedly

00:29:25.260 people raise questions like that maybe you'll go into this now I don't want to do spoilers but

00:29:30.620 yes that can pull you out of the story so to speak yes like i actually i'm like oh my gosh

00:29:36.740 like this is a really hard time for you and you've been through a lot in your life and like i you need

00:29:43.040 to process that before like you need to love yourself yeah you can i mean without spoilers

00:29:47.340 let's just give some examples there's somebody who has a child on the show there's a single father

00:29:52.140 and i think everyone has been like well wait a second these aren't the stakes i signed up for

00:29:59.380 And there's a great deal of watchers out there who are single parents, who are co-parenting.

00:30:04.220 They know that life viscerally.

00:30:06.220 And immediately it kind of took folks out of the story.

00:30:09.680 They couldn't feel like it was a fairy tale because they just were like, what are you doing on this show?

00:30:15.500 Why did they cast you?

00:30:16.720 This isn't cool.

00:30:18.420 And the kid was under the age of 10.

00:30:20.700 There's another person who grew up in foster care.

00:30:23.400 And, you know, he's like slowly pairing up with somebody who like is a social worker, I think.

00:30:28.040 And it's one of those things where you're like, in real life, maybe somehow you wouldn't notice that you were doing this. But to all the armchair psychologists who have PhDs in therapy speak online, they're like, girl, what? Like, this is not a pairing. This is a case.

00:30:46.500 and and also that oh this would be a good friend for you just everything about it again it took

00:30:52.400 you out of the story because then also when you saw behaviors that felt like extreme or out of

00:30:58.920 line you did not interpret them as simply being a bad edit a villain edit or a bad cut or alcohol

00:31:08.260 you actually had these these other nuggets of information that turned it into beyond red flags

00:31:15.060 It turned it into this is actually irresponsible to put someone in this position.

00:31:20.820 And even though none of us seem to, you know, rise up and raise our fists for the reality worker union that Bethany Frankel and others have talked about there should be, we actually do have feelings about the casting.

00:31:34.500 Yes.

00:31:35.200 That is like, I think, culturally a thing that's developed over time.

00:31:38.860 Yes.

00:31:39.360 It's a real understanding of casting and like what's air quotes right and not right.

00:31:43.660 the audience has yeah ethical ethical great word um okay this goes back to something you brought

00:31:49.720 up earlier about how season one is the barack obama of seasons uh so let's hear this question

00:31:56.280 from joy i have a theory that all good reality tv excluding game shows like survivor can only

00:32:04.140 really have two to three really good seasons where the premise is original and the cast doesn't know

00:32:10.520 what's going on the first seasons felt way more genuine and experimental than it does now so why

00:32:16.220 is that is it due to the casting or the nature of reality stardom how if there is a blueprint for

00:32:23.160 what does and doesn't work on the show do people continue to stick their foot in their mouth on

00:32:29.300 television okay so that last question one baffles me a little bit but then also i'm just like people 0.99

00:32:34.700 say stupid shit on air all the time as you know um yeah but the reality tv show culture is is 0.97

00:32:42.140 different i would say in that these are people who and this is interesting time to talk about this 1.00

00:32:49.300 um mtv is like going through it right now and they in a lot of ways we owe a lot to them

00:32:54.900 the people who have grown up with reality television in this way which is all of us at this

00:33:00.580 point they bought the ticket so to speak yep you know they understand humiliation is part of it

00:33:09.060 you have kids on tiktok joking about being the main character uh or villain edits like we're

00:33:15.960 actually wildly now versed in reality show uh language so a lot of the people who want to do

00:33:26.740 want to do it is a platform to them towards what they hope to be their professional persona which

00:33:34.580 in this day and age is fully commodified you can be paid to be yourself yeah but the only way to

00:33:41.620 do that is through extreme exposure at the levels that some of these people want to do it and so

00:33:47.300 even on i think it was the golden bachelor it might have been this most recent season where 1.00

00:33:51.640 there was a little kerfuffle where all the ladies in the house were like oh my god she just wants to

00:33:56.220 be a fitness influencer and i'm here for love my husband died 20 years ago and i was like oh my god

00:34:01.400 nowhere is safe like the influencer is a disease and it cannot be contained well and like it's such

00:34:07.640 an old discourse of like not in it for the right reason not here for the right reasons right like

00:34:12.320 just like they all use this language now um i'm not here to make friends yes is another one i'm

00:34:20.540 here to speak my truth is another one love is blind is particularly uh filled with propaganda

00:34:27.500 and nick and uh vanessa lachey i'm like the pop star and the other one because i don't learn

00:34:35.940 anyone's jessica simpson's sure exactly which is hilarious given his role in reality show history

00:34:42.920 right talk about a persona you know that jessica simpson was like in a way actually undone by her

00:34:49.100 public persona developed through reality television um but they are constantly babbling a bunch of

00:34:56.260 jargon about love and is it blind and your truth and how did you feel about this and it's funny

00:35:04.880 the show is oddly they use the vocabulary of extremely emotionally intelligent and emotionally

00:35:11.720 aware people and discourse yeah with contestants who are deeply not those things

00:35:18.500 I know. Oh, my gosh. Or have been so compromised, they actually can't execute those skills because they're holding that golden goblet that they literally have to make opaque so you can't see how much they're drinking in the edits.

00:35:32.340 Yeah. So there's a real kind of like disconnect between this lofty language. And this gets at an earlier question about the looks issue. Why do they make such a big deal out of that? And then everyone's hot. Like, literally, what's the point?

00:35:47.960 Yeah. And it's because the propaganda of it is also part of this thing of making you feel like there is a story here and not really a kind of like manipulation.

00:35:59.440 yeah well and i think about this i love joey's question because it points to something that i

00:36:04.740 think is like foundational to reality television like this current iteration is that once people

00:36:09.820 have watched how to perform on the show how to successfully perform on the show and then those

00:36:17.520 people apply and go on the show it becomes a different entity yeah and you can't unring the

00:36:22.760 bell you can't yeah people may not realize this but like if you think about a show like the real

00:36:27.900 world the very first real world season people are doing their confessionals in all kinds of weird

00:36:35.180 places because mtv didn't have any money and they literally are like wearing dark glasses and scarves

00:36:40.560 like they are so weirded out by speaking on camera like that in public they're kind of like oh my god

00:36:46.700 okay fine three two one like they're not they're not in it for that they don't really know it's and

00:36:52.080 then of course by the time you get to like real world seattle and you have someone like slapping

00:36:57.480 someone else and like there's all this other kind of performance going on or the fact that mtv had

00:37:03.520 to generate new scenarios to throw the same mix of people together you know of like it's road rules

00:37:09.720 it's mad max it's a penthouse like they had to gin up new scenarios to get the feeling yes that

00:37:17.380 the inquiry was in that question of like how do you make it feel like season one and season two

00:37:22.120 yeah um of anything how do you keep creating that season one season two experience when you're on

00:37:27.440 season 25 yeah you know one thing i'll say at the i i watch this season and then every once in a while

00:37:33.840 i do this i went back to look at the first season because i'm a little bit like why do i like this

00:37:38.680 right you're just sort of cherry picking through and i the people in the first season they were

00:37:43.880 genuinely interesting and in later seasons there are people who are genuinely interesting they come

00:37:50.040 from different kinds of families they come from different kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds i

00:37:55.500 remember once there was a character who like when they when the couple got together and they finally

00:37:59.560 lived together she had to admit that she had like no money no job and like a totally run-up credit

00:38:05.160 card from Sephora yeah and I was like girl same you know like felt like very relatable content

00:38:11.340 and you're right this season and this turned off a lot of people there was a very generic blandness

00:38:20.040 to the point of like, the sound could be off, really, right, truly, the sound could be off.

00:38:27.080 And there's one character who I don't want to pick anyone out, but I will, who was like,

00:38:31.920 my friends call me Sparkle Megan. And I was like, Okay, you know what I mean? Like, there's nothing

00:38:39.600 sparkly about you. Like, I don't actually understand. Like, did you do you wear sequins

00:38:45.800 when no one's looking is there it was just almost like that thing in junior high when you say you

00:38:53.600 have a personality trait you know what I mean and that's supposed to sub for an actual personality

00:38:59.580 and in the end she had a very compelling story and all this stuff but yeah that sort of thing

00:39:05.820 where they all feel like okay I got to perform a version of myself what is it about me what it's

00:39:09.740 about me and I kind of make something up especially for the women it seems like there's a real 0.93

00:39:14.460 pressure on them to do that whereas the men are very like some of them you know they look dazed

00:39:19.620 and confused going through this thing and no for sure and like you know the this season was

00:39:25.500 supposedly based in denver and it felt so i love how you don't even believe it's in the city it's

00:39:32.860 in but it's like allegedly it was so placeless in so many ways right and most people like not most

00:39:41.000 many people like sparkle megan were not actually from denver she's like i'm considering a move back

00:39:47.520 to denver or i'm i'm a travel nurse in denver i love you and helen you're like you don't even go

00:39:53.520 here like yeah no you're right there was no regional difference they went to try on cowboy

00:39:58.840 hats and i remember being like oh is this set in austin like i couldn't remember what what was the

00:40:04.080 point the only the only the only moment that felt colorado to me is the character that i called the

00:40:13.060 sociopath said which one literally i don't know which one that could be said at one point that

00:40:18.200 when he gets on a chairlift with someone that he takes out his mixer and starts mixing martinis

00:40:24.200 for people on the chairlift is that the same person who put a chicken in a nutribullet

00:40:30.780 and like made a smoothie like super anti-gay and christian oh again which one uh like last season

00:40:38.400 was the political one that was the season where it sort of was the funhouse mirror of our post 1.00

00:40:43.800 pandemic post awokening politics where you had a lot of women who were like these are my politics

00:40:49.100 i'd like to talk about them because you're going to be my partner and men who were like i'm more

00:40:55.360 conservative than that or i'm more christian than that or i don't feel the same way about these

00:40:59.980 issues and those were the things that kind of revealed themselves like this isn't didn't even

00:41:05.240 have that yeah and I think um you know I don't know how long these things can go you can tell

00:41:11.080 it's getting bigger and better like because they have weird cameos the needle drops are more

00:41:16.000 expensive like obviously the show's doing okay but yes I think the fans are making it pretty clear

00:41:22.420 that it's not giving them even the basics anymore of what they want I could tell that they had more

00:41:29.800 money because like most of the time the music beneath is like it sounds like praise music to

00:41:36.660 me you know like it's just like melodrama praise music yeah it's the music you commission to sound

00:41:41.960 like songs you can't afford but then this season it was like oh we're just playing man child by

00:41:47.420 sabrina carpenter like we just we're just gonna spend that money for a very minor joke uh yeah

00:41:54.760 you can feel the cash flow. Today's episode is sponsored by Z-Biotics Pre-Alcohol. Melody,

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00:43:43.620 culture study and use the code culture study at checkout for 15% off. The culture study podcast

00:43:50.120 is sponsored by Blissy. Oh, it's my favorite time of year for sleeping because right now I get to

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00:45:44.060 Okay, this gets into the politics. 0.98

00:45:49.600 This question comes from Cheryl. 0.99

00:45:50.900 Is anyone else completely flabbergasted by all the gender roles talk in season nine?

00:45:55.980 I honestly felt like this season was straight out of the early 2000s.

00:45:59.560 And the same goes for the LGBTQ question that Nick asks Annie.

00:46:03.400 I was shocked that Netflix aired that.

00:46:06.320 Yeah.

00:46:07.020 I was not shocked that Netflix aired that.

00:46:09.000 Me neither.

00:46:09.940 Have you heard the new Taylor Swift?

00:46:11.760 uh yeah it's a difference of vibe shift out there okay let's play a couple of clips to

00:46:17.480 get a feel for this so the first is this conversation between sparkle megan and a

00:46:22.060 guy named mike and it happened within like 20 minutes of the first episode i'm definitely

00:46:27.620 like a perfectionist uh very like type a so if i like leave a bunch of dirty dishes out

00:46:34.840 on the on the island or the counter are you gonna be mad at me um it would annoy me for

00:46:40.280 sure but i'm also i kind of believe in like tradition more traditional gender roles okay

00:46:45.640 i'm not saying dirty dishes out i support that and then this part is between the aforementioned

00:46:53.480 sociopath at least that's what i call him that's not you know obviously his name nick and his

00:46:58.820 eventual fiance annie how would you react if at some point your child told you they were lgbtq

00:47:04.800 plus like no matter what i'm always gonna love my kids but like i can't tell you i would be the

00:47:12.360 first person to be like yay you know what i mean i do know exactly what you mean like i'll support

00:47:18.920 my kids but making sure that they're like informed do you know like do you know what you're doing

00:47:23.060 like do you know what you're getting into like do you know what you're signing up for do you feel

00:47:26.460 like it's a fad or something that's like you know you're like oh my friend told me i might be this

00:47:31.400 And like it's said that she's this. So I think I'm this.

00:47:35.640 So we talked about this a little bit, but what did you make of the conservative vibes this season?

00:47:40.140 I think, as I said, Funhouse Mirror of our politics. 0.68

00:47:44.140 I think that absolutely in the broader culture, when you think of the movement of Gen Z men, not just to conservatism, but say to Catholicism and not just Catholicism, but like Romanism. 0.69

00:47:57.480 Yeah. You could hear these women reconciling with these instincts of what's expected of them and what they think will get them a partner.

00:48:11.000 Yeah. Right. So you have somebody who's like a nurse pursuing further degrees who's like, but I also want to take care of my husband, you know, and it's like, OK, girl, you can. 1.00

00:48:20.700 but i don't know if you've checked the hours for nursing that's it's not the homemaker gig

00:48:26.280 when they when they get into out of the pods and into real life they completely fall apart because

00:48:32.560 you can say that they aren't real about it yeah right these same these people who are like oh

00:48:39.880 uh i want to be very traditional and that first of all traditional doesn't mean doing the dishes

00:48:46.300 it's just a household chore chill folks but there's all of this very strange dialogue where

00:48:53.020 they're trying to me again to show i have a vision of what the perfect because again all these people

00:49:01.060 are obsessed with perfection i have a vision of what the perfect partner would be the perfect

00:49:05.440 partnership would be and i can be the ideal partner and uh i'm trying to perform for the

00:49:11.360 camera is that perfectness and so these are the things the key words I think make sense these are

00:49:17.160 the things that will get me that halo yep and of course none of it works because they don't live

00:49:24.140 that way in their real lives at all yeah right no and they don't actually live the lives they're 1.00

00:49:30.220 pretending that they want all of the women have jobs right like one of them is a salon owner right

00:49:36.040 not just like someone who like so there's that and i think it's that incredible difficulty of

00:49:42.860 reconciling like okay so here i have to have this life in order to be interesting enough to be cast

00:49:48.080 on the show but also the show is like the status quo of the show is this incredibly regressive

00:49:54.780 and inherently like conservative understanding of like the relationship there's also a backlash to

00:50:01.160 the progressive feminism that people have experienced of the last 10 years I mean it also

00:50:07.600 really was also a conversation about feminism itself and its role in society in dictating

00:50:14.860 social etiquette mores and presenting a new ideal that under the current cultural regime

00:50:22.300 has been deemed false the thing you all said right that like taylor swift with the cat

00:50:32.320 is a billionaire is single is living her best life like guess what in the end she wanted to

00:50:38.840 make babies with a football player guess what all of these women they want to be in committed

00:50:44.260 relationships the things that were presented to them by western culture as fulfilling is a lie

00:50:51.540 And it's happening at the same time where economically it's an S show, right? Economically for young women, for parents specifically, economically, these partnerships are difficult to have. Like financially, you're not able to make the math work. So you see these people in real time wrestling all those different cultural notions at once.

00:51:15.720 And this is what I mean. It's a little bit like, is the show bad? Yeah. But no, but this is why it's a rich text. Right. Yeah. But like ideas kind of escape from it. And each season they reveal themselves. And I think that the season where the politics seeped out was one. And the season of this kind of trying to show who can show they're the most traditional woman.

00:51:40.680 and then for win a man which in the end all of the men are like basically feckless and I don't

00:51:46.620 mean that disrespectfully but like none of them are actually ready to partner they're pretty plain

00:51:51.680 about that they're all trying to be an ideal while these men aren't actually even trying for

00:51:59.000 any ideal whatsoever and it feels like such a mismatch and such a reflection of where things

00:52:07.200 are right now I will say some of the men and I'm remembering this just like a couple conversations

00:52:12.560 I heard like over the last couple days said would say things in the pods like I believe in

00:52:19.020 partnership like just some of that like the the conversation that you're supposed to have around

00:52:24.380 like yeah like we can both work and we can figure out what's happening in our lives right and I

00:52:29.680 think that's like that acknowledgement that two incomes is the way to survive in most scenarios

00:52:34.720 i didn't see it that way i saw it as more as like but you know how there's a world of people who

00:52:39.840 when the check comes at the end of the date the woman is supposed to pretend to reach for the

00:52:44.160 check but the man's actually supposed to take it that's how it came off to me the men were like i

00:52:49.240 really want a partnership yeah and then the woman would be like well i actually don't i think it

00:52:55.660 would be better if if if i did more things in the house they'd be like oh really well i mean i guess

00:53:01.140 I am into that refreshing to hear. Yeah, this is like really cool. And I was just like, one of them definitely said, I think it was sociopath Nick who said, like, it's so refreshing to hear you say that. You can't keep calling that. You can't keep calling that. I'm going to get just dinged for liable. But one of the first papers I ever wrote in grad school was about how Laguna Beach, this is when Laguna Beach. This is why you're my favorite writer. Oh, my God. Laguna Beach was a melodrama, like a very old school.

00:53:29.780 and we're talking about everything from the way that they actually use sounds to communicate what

00:53:35.540 cannot be communicated and this is all over the place in reality television now but also the way

00:53:41.960 that it was trying to make different ideas that were being hashed out that were complicated that

00:53:46.920 were not easy to reconcile like ideologies that are not easy to reconcile which yeah all of the

00:53:52.620 things you've just delineated like how do we make the reality of what makes life survivable in the

00:53:59.060 united states economically reconcilable with like these traditional mores like how does a woman do

00:54:05.820 all of the things people who have very limited vocabulary like just i'm going to be honest with

00:54:10.680 you lacuna b show is one of the defining aspects of that show to me yeah it's like they're teenagers

00:54:16.600 and they're just kind of like yeah huh yeah and i will say that there is a component like some of

00:54:27.320 the characters on love is blind are not much better no absolutely not they don't have the

00:54:31.920 emotional intelligence to say things other than i love you so much i just love you so much but

00:54:37.380 have you noticed though they're still again because of the internet well versed in the language of

00:54:42.140 emotional intelligence that they don't have so you can have someone who you can call sociopath

00:54:47.080 and that same person will be like uh you know i just want to take accountability yeah um because

00:54:53.900 you know I really just need to own it I need to I love bomb do I love yeah I love bomb do they use

00:54:59.560 all the terms that people have been using for the last five years in their like psychology today

00:55:04.660 articles about how to identify a narcissist and without identifying their narcissist at all so

00:55:12.740 it's a strange thing where they've got they've got the costume on but there's not anything there

00:55:21.380 there's still something to their usage of it you know because it's helped me understand like oh

00:55:26.100 this is how people expect to be spoken to these days yeah yeah no this is so smart like and

00:55:31.460 something that i i don't think having just watched the one season of the show as i did that i didn't 1.00

00:55:36.120 quite understand is the way that the female characters and specifically perform desirability 0.99

00:55:44.920 verbally yeah in the early seasons there was much more like i'm a this this is my job i'm the full 0.97

00:55:51.420 package why you know like they were much more hey i'm bringing something what are you gonna bring

00:55:56.880 and over time it has become a little bit more like well don't worry it's almost like they're

00:56:03.320 saying don't worry i'm not a feminist they're not saying that but there's a little bit of like

00:56:07.380 don't worry i'm not gonna like you know uh outshine you or emasculate you i want to like

00:56:13.600 keep my job and degrees at home. And I may actually financially completely overshadow you,

00:56:21.140 but I'll do the dishes. Yes. It's this incredible defanging. Yeah. And it doesn't stick.

00:56:28.300 Let's do our last question. Sure. It's going to bring us full circle and just like perfectly

00:56:32.620 bring everything together. This comes from Anne. I watched the first season of Love is Blind,

00:56:37.780 like everyone else, in the early days of COVID. It felt interesting, maybe even important,

00:56:43.080 though in retrospect, the metaphor is a little on the nose. We're all in pods. There was a moment

00:56:49.260 during COVID where it felt like some things might really change. We might learn from this,

00:56:54.720 shift some big things, ultimately come out better than before. How does the shittification of Love

00:57:00.520 is Blind, epitomized in the most recent season, help us to understand the ways we refuse to grow

00:57:06.260 or change in the wake of covid but went backwards instead girl she said it all she said it all

00:57:13.400 yeah but that's what i meant by the obama generation like that first season

00:57:19.460 had very kind it felt kind of lofty it felt like you were hearing people as you said reconcile or

00:57:28.180 reckon with ideas about what it means to be in a relationship gender roles things like that and

00:57:34.100 then in the end the like crowning glory couple is an interracial couple of like kind of normies 0.64

00:57:39.780 like now they probably look as glamorous as everyone else but they're they were like kind

00:57:43.260 of regular people you could root for and even their conversation around race was like eye

00:57:49.060 openly straightforward it was like meet my parents they are nice you meet my parents they are nice

00:57:54.760 like it wasn't as big a drama even as the show tried to make it one this is like two middle

00:57:59.940 class people dating yeah and then um the show never reached those heights again period and i

00:58:07.000 think to get to what your um listener is saying i actually maybe they're right maybe it actually had

00:58:13.460 more to do with pandemic you know a show about connection when we wanted to a connection a show

00:58:21.700 where we were on other sides of walls from each other a show where they did more effectively

00:58:27.440 convey the idea of boundary crossing of um of friendships that crossed boundaries for real

00:58:35.440 because the other lovely thing about the show which all reality shows have when they work is

00:58:39.960 like the people in the competition actually kind of like each other they become a friend group

00:58:44.320 because they've been in this like weird battle-tested scenario like all the girls in the

00:58:48.820 house and all the guys in their house like each other and so it did feel a little more like even

00:58:55.100 even the cat fights were kind of self-contained right it was not like everybody's fighting with

00:59:01.140 each other like a jersey shore situation it's like here and there there are little things but

00:59:05.560 fundamentally these people are nice and fundamentally you kind of like them and uh to her

00:59:10.840 point about and shitification which i guess is going to enter the mainstream i'll be saying it

00:59:15.080 on cnn one day um yeah you know that's where we are where these kind of ai like people like there's

00:59:21.780 not going to be a reason not to watch an ai version of love is blind yeah because the people

00:59:28.300 perform in ways at this point are so eye-opening they're so predictable like oh you're all going

00:59:35.060 to go to a mixer and the girl who you thought was hot actually was hot and now you're just

00:59:38.980 going to stare at her in a bikini for 10 minutes like chat gpt can make that show right or oh we're

00:59:44.920 all gonna go and meet one another for the first time like all the couples are going to meet each

00:59:49.500 other and it's like 2 p.m. in a tropical location and there's unlimited booze I wonder what's gonna

00:59:56.740 happen yeah I don't think it's an accident that Netflix on the app has a rail with like games

01:00:02.920 like actual little cartoonish looking games of all of these reality shows yeah you can play

01:00:08.380 you know perfect match you can play love is like you can actually play act and if you the

01:00:14.580 physicality the Instagram look is a two-dimensional look and so seeing a cartoon version of that a

01:00:22.260 kind of anime version of that honestly is not a stretch right and I will say one thing we didn't

01:00:28.580 explore in the episode but that could be an entire separate episode is that the when this has been

01:00:34.620 replicated in different cultural contexts it works differently the way well does it or do we just not

01:00:41.300 recognize the cultural tropes at play oh no there's certainly those tropes working but I'm

01:00:47.120 the American ones are not pronounced it would be a fascinating study for example to do this podcast

01:00:53.960 as Swedish people talking about the Swedish version of love is black yeah for sure I watched 0.99

01:00:58.160 the UK there were some others I watched and then after a while I was like I can't tell what a fuck 1.00

01:01:03.060 boy is in Japan like I can't see like I can't see the warning signs and so the sense of dread and 1.00

01:01:09.460 suspense that is built through watching the show over the episodes it wasn't there because i

01:01:14.080 couldn't tell until the last minute that this guy in brazil wasn't who he was saying he was and to

01:01:20.220 your point chat gbt could just take inputs from japan or take inputs from the uk and just like

01:01:26.260 slightly tinker with it and create yeah although i did try love is blind habibi because i was like

01:01:30.120 is this allowed like what are we doing well it's just it's culturally are you guys supposed to be

01:01:35.540 doing this like it was strange what was what was your take on it my take was that it was fascinating

01:01:42.140 to watch other cultures dating like that was cool you know and that that element of it was cool and

01:01:48.000 maybe that's why the international ones have arrived at their own kind of appeal because it's

01:01:54.480 us getting to do what we had hoped the show would do in the first place which is have us step out

01:01:58.760 of our own skins and try and see things from a different perspective so this is the advice we'll

01:02:04.820 of if you watched the last season and were like I can't do this anymore give the first season

01:02:09.720 of other countries a try yeah or give the first season of the U.S. show a try it's not like

01:02:16.360 watching a reality show where you're like everybody's clothes look weird like it's fairly

01:02:20.080 recent and there's no it's airtight there's no real politics to it um and so it's uh it's a

01:02:27.380 bottle season a bottle episode in a way and it is engaging who is your favorite couple and or

01:02:33.880 your favorite season i mean obviously one i've talked about that a lot so cameron and lauren okay

01:02:40.240 they're they're the obama couple then later on there's a couple in the later episodes i don't

01:02:44.380 bother learning anyone's name but this woman is like this sort of like wealthy hot girl from this

01:02:52.120 big israeli family and the guy she pairs with is this like texas dude and his family and they're

01:02:59.700 very sort of um uh what's the word um i think the only word i can say is sort of sexy like they like

01:03:08.060 talking about sex they're very attracted to each other but they have these like cultural differences

01:03:12.300 and class differences and they were like engaging to watch it was just like this is amusing me yeah

01:03:19.420 um but i'd actually like to make a different recommendation for people there is another

01:03:23.540 there's another show you could watch if you want to have some of the same energy more chaos but

01:03:31.760 actually more emotional intelligence and that is the ultimatum specifically the lgbt one 0.91

01:03:39.020 you have to watch the one with lesbians because they know how to have a conversation and know 0.99

01:03:47.180 about emotional intelligence and awareness and even as they make mistakes and they do make those

01:03:52.280 same kinds of mistakes they're far more engaging to watch in terms of how they work them out

01:03:57.660 how they don't their backgrounds it it disrupts your brain circuitry around gender roles and how

01:04:05.660 things are supposed to play out but it's just as chaotic and messy um and so that that is actually

01:04:13.140 my other recommendation these days it's like i don't actually tell people to watch love is blind 0.89

01:04:16.920 Like you need to watch the ultimatum and it needs to be queer love. 0.87

01:04:22.180 Well, now I know what I'm watching for Dahlia Dividing today. 0.99

01:04:25.120 Oh, this has been this has been such a delight.

01:04:28.620 Have I won you over to it?

01:04:30.820 I'm going to watch the ultimatum.

01:04:32.380 I'm not going to watch the next season.

01:04:35.020 You're going to thank me.

01:04:36.300 You're going to thank me.

01:04:37.260 That show is the bomb.

01:04:39.180 Where can people find you if they want to find more of you, especially your podcast?

01:04:43.160 You can find me wherever you get your podcast.

01:04:45.300 Now, I have a podcast called The Assignment, which is kind of a show like yours.

01:04:50.040 There's just like a little bit more news.

01:04:51.640 We usually talk to people who are kind of in the center of a news story, right?

01:04:56.440 Like people who who know it from from the heart of it.

01:05:00.320 And I also I do the morning show for CNN, which is called CNN This Morning, which if you don't want to wake up early, is also a podcast.

01:05:08.860 And we we actually have a lot of listeners to this hour long TV show where we kind of hash out the news of the day, straight politics and hard news.

01:05:18.960 And it's a great way to catch up.

01:05:20.300 That's because people love hearing you at any time of day, but especially.

01:05:25.160 Well, what I try and do is they cross pollinate.

01:05:28.980 So the assignment sometimes has newsier episodes than you might expect.

01:05:33.840 And the TV show, sometimes I trick them into having in-depth conversations about things they don't think are going to be very important, but actually are, which is also what I love about culture study. I think you're very good at identifying, and you always were in your writing, like, what are we really talking about when we talk about X?

01:05:52.500 And that's kind of my favorite kind of show to listen to as a podcast.

01:05:57.220 I don't actually just love like hang shows or chat guy or comedian hangouts and stuff like that.

01:06:02.800 It's like meaningless to me.

01:06:04.420 But I love a person who helps me by the end of it understand why what I thought I knew was not what I thought I knew.

01:06:12.200 Same.

01:06:13.420 It's no, it's it's like it is the it is the text of Arta.

01:06:17.200 all of these stories are the below decks and the above decks and the housewives and the

01:06:22.980 they're all us telling some stories to each other and trying to work them out and when these things

01:06:29.140 fall out of favor that's a message when new things come in favor that's a message and for someone who

01:06:35.560 grew up with soap operas exactly I still in a way I'm still watching soap operas you know I'm still

01:06:41.560 watching General Hospital and that I'm still watching super long running stories with characters

01:06:49.140 you know and who make mistakes and who fall in love and all this stuff the DNA of that stuff

01:06:54.980 is still there because fundamentally we still like watching ourselves exactly all right this

01:07:02.760 has been such a pleasure thank you I love it please invite me back I love this show we will

01:07:07.000 um melody we need to do the intro really quickly it's like two lines is the intro like

01:07:12.080 audie cornish is amazing and since she's been on television her ego has not grown in any way

01:07:19.460 she's like she's a humble gal who brings a kind of richness of intellect to every conversation

01:07:26.080 she's in side audie cornish i'm sure i'm sure you like now no longer getting those emails that are

01:07:34.160 like oh my god now i know what you look like man i don't get those anymore i don't get those anymore

01:07:40.800 which has been a real boon to the black community let me tell you because now it's much more like

01:07:46.080 it's so good to see you there rather than i didn't know you were there yeah and that has its own

01:07:51.980 there's always the subtext of like i didn't know that you were black wow yeah yeah it's very

01:07:57.380 revealing it's like now i know what you think blackness is but i also am trying to find the

01:08:03.140 provolones. So why don't we continue this conversation in another aisle in another time?

01:08:10.720 You can put that in. That could be the little blooper reel at the end.

01:08:15.440 These aren't bloopers. This is actually how I talk.

01:08:23.500 Thanks for listening to the Culture Study Podcast. Be sure to subscribe wherever you

01:08:27.320 get your podcasts because we have so many great episodes in the works and I promise

01:08:31.560 You don't want to miss any of them.

01:08:33.180 Some of the episodes we're working on include one on contemporary dating culture,

01:08:37.520 what we're talking about when we talk about eldest daughters and eldest daughter syndrome,

01:08:42.800 the rise of criminal profiling and like some of the problems with it,

01:08:47.540 and the sociology of names.

01:08:49.720 Basically, like, what does a name mean?

01:08:52.700 I can't wait to hear your questions for all of these.

01:08:55.040 And you can submit those questions along with questions for the subscriber-only AskAnAnything

01:08:59.740 segment at tinyurl.com slash culturestudypod, or check the show notes for a link. And if you want

01:09:06.840 to support the show and get bonus content, head to patreon.com slash culturestudy. It's five bucks

01:09:12.320 a month or $50 a year, and you'll get ad-free episodes, an exclusive vice time segment,

01:09:18.300 and weekly discussion threads for each episode. The Culture Study podcast is produced by me,

01:09:23.480 Anne Helen Peterson, and Melody Rowell. Our music is by Pontington Bear. You can find me

01:09:27.840 on Instagram at Anne Helen Peterson, Melody at Melodious 47, and the show at Culture Study Pod.

Culture Study Podcast - November 05, 2025

Love is Blind as a Cultural Skeleton Key

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