Part Two: The Bastards of Reality Television

not even leasing them anymore paid. Yeah, I mean listen, one of the pockets isn't it's not great shape, but you know, you know, these things happen. It's your regular wear and tear a pair of pants. How many pockets do you really need, an honest man, one one? Any more than one pocket? I don't trust that son of a bitch. I don't trust anybody who's not holding everything. They absolutely absolutely, That's why people wearing dresses are the only people you can trust, unless it's one of these

like modern decadent dresses with pockets no hands. I don't trust anybody with pockets. Why would we Why would anyone trust anyway? Dave? How you how you how how are you doing here? How are we feeling. I'm pretty good, you know, I'm I mean, okay, Well, you know what I'm learning about reality TV doesn't it's not great. You know, I've lost a lot of faith. I'm pretty sure I've lost several years of my life at this point. It's tragic.

You did have I Love Money three's logo tattooed on your heart before that last episode, which is really yeah, yeah, I'll probably just turn it to like heart honey something like that, which is just as true it is, you know, yeah, and in easy to do. You know what's Sophie, we didn't play it last time? Would you pull up the intro to I I Love Money three? I just kind of want to hear what that looks like. Yeah, let's

do Money three. We're having just having a good time with the buds talking about reality interest to reality shows. I'm super scared as to how bad it is. It's gonna be bad. How could it be good? Why would it be good? What would be? The last episode ended with a brutal murder, but this one is going to have a higher body count. But first, let's watch the I Love Money three intro. Let's see what was going on with this fucking show. Do you know what it is? Robert?

Because minutes? Yeahs the whole thing. Here we go, just play the entire thing. I so, I imagine it's not season three, right number it's I Love Money parts? Is it season three? Or is I think it's yeah, I Love Money three revival. No, it must be I Love Money three. We're learning a lot here? Is it? The squeak will there's there's so many things. Why are there so many things? I don't know. I don't know. If

I could, I could, I don't know. It doesn't. Just find an episode and yeah, yeah, I think just any old episode will have the It'll be fine. I feel like you chose the one that will have it. Yeah, this is not no, this is like a fan made montage. I don't even want to think about that world. I just find like an episode, episode four. There, season four episode that'll be fine. I want to see the intro. There we go, Yeah, hold on, it is it is.

I'm gonna turn the volume down because it's horrifying, Okay, or let's restart. Okay, all right, we found it. Here we go. I'm so sorry. I'll narrate it. Beach Bird, Tropical beat Water celeb reality are about to stop the cheering on a bunch of white people television. Look is not for you. Just the tour ends here they wait, wait, wait, was that Brett Michaels. Yeah, that was Brett Michael's. That was from the show we mentioned last episode where people

are trying to marry Brett Michaels. Yeah, I feel like he said, Bret Michaels, and your brain protected itself by racing. I wish, I wish I didn't know. Yeah, well you do now keeping off the streets. It is keeping him off the streets. That that is the number one goal of an ethical society, keep Bret Michael's off the streets. So that seems fun. That seems like a good show. That that that was the season of the show that had the murderer on it. So that's good, so Dave Bell.

In two thousand nineteen, The Son, a British tabloid, conducted a study that found thirty eight suspected suicides which had been linked to reality television since nineteen eighties. Six. Now this is fun because like both of course, you know that's unsettling, but also probably not related to anything. Thirty eight suicides in an industry with thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of contestants in like a thirty year period,

not really a big deal. That's actually surprisingly low. It's really low actually if you really think about it. But

that's it's never that's not how it's like marketed. There's just all of these because the Sun is a shitty tabloid, and then a bunch of other shitty tabloids and stuff like the Daily Mail put up articles being like thirty eight suicides linked reality TV and it's like, yeah, in half a century, Like, it's not really that big a deal honestly if you look at it, um, But so you know, yeah, there's there's probably more suicide's linked to

like stamp collecting. Absolutely, Oh my god, Dave, if you ever been to a stamp convention, I mean, the biggest danger is that someone is going to shoot themselves and you're it's like neat concert there. Yeah, it's break. That's a fun reference for three of the people listening, David. So you know, this study quote unquote is not really evidence of an epidemic, but the study doesn't come out

of nowhere. It's sparked and again, the Sun is really gross so like the thing that makes them conduct this shitty study is a series of terrible suicides that occur on the UK reality show called Love Island. Um so, three testants on the show killed themselves over a three year period. Since about a hundred people have been on the show, this means Love Island contestants have a suicide rate like three times as high as the rest of the UK. Yeah, that's one a year for just one show,

so that it's worth looking into. Yeah, I think the average for TV shows should be around zero. Yeah zero ish zero is obviously you can't always get your zero like that famously lost eleven norms in the first two seasons. Yeah, they had to burn through norms. They have been through norms like nobody's business. But yeah, um so yeah they this is probably worth looking into, so let's look into

it a bit. Um Yeah. The UK Guardian describes the show thus lee Love Island, a constructed reality TV show thrusts a collection of twenty somethings into close quarters in a majorcan via villa for about eight weeks. During that time, the contestants are given the task of pairing up, going

on staged dates and strutting around in Beachwaar. Every week, the public vote on which couples they want to boot off, while opportunities to recouple also arise, which can lead to some animosity when contestants leave their lover for another islander right in front of them. I feel like we should watch another intro here, Sophie. Yeah, show show us, show us Love Island. Yeah, that's that seems like something that

would spawn, seems like something that could cause problems for people. Yeah, or maybe the villa was haunted, but it's like the Woman in Black, where like they're compelled or something. But it's probably the first thing where the reality TV show. There must have been like a found footage movie or something about a reality show that gets haunted by a ghost that makes everyone killed themselves. Right, that's that has

to look up. But there, Yeah, there has to be because really one of the one of the foundations of found footage is finding a reason a bunch of people are filming. So yeah, fuck diving a fool awesome. Oh yeah, that's the good ship. Yeah that was fine. That was fine. Um, so yeah, Love Island. So you know, one of the biggest stories about this show came in two thousand eighteen, when it was announced that more people had applied to be on that year's season than had applied to either

Oxford or Cambridge. And again, this is like the same kind of people who like shared that terrible study about this stunt, Like some like shared this is like evidence of the decline of Western civilization, Like look at how horrible it is that, like Love Island, more people are trying to get on this show than are trying to get into Oxford. And it's like number one, like how many motherfuckers can actually go to Oxford as opposed to

can hang out on a beach? Like yeah, number two people used to die by drinking poop water because they know. It's just like, I'm a firm believer that time we eventually everything eventually gets better with time. I'm not saying it's perfect. Yeah, it's not not perfect. There's a lot of problems. Obviously. It doesn't mean that there aren't problems and that people's problems don't matter. But like that whole idea of reality TV is like, look look at how

everything's declined. It's like, I don't know, yeah, it's I mean, if you want to like look at Oxford and Cambridge think about how many people who went on to commit genocide in like British college. You're Oxford and Cambridge graduates. I'd rather have reality stars. Let's like, let's they've done. Reality TV show stars at this point have done less damage to society on a global level than graduates of Oxford and Cambridge. Absolutely like that that that's well documented,

you know. Um, It's also worth noting that, like the applications thing is kind of like a little bit of a misnomer because only about half of the cast of Love Islander picked because they apply. Most of them are again, as we talked about earlier, head hunted, like because they have thriving social media accounts, like they're already influencers. And this is I think a lot of reality has moved

this way. Why would you pick random people to be on your show in the hope that some of them will turn out to be stars instead of just like find people who are already have like thriving fashion instagrams or whatever. And but honestly that kind of bums me out because it was like, you can always at least break into reality TV if you some like cool main act. That was my plan. I was a date Flavor flav exactly.

We were all gonna date Flavor Flavor. But now it's like even reality TV you have to like have a resume for It's heartbreaking. Yeah, it's that idea of like to be an intern you have to have like four years of experience already. It's that it's for for reality TV. It's like, come on, come on guys. Yeah. So yeah, um, that's pretty cool. Um. The first Love Island suicide was Sophie Graydon, age thirty two. She was a former beauty queen who had spent a lot of time raising money

for kids with cancer. She seems nice. When she showed up on the show, her fan base exploded, but a ton of people also got angry that she paired off with some guy they had a para social relationship with. Right, Like, she starts I think, I'm not an expert on the show, but she starts dating a guy, and fans of that guy within the community of Love Island fans starts harassing her. Um, it's great. So Grayden said this in an interview with

Radio Eerie. I think it's like the Irish radio station. Yeah, I think it's Radio Eerie, UM or ire or whatever. I don't know. Look, I've been to Ireland a bunch. It's hard to say things in Ireland. I usually just I usually just nod and smile politely quote it was horrific, this is and this is again great in talking about the harassment she gets when she dates this guy. It was horrific. I think when you get so many comments on the scale we did, coming out of thousands of followers,

sometimes I would look for it. There would be so many negative comments. They're commenting on the way you look, the way you talk. They would come up with an opinion if you want a TV show where they're we've watched you for forty five minutes and uh yeah, Like that is how the internet works. Like if you've ever I fucking I posted a video of like my cat does this weird thing. She was never weaned, you know, Raja, and she'll like, yeah, you've taken care of her for months,

exactly what you're about to talk. Yeah, She'll she'll stick her tongue out and she'll like flip it in the air. And she likes to stand next to running faucets and just stare at them and do that with your tongue. That's her hobby. It's her religion. She looks like the pervert on the bus. Yeah, Like he's like just staring blankly and licking the air. Yeah, my cat does a

similar thing. It sticks her. Yeah. When I when I cat sat, I would have my cat drooling in my armpit and Rajah sitting near my shoulder licking north near my You can hear it, like it's weird. Yeah, And so I post a video if you're doing this because it's cute, and a bunch of people are like, this

means you're cat's dehydrated. You gotta lie and like like suddenly like this flood of ship which is not till you compare that to harassment, but it's like it's overwhelming, like whenever a large group of people on the internet decide to all do the same thing, and if that thing they decide to do is harass you, like it can destroy you. It does destroy people. It's the anytime I have a tweet that goes viral, it's just like tons of those, which I imagine is like the average

average experience for a woman on Twitter. Uh and and I only get like a taste of it. And when you get that taste, it's like my it's not been like harassing. Sometimes it's just like people be correcting things or like saying the same joke back to you, and and it's just like, oh, it all takes up a little bit of yeah, and it's it was overwhelming, And like the show Love Island to talk about like their culpability.

They have to know this is going to happen to their hosts, like to their I don't know what term they use, not hosts probably, but like contestants, this happens. We know this happens if you don't build a way into like take care of people and anticipate that they will be dealing with this. If you just leave them to like swing in the wind, it is partly your fault when bad things happen, right, I know. I said in the last episode that, like it feels like people

would get used to it overtime reality TV. But this is a new component. Is the Internet created cyber bullying, which you don't even have to be on a reality TV show to be affected by this. Yeah and yeah, it's just like the worst version of the things that we all always deal with, like versions of everybody deals with little pieces of this. Sophie gets on this and

deals with just a directed torrent of abuse. Later the year that year, like a few months after that interview she gave where she talks about how overwhelming it is, she hangs herself at her family home. Um, her boyfriend finds the body, he kills himself less than three weeks later. Um,

it's it's a fucking rough story. Um. Now the coroner they find cocaine and alcohol in her system, and the coroner blames her suicide on that, which is probably why people don't ask coroners for opinions on things a lot, because like, I mean, why was she getting all fucked up? You know? I mean I'm sure, yes, if somebody is doing a shipload of cocaine and drinking and then they kill themselves, the fact that they were inebriated, it's not

unreasonable to say, well, perhaps that influenced it. But like also it's always more complicated than that. Maybe they were needing to get fucked up because they had like the traumatized by listen like torrent of abuse. You know, I'm not one of them fancy mind scientists, but like I imagine, if you're contemplating suicide, uh, you get fucked up first to carry it out. Sure that too, Like, uh, like that's part of it. Yeah, it's hard to like, it's

that thing. It's like I've never gotten I've never done so much cocaine that i decided to hang myself. That has to be a decision that I've made before that. Yeah, and maybe you do the cocaine because you just again we could we could talk about because you like cocaine. But yeah, it's worth noting that, like this has become a bit of a pattern for Love Island Stars less than a year after her suicide. Uh, contestant Mike Thlastis Sallastitis. I think he's Greek Um committed suicide in a similar

situation after taking a lot of cocaine and alcohol. Um, like great, and he had stuff going on in his life beyond the show. I think his grandmother had just died like he had. He was sad for a number

of reasons. But also it's worth noting, like, oh, well, maybe the fact that this is a party show about partying young people, where everyone's drinking on screen and everybody's taking cocaine off screen, maybe this culture also does things that are unhealthy to people and put them in more vulnerable positions combined with the Internet ship exactly perfect storm to Yeah, a young impressionable person and you you crank them through this machine and some of them will make it. Yeah,

some of them will not make it. Um. Critics attacked the series for not taking care of its contestants, are providing any mental health care to deal with the strain um. Caroline Flack, who hosted the show, defended it to Cosmo in an interview, quote, It's dangerous and I'm really really angry. It's not just that you're blaming a TV show. You're blaming people in their jobs. In life. We all have a duty to look out for each other. But I

don't think it's fair to point fingers of blame. So Caroline says that, like attacking the show for having something to do with these suicides is really unfair. She's she's as the host of the show, is very vocal about that. A year later, she's removed from her job hosting Love Island after she was accused of assaulting her boyfriend with a lamp. She denied the charges and was gearing up to fight it in court when she committed suicide as well.

So that might again it's never just the show. There's obviously different stuff going on with all these people, but like, this doesn't happen because the show is fine, And do we know what the behind the scenes is here not? Yeah, it's just wild that like, like I know, I know plenty of sex workers. I know people who worked for say, kink dot com, um, and I'm sure in that industry

there's always scumbags, there's always shitty things. But a website like that, they're actually very careful behind the scenes because they know they have to be because they're dealing with something that you know, could easily something um bad could happen if they're not careful. Yeah, you're playing you know,

you're playing with fire. And like obviously they're there's criticisms to make, like kink dot com and stuff, but they they they had more much more built in than you had in Love Island up to right, And that's I guess that's what surprises me is that we watch reality TV because it's it's toxic, yeah, and that's the fun of it. So you would think that because of that

they would be extra careful. Yeah, and yeah, it's it's I have friends who do heroin and they tend to make sure that, like they've got a buddy to do heroin with who has narcan, which I'm not endorsing doing heroin, but it's this thing you do. You know, if in any other facet of life, if you know you're gonna do something toxic, you like make sure you take some steps to Like I'm gonna go out drinking. It's bad for me, I'm gonna make sure I take a cab home,

you know, but mitigates the damage. If a specific industry is depicting something that's seen as dangerous or seen as wrong, whether or not it is, um, you would, you know, you would take steps about that. And that's what's incredible to me about these reality TV shows is that they're more widely accepted than industries that are more careful. Yeah,

and that is wild to me. Yeah. When I was buying random powdered drugs from dudes at parties, some of them would even bring their own testing kits and you could be like, oh, yeah, this is an actual this is actually the drug I'm paying for. Um, you know, that's just good business. That's just good business. Let my drug dealer from two thousand seven run Love Island that's

what I write today. Well, yeah, because when when a group of people are more scrutinized than they're just or like they have a built in scrutiny, like they're dealing drugs, like they know like okay, I have to be on my best damn behavior, which is getting careful. Yeah. Not all drug dealers are as good. Some drug dealers are bad, but as a general rule, they are the most moral people in our society. I think we can all expect

on that. It's like a mosh pit. Is the reason mosh pits exist is because they kind of over in themselves usually. Yeah, and so I guess my what this all comes down to that's amazing to me is that they didn't think to do this for reality TV especially something is toxic as this, where it's like they should have people they're specifically to work on the mental health of the people here. It shouldn't take three suicides before the show was like, yeah, we probably have somebody. No,

it should have been their day. Yeah, that should that that should have been their day. Like we've been joking about like drug dealers and stuff. But this isn't in its own way as reckless as like all right, well, we're gonna have some guns on set for this gunfight scene. Who's gonna make sure the gun stuff safe? Well? How about much he's watched a lot of movies. Let's just

have Mitch running okay, right? Yeah, And I think it's big in the entertainment industry because I know, you know, we people talk about people like Kubrick and like, you know, big artist directors who sacrifice the mental health of actors for art, and it's like, yeah, that's it's weird that we're only now coming around to that where it's like, you know, there there should be someone on any set being in charge of this ship, especially reality TV. It's

just conte it is. It's very wild. But you know, Dave, you know who does hold us accountable here behind the bastards. You're not gonna say, Jesus, are you? You know, David is Jesus Christ. And let me tell you a lot of people are going to say, this is a weird time for for Robert to reveal that he's an evangelical Christian and that this whole show has been about trying to get you because your Buddhist day if you're fallen. Now, David, let me tell fallen. Let me tell you, where are

you going with this? I I really don't know the funny if I, if I had spent more time studying, it would have been really funny if I started proselytizing today, and it would become obvious over the course of it's Zoroastrianism and that I've mixed that up with Christianity. And I'm trying to get him like pilled on a hura mazda. But I didn't prep. I didn't prep. You know, I'm sorry, Robert. Just go back to I love war crimes. Shit, shit, Oh we're back. Oh boy, what a great ad break,

So Dave. After three three suicides, Um, the producers of Love Island decided we should make things less horrible, and they put in a bunch of like safety measures and stuff like they actually do institute a bunch of different things to try and make the show less toxic to its cast. Um. Yeah, it's interesting because I found a Guardian article discussing the ways in which the producers have tried to make the show less toxic. The attitude it takes is like this is all good and necessary and

also it's going to ruin the show. Um. So I'm gonna read a quote from that article, babe, which is a bit of a doozy. The bikini clad babes and shirtless hunks entering this year's villa will have undergone stringent checks to assess whether they are emotionally and mentally resilient enough to take part in the show. Well into graphics aired on screen will remind viewers to think before they post about the stars on social media in the hope

of discouraging trolling. During filming, there will be a welfare team on set, while contestants will also be offered comprehensive psychological support on exiting the villa, in addition to social media and financial management training. It is laudable that Love Island bosses are seeking to improve the support packages they offer contestants on such a high profile and profitable show, but their efforts ignore one fundamental truth. You can't make

reality TV ethical and entertaining. Trying to make Love Island responsibly is like enlisting Peter to run a bear pit. They'll do it, but it will be a snooze fest. Wow, there's a lot going on there. That's a lot. First of all, the writer is like, I like a good bear pit, God damn it. Bear fighting, Yeah, as fucking wild. It's something else. Comparing it to a bear pit is very telling because it's like that that's is more about. Yeah, the writer who's like, I want to see these young

people fucking kill themselves, damn it. I think they're ultimately being I think ultimately their attitude is like like bear pits, we don't need shows like this, and maybe if the fact that performing them ruins them means that we shouldn't have them at all. But there's still a wild way to frame it. Yeah, they're they're half right. I think that reality TV needs to be and I think is occasionally like wrestling. I don't think it needs to be real.

Why would it be real? It could be scripted. It's there's no reason it can't be unless it's like, you know, a great British bake off, although who knows what amount of cocaine they're doing on the set of that. We don't know they could be doing all the cocaine, but like you know what I mean, where it's like, unless

it's a very very uh structured competition, then just scripted. Yeah, it gives a ship scripted and then also pay the um, screenwriter, the writer whatever the w g A yeah, oh wait, nope, nope, that's that. They're never got to do that. No, I mean not even pro wrestling really pays, you know, their contractors and ship, so like, you know, they'll do all the things that everybody does to get around that ship. But at least uh scripted, at least at least give it,

try and do a little bit. Guys, come on, right And if people are like, oh, that ruins it, well, guess what they're not going to tell you. Yeah, maybe they already do this. Maybe they already do it, and maybe so Love Island, like a lot of similar shows, thrived by applying young, hot people with alcohol and behind the scenes other drugs and smashing them together to create fights and drama they could then market to an audience. When you do that to enough people, your show will

wind up at least associated with some suicides. Um and the author of this article is probably right. If it were the kind of show that could have cast three, that that could have three cast members commit suicide in like a two year period, it would not be as popular as it has been. The ugly reality is that people like nasty stuff and the best evidence in support of that is the last show we're going to talk about today, Dave. I have a quick question though, did

Love Island did the ratings drop off? That's a good question, Dave, because this all happened pretty recently. The find by the way financial you said a financial advisor, Yeah, I would do. I would do a reality TV show just to be paid, and a financial advisor like I wouldn't even need money, just like a free person to tell me how to spend my money. Um. But yeah, I uh, I'm curious to know how it's doing now. Anyway you are, you were introducing another show. It doesn't seem like it's It

did great in its last season finale. The the article I found from rap pro is not a ton of love for Love Island season finale. I mean, if your core audience likes bullying people till they kill themselves, they're not gonna like the cleaned up the show that no longer urges people to do that. Um, Dave, have you ever heard of the Jeremy Kyle Show? No? Who is that?

Oh boy? Well, it's a British show and it's an unscripted show and it's kind of like a hybrid of Jerry Springer and like Dr Phil and kind of more like reality stuff like that. Um, there's a little bit of a game show element to it. Here's how an article by The Guardian described it. The Jeremy Kyle Show ran for three thousand episodes over fourteen years on i t V and was at times the channel's most popular

daytime show. More than one million viewers regularly watched as its guests argued over paternity, addiction, deceit and betrayal, while Kyle bade and roared in their faces. I TV claimed that the purpose of the show was to provide conflict

resolution for its guests. So we're well aware of the basics of this, but one of the things that makes it really more reality than anything is that, like the core of The Jeremy Kyle Show was light detector to tests, right where people would come in being like, I'm not sure if my girlfriend's cheating on me, i think my boyfriend's cheating on me, or I think like my son lied, or I think like my friend like, and they would go in and get a light detector test, and which

of course is an exact science. Yeah, we'll talk about how bad light detectors are in a little bit, but like, so a big part of this is number one, light detector tests are expensive in the UK. I think I heard it was like five pounds for a test, and so a lot of people coming on were desperate because it's like, my girlfriend thinks I'm cheating and if I can't get a light detector tests, she's going to leave me.

And the Jeremy Kyle Show will give me a free one if I agree to get on screen and let like the host of this show basically like mock me. So Jeremy fucking Kyle is like the ultimate rich kid. He goes to I don't know if it's eaten. He goes to one of these like fancy British boarding schools where he's literally in classes with a future Prime minister. Um. So he's like the upper wrist rust a kid can have. He has deep connections in the British media, like that's

how he gets this show. Um. But the whole series is him sitting down with like poor people who are having like poor people problems and kind of snight ly mocking them, um, and then giving them these light detector tests that are to them the most important thing in the world because you know they're at risk of losing their spouse or whatever, and turning that into content. And then if the test winds up showing that you know they've lied or whatever, he gets to yell at them

and berate them. This like rich upper crust dude attacking poor people in the worst moments in their life. That's the whole Jeremy Kyle shows. So he's just it's he's one of those people that makes you wish hell existed. Yes, absolutely, and we're gonna I've just sent Sophie a video um that is a a light detector uh, like the results of a light detector test. And so you can hear Jeremy Kyle as as this whole situation happens. It's it's gonna be a good time spill punch a face. Oh yeah,

of course, how could he not have one? No man? And is this a hate watcher? I assume people watch it? No, Well, I think it's like, I think it's closer to Dr Phil than anything. Yikes. Yeah, marks on the Jeremy car Show. Has my fiancee cheated because she doesn't find me attractive? Problems For a long time, the way I look things like I've never liked you, say that she would when she made you. You're engaging five? Is you say this all started because when I meant is she would try

and change me. She tried to style me. What We got to a point where I just right, you'll have me that you want it, you dress me how you want me, and so other borns jekes put in the air and got enough and she just made the way she wanted and it's still enough. So no, even she makes you feel inadequate because she tries to change, she tells you. But look at those dead eyes. This is important as well. People around him told you that she's

a cheat. They told you, Prince he getting in our house and if I go up to look at the phone, play him on the phone and sees he'll grab it straight away. No, no, no, no, no, it's not fair. People have watched jeremy carhow either here or at home. Actually, do look at his body? Lang when I mean you can't trust somebody? Is that he is? He's so grossed out to be sitting with a poor said, yes, it's yes, It's like he's sitting with a monster still in the box of selt just pictures of the box of salt.

You really love this woman, don't you? Five years? He say, I want to marry her. She says, you know what, pal, this is in your head. This has nothing to do with me. Just because I look at men doesn't mean I'm going to do anything. It's just a human reaction. What happens if she causes this? This is in your head right asologizing obviously going after what if she's a liar?

Are you gone? I don't know, my friend, piece of ship, like he rose up like sins like like if I saw someone stand like that in the wild, I would want to hit him. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think we need to go through I don't care if this lady because like number one, like that's not certainly whether or not cheating should be just the cause to end the relationship is not a thing to be decided on live

reality television, right, Um, none of them. But also like they're desperate, you know, they're poor, they can't afford the light detector tests. They have been lied to by media to believe that light detector tests is the end all be all. Um, they're just so just none of our business. One thing, if she was like running an underground bare Yeah, that's a good show. Yeah, I'd be like, I want to know if she's doing that, but like if she's cheating on some guy, I don't know these fucking people.

They're not my friends. It's because you don't want to see and they like obviously some of these end in fights. They end with people weeping on stage. The Jeremy Kyle gets to like yell at folks and call them scum and say like you need to you know, grow you grow up here, you need to accept reality all Eddie. He gets to like he gets to do like Dr Laura stuff, if anyone remembers Dr Laura. There's a bit of that in Jeremy Kyle. Part of why I'm not

doing dedicating like a whole you could do. There's a great documentary I think it's a BBC documentary out about the Jeremy Kyle Show because of the things that we're about to talk about. Um more could be done and said, and I hope someone, when else with a podcast, does a good three hours on it. I'm not in part because a lot of Wyatt's So Fucked Up has to do with like very class issues in in in UK. Society right, like he's Yes, he's also not terribly impressive,

like he doesn't like necessarily a sociopath. He doesn't look like an evil genius. He just looks like a like an asshole, like just a rich asshole. Like it gives a side part motherfucker. He is one of a long line of British aristocrats mining the poor in order to make themselves comfortable. He's just doing it in a way that's very directed on TV. Yeah, so that's cool, Like, yeah, he's a lucky weener, you know, like there's nothing special about him. He would have been somebody else if if

he didn't do this. But you know what is special, Dave, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is special, um in that I don't know, you keep pivoting to this, Dave, And I'm not as good as yes ending, So I don't know where to take this. You know who's bigger than Jesus, Dave? Uh. The products and services that support this podcasts were shipped by more humans around the world than Jesus Christ of Nazareth. They can easily take Jesus And you know what, Jesus rose from the dead based off a ghost. Is there

something there. I don't know, you know, I mean, there's only one way to find out. Way to find out. Listen, listen, motherfucker's all right, we're back. So in two thousand five, the passons Paul and Erica posson We're having marriage trouble. Paul had cheated on his wife and he hoped that going on the show would help them to fix things, which does suggest that Paul's not great at decision making.

So you know, this has maybe some people who are not great at relationship conflict resolution as it is, and they decided to go on The Jeremy Kyle Show to deal with this problem. Jeremy Kyle goes out of his way to turn these two even more against each other. Um. He asks Erika on stage if she wants Paul to leave her UM. She says yes, and so Paul uh leaves her UM. Days later, she commits suicide. The show never airs, which is evidence that the producers felt they

may have had some complicity in what happened. The Guardian continues, quote, guests appeared on The Jeremy Kyle Show out of desperation because of some conflict in their private life that they were trying to resolve, and the program took advantage of that. Our documentary shows the case of a woman whose doctor was a heroin addict in a very very ill state. The family couldn't afford rehab, so they went on the show because when it did when it did items about

drug addicts, it would offer rehab. They claimed that they were told that they were in a competition to win the rehab and that as there were other guests with drug addictions, the family that most needed it would get it. They say that they were wound up by the production team to heighten the drama of the conflict on stage, and that it was a lie. They were always going to get offered rehab. Jesus Christ when that fucked up? So wait, wait, wait, they were always going to get

rehab no matter what. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for going on the show, they were going to get sent to rehab. Okay, that well, that's that's better than what they say. Well, but that's the pub But they still told them that they have to compete for rehab. The guests did not know that they were getting we have anyway they were, so they were set to pity each other against each other, and I'm sure that the producers. They're like, they'll be happy at the end because then everybody gets rehab. So

it's okay. It's actually worse than if you'd given only one of them rehab. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty bad. I mean, it's it's both. I don't know what the like. I guess the right answer is to just give them rehab, and like, just get people rehab is to the extent that it works. Yeah, the right just like run an episode of Sherlock where the show would go and that's

what you do. The moral answer is to provide people with options for drug addiction treatment that are not reliant upon them showing up on TV and embarrassing themselves like that. That is the actual solution. To have a government that just does that, so a reality TV show doesn't prey on people who desperately need this stuff. Yes, that is

that is it. That is the option. And to have again a government bureau of people in suits who walk around and when someone's like I want to make a reality show where desperate people suffering drug addiction have to compete in order to get treatment, a man shows up at their door and hits them once in the jaw. Yeah yeah, and then in America. There needs to be a bureau that makes sure everybody goes to jail at least for one day for that show. For sure. Absolutely, yeah,

we're we're cooking here. And then finally one that talks about the power of Jesus Christ. Everybody absolutely yes, of course, um, yes, the power of Jesus Christ to sell Casper mattresses with with promo code he has risen. You can get a Casper mattress that you'll want to sleep on for three days. That's beautiful. Yeah, and you have Jesus coming off coming off of the mattress. You do you do? Are you do a bit where after three days they're like, why hasn't he come out? It's like because he has a

because he's got a sleeping in there still a good time. Yeah, God damn, we should make ads. Come on. I don't think we've ever gotten money from Oh you will now we will now it'll come rolling in now. Yeah. Better than religion. So I t V claims that they do not accept the central allegation that there was a bad

culture within the production team. They issued a statement saying they would never condone any of its production staff misleading or lying to guests, but the documentary showed guests being put into separate rooms while production staff would go back and forth saying like, oh, we've just talked about to this person in the other room and they said this about you. And then they go to the next person

and say, well, well they said this about you. Like they were trying to get people to fight on stage and this is how they would do. Yeah, The Guardian continues. The whistleblowers in this documentary told us that after filming, the shows were graded, with the top grade given to

the show with the most conflict. Junior members of the staff say that the pressure on them to continually deliver guests would argue dramatically on stage led to them being lax with the details they filed on a contributor welfare checklists. They were pushed into a place where they didn't think about the interests of guests properly, and now they carry a terrible guilt. Many ex employees are still too scared

to speak about it. YEA, yeah, it's it's like sounds like Hollywood baby, Yeah, well it sounds like yeah, I mean it also sounds like how the internet works now too. It's like I know someone who worked for a certain website that it's not something we worked for. I'm not being like COI for that reason. A certain website that isn't around anymore that would like post everybody's like page counts at the beginning of the day, and that was

the most important thing. Clicks, clicks, clicks, And it's it's that thing of like if you prioritize that over you know, basic human decency, you know, like, oh, who can who can give us the loudest, biggest, angriest show. Well, yeah, it's gonna be bad. It's their things are gonna happen, They're gonna get lawsuits, people are gonna hurt themselves. It's just yeah, it's awful. It's not it's not you know, it's not good, Dave, I'll say that much. No, it's

it's definitely. Yeah. I think I think we can agree that it's not good. Yeah, yeah, it's so. Obviously most of what was on the Jeremy Kyle Show was not new. The way they used light detectors was right. That was really the big thing that they innovated on. Like a lot of this. The Doctor Phil Show made most of their money on people with addiction, who they would like send to rehab, but first they have to turn their

pain into content. Right, that part is not new, but the whole, like plying people to with like promises of a free light detector test in order to monetize their pain, that's pretty new. Um, and that Jeremy Jeremy Kyle made millions doing this. It's the extra Yeah, the fact that it's people who can't afford things. Yeah, it's like it's like if they made a show called Who Wants to Have Healthcare? Yeah? Who wants to get surge? Oh, you're talking about the opening show for Fox next season? Yeah,

who wants to not die of cancer? I feel like I just gave some executive a bone. Yeah, it's it's not. Yeah. The guy from episode one just ejaculated spontaneously while he was standing in a meeting pitching a show where poor people are eaten by bears. Um that actually, I would watch a show where people get eaten by bears as long as they're people of No. If if it's a wide segment of socioeconomic classes getting eaten by bears, that's fine. A billionaire and a poor person both getting eaten by

a bear, shar that's just good TV. You know that is, Yeah, do they get eaten or do they get to fight the bear? They get to try, They get to try. Here's the thing is, I don't want to see a bear get hurt. It's okay, we'll make sure they're polar bears. Okay. So it's like we tell them, oh, yeah, you could

totally fight this bear, but then they can't. And then the twist in the show, just in case they're like in super good shape or something, is right before the bear gets let out, we hit him in the knee with like an iron bar and then run off. Yeah. So there, you know, it's just watching people get eaten by bears from Yeah, I feel like you only get one season because after for season two, people will be like, no,

I've seen the show. I'm not gonna go on and we'll we swear you could take the bear and they're like, no, I know, I can't. You're gonna hit me in the knee. I think season two would be who wants to fight a bear? But this time we promised we don't hit you in the knee, and we give you a gun. But then it turns out the gun is like a reverse taser. So when they try to shoot the beart electric keets them and then the bear eats them. Stills pretty great. We should talk about another person who got

killed by the Jeremy Kyle Show. So in two thousand nineteen, Steve Diamond was a guest on the show. Uh, and he's like in his sixties. Both he and his partner are like older folks. Uh. She suspected him of cheating, and he agreed to take a light detective test on camera to prove to his partner that he had not been unfaithful. The Jeremy Kyle Show, you know, was very happy to do this. So they all go on stage and they take the tests. Um, and the test shows

that he's been cheating on his partner. Um. Now, later research would show that light detector tests on the show were at best se act it and light detectors do not detect lying. They detect a number of physiolotic logical

symptoms that some people say are associated with lying. Or I don't know someone who's nervous, nervous the relationships on the line, and like, yeah, some rich fuckers is making fun of them in front of millions of people, and like, yeah, so Steve Diamond, who is adamant that he had not cheated on this woman who he loved and who was like his his entire life, like was bound up in this person he had been in this year's long relationship with.

They're not young people, they've been together a long time. She believes he's cheated on him. He goes on the show to prove that he's been faithful, and the light detector says that he's lying. Um and this is like he his family and friends say that he, like Shaw,

saw the show as a savior. The documentary. One of the rough parts of the documentary is it has a bunch of audio from phone calls he made to his partner talking about how like once the show was over, like everything would be fine and they'd be able to get back together, Like it would be this was going to solve everything. Um, so he the Jeremy Kyles Show says, this guy is lying, and he kills himself several days later,

and once again the show has never aired. I TV actually cancels The Jeremy Kyle Show soon after Thank You. I was gonna ask if the show is still around, because that is I would argue a form of murder. Yeah, it's kind of like, yeah, they just murdered that man. They do seem a little bit murder lie detector on framed him or I mean, I don't know. It sounds like we don't know if he's unfaithful or not. But it doesn't matter. They framed him as unfaithful through a

shitty lie detector test. He clearly seems like he's innocent. Uh, that's yeah, that's a good old fashioned So that's good, Dave, that's good. Oh, hey, what's this? I just found an article from last September from the Manchester Evening News. I'm just gonna read from this random article in the Manchester Evening newsday from last September. Sure, it's just a normal thing. Jeremy Kyle has announced his comeback after naming which I TV Stars reached out after his daytime show was axed.

The TV presenter has broken his two and a half year silence after his program was canceled. The fifty six year old said he will fight back after announcing his return to broadcasting on talk radio. Kyle will host a weekday show from September through Step four to seven pm. A promotional video on social media said after two young, long years of chaos and division. One man is needed

to make sense of it all. In an interview shared by the station, Kyle suggested he had been labeled by society as he set out his plans for his new show. He said, in a democracy, you should be able to ask and say what do you want? If you don't like the response, you don't throw your toys out of the pram. That's what I said. Listen, I have been canceled in this world. It seems now that unless you follow a certain path, you are labeled. You have to

fight back, fighting back new show idea. Uh, this guy fighting absolutely and we hit him in the knee first to fuck him. What's really upsetting is that I now know that there were seventeen seasons of the show and three thousandsodes too many episodes. Um Also, one of the first people to reach out to him supporting him was Pierce Morgan, which should not be surprising to everybody, not to a single soul. Yeah, this is dystopia. This is

straight up a dystopiate. It's a humor that that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie is at the Running Man where like it's a reality show basically, and they're like a reality game show that like, and it's this dystopian government that murders protesters and YadA, YadA, YadA. Every show in the Running Man is less dystopian than this, Like every like ad they have for a fake show, all of it wait less up than this because everybody sort of knows what

the Running Man. They don't know they're executing the winners and stuff, but they know everyone else dies, yeah, exactly, and like everyone who shows up knows they'll probably die. And as opposed to I guess I can't afford a light detector test, which I have been lied to by a lot of media into believing is like the end all be all of truth. And so my only option to save my relationship is to go on the Jeremy Kyle Show. Whoops, Now my life is ruined. It's sanitized horror.

It's it's the it's it's kind of like how a lot of things happen with our writing system and stuff, where it's like you can show any old fucked up thing, just no blood. It's that same idea, which is what they're doing is absolutely ghoulish. It's horror, but it's it's wrapped around this more sanitized version that they can step back and go it wasn't. It wasn't the culture of our show. You know, we have no control about what people do, and it's just makes me want to burn

it all down. I'll say it right now. There's a lot of terrorists who I won't defend, but I have more respect for it than Jeremy Kyle because at least, like you know, they're putting some skin in the game, Jeremy Kyle is just hurting people to make money for nothing. Yea dystopian villain? Is he is the host of The Running Man? Yeah, essentially it is. That was Arnold. Look, I know you're having a bit of a renaissance because

you've made a couple of good videos. When bad things have happened, Go murder Jeremy Kyle, like you did that guy in The Running Man, and that's that's a that's a third act. Or at least like slap him in the tank as hard as you can if Arnold Kelly, you don't want to murder somewhere because your celebrity just just slapped slap tap, tap him in the tank, choke him out so he poops his pants like Steven Seagal that one time, and we promised to forget that you

were governor of California. That that that's a painty swear. Arnold almost forgotten that. Honestly, he boasted a couple of TikTok's with his donkey. I guess I'm not going to think about what he did for the oil and gas guy, the cute donkey, the cute donkey guy. Look, he's nice with his legitimate some that he hid with his maid. There's a lot of uncomfortable dimensions that we don't really think about anymore. Because he didn't make a pretty good

video where he yelled at Nazis. Arnold is low. He's relatively fine, Arnold Schwarzenegger compared to all the war criminals in politics. Not that bad, not that not that yeah, yeah, I mean even better if he if he slaps this guy in the tank, slap him in the tank, Arnold, come on, buddy, yeah, you know, hold him upside down, uh and separate his legs and slap karate, chop him in the tank. You fuck this guy up, Arnold, and we will all agree to give you four more years

of being an action star. And we just won't we won't say that, like, oh, buddy, you are just an old man now, and we don't really need to see you hitting people. That doesn't look great anymore. We'll all agree to pretend. We'll go watch the movies you funk up, Jeremy Kyle Arnold, and we'll get your back on this one. Don't worry about the same offer for Harrison Ford. Absolutely, I mean he's he's just doing old from man action whether we like it or not. But like again, i'd

love to see him karate chopped this guy on the team. Dave. There was a beautiful moment on one of your podcasts recently, were you and I think our old boss Jason Pargeon. We're talking about the most recent Indiana Jones movie, not the one that's about to come out, but the one with shy La Buff and we're like, yeah, seeing seeing Harrison Ford like fall onto car windshields and stuff as

an old man, it doesn't look as cool. And I have a bit of a bone to pick because after he made that movie, he survived like three plane crashes. I do feel like he's actually durable enough. He is a he is a sky hazard, Yes he is. He's a durrible old guy, but it, yeah, doesn't level of tension. It's like watching the Undertaker wrestle now where he's like

he's still around a few years ago. Yeah, those old fuckers are still around and you watch them wrestle and it's a whole new dimension of horror where you're like, no, your knees, no, oh God, like, please don't do that. You're like you're fucking up your back. Yeah, anyway, that's going to do it for us. This week a little bit of a Lucy Goosey week we got for you. But what do you what do you want? What do you want? I don't know. I do I want power.

I do want power, Dave, the sweet, sweet power that you can only get from a full night's sleep on a Casper mattress. Casper mattress again. We robbed the graves of Egyptian peasants to steal the softest learnings and literally make you Jesus Christ. And we literally make you Jesus Christ. How does this feel as an ongoing jokes over? You like this better than the child Hunting Island? I mean works out, I mean it kind of works It kind of feels like you're you're you're more pro and then

I don't have to bleep it. Yeah. Well right, okay, I know that upsets you because I stopped marking it. I was like, oh no, you're actually like selling the ship. Maybe. Yeah, like we should make ads for castor mess. I feel like we're going to get a call any day now.

They're better than Jesus Christ. Um yeah, I mean like, well, I guess that's my Other plan was to start giving random sponsors credit for ancient war crimes, you know, like uh um um oh gosh uh single handedly responsible for the siege of Baghdad of twelve fifty eight, in which the city was burned in the fat of its burning citizens rolled through the streets like a like a like a torrent of rain. That's right. See, I I have to I have to believe that because they did, in fact,

actually try to buy ad space in our show. Also, they did do that thing that did they were responsible for destroying the city of Baghdad in So yeah, that's tough. That's tough. What else? What can you do? You gotta bleep it. I guess you gotta bleep it, Dave, you gotta plug anything. Um, hold on, I I have a Twitter at movie Hoole. Again. If people want to follow me. I have a podcast network with Tom Ryman Gamefully Unemployed. If you got a Patreon dot com slash gamefully Unemployed

for five dollars a month. We have a bunch of exclusive podcasts on there. We also watch movies every Friday night with our patrons. We also just have like free ship. If you just google gamefully Unemployed wherever you get your podcasts, you can see all that. It's it's mostly movie stuff. In fact, it's exclusively movie stuff. We do movie reviews. We just did depending on where this came out. The Ben Affleck film deep Water, erotic thriller. Everybody go see

it or don't. So I guess I also want to plug deep Water with Ben Affleck. Oh yeah, absolutely, it's mostly him killing himbos, so everybody can get behind that. Yeah, who doesn't support killing a himbo? Now and again, I thought I thought you were going to bring up Ben Affleck's back tattoo, which is one of your favorite things to do, Robert, Oh, yeah, we all love Oh my god. I mean I would say that, but I have a

lot of writing to do. I just can't. I just can't, you know, immediately start masturbating after this call which is what I do whenever I think about Ben Affleck's back fee. You should do a behind the back tattoo. Behind the back tattoos. Yeah, it's just it's just gonna be me being incredibly horny about Ben Affleck's perfect back tattoo. I thoroughly regret bringing it up. That was my goal, So that was my goal, And and a podcast,