Late-90s television desperation produced increasingly bizarre reality shows

Evidence

The Kardashians’ rise was part of a broader shift in television during the Great Recession. While movies leaned into bombastic blockbusters, television shifted to cheaper, unscripted programming. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 229 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Cheap production costs drove hundreds of reality shows into every conceivable attention-capture niche — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 848; The Great Recession pushed television toward cheap unscripted reality formats. — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 229

Broader Connections

• The Great Recession pushed television toward cheap unscripted reality formats. #expands (0.85) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 229