Emily Nussbaum

13.6K Followers
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72 Posts
TNY staff writer, considering fleeing the flames of Twitter

Why read past headlines: You, extremely online, have heard of "Mar-a-Lago face". You've seen Cybertrucks and bad AI art and whatever happened to Elon Musk.

But why do fascists love grotesquerie so much? I have theories. And I quote other theories.

https://www.salon.com/2025/03/24/from-mar-a-lago-face-to-uncanny-ai-art-magas-love-of-ugliness-is-submission-to/

From "Mar-a-Lago face" to uncanny AI art: Why MAGA loves ugliness

One of the swiftest ways to "trigger" the liberals is looking awful

Salon.com

People of Mastodon!

My wife, the fantastic writer @Emilynussbaum, has just published "Cue The Sun!", a rollicking and deeply-reported history of how reality TV was invented ...

... from Alan Funt's wild experiments on "Candid Camera" all the way up to the reality explosion of the late 90s, and ending with the first season of The Apprentice.

The storytelling here is just mind-blowing

I am biased of course but I'm also COMPLETELY RIGHT

go read this thing! https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/563029/cue-the-sun-by-emily-nussbaum

Cue the Sun! by Emily Nussbaum: 9780525508991 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

The rollicking saga of reality television, a “sweeping” (The Washington Post) cultural history of America’s most influential, most divisive...

PenguinRandomhouse.com
The original reality TV cast contract was just 166 words long

Take a look at the first-ever reality TV show cast contract, for 1973’s An American Family, which was filmed in 1971—and compare it to current reality TV contracts.

reality blurred
(And if ya like this article, pre-order my book “Cue The Sun: The Invention of Reality TV,” which is about the origin story of the genre!Drops June 25…
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/563029/cue-the-sun-by-emily-nussbaum/
Cue the Sun! by Emily Nussbaum: 9780525508991 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

The rollicking saga of reality television, a “sweeping” (The Washington Post) cultural history of America’s most influential, most divisive...

PenguinRandomhouse.com
Plus much more—including the growing debate over whether reality TV cast members should organize for better treatment (spoiler: yes)
In it, I dug deep into the untold story of Renee Poche, a veterinarian who wound up engaged to an unemployed alcoholic with anger issues, then got edited out of the fifth season— and was sued for $4 million when she spoke out publicly about her experience
Check out my investigative piece on Love Is Blind, the Netflix hit that sold itself to cast members as a pure-hearted psych experiment—and is currently being sued for false imprisonment, labor violations & setting people up with dangerous soulmates
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/05/27/is-love-is-blind-a-toxic-workplace
@irwin Thank you so much!
Santos lied so much it’s making me question whether *I’m* Jewish
Most unlikely detail in this heartwarming tale of storm Good Samaritans is that the stranded South Koreans knocked on the door of a white couple near Buffalo who had a rice cooker, kimchi and gochujang in their kitchen https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/25/us/snow-storm-korean-tourists.html
They Traveled From South Korea. They Got Stranded Near Buffalo.

A South Korean tour group’s van became stuck in the snow outside a house in Williamsville, N.Y. They spent the weekend with the homeowners — who luckily had a well-stocked kitchen.