death of the author

On Mother’s Day morning, bright and early, I’d started telling my friend about the Bravo reality TV show The Valley, “which I watch just so I can continue being friends with my friends,” I joked. She was skeptical. Well, it’s pretty AuDHD in there, I continued, defending my friend group’s hobbies. I reasoned aloud to her: If fantasy football is a hobby where men passionately calculate and budget the ‘real cost’ of each player on their team, reality television is a study of dark interpersonal patterns—and the effects of editing—all in an effort to root out the ‘true story’. Fantasy football and reality TV are two different edges of the same animal: the collective and individual costs of backing the wrong horse. The Valley is a logical follow-up to the original show, Vanderpump Rules, in which Lisa Vanderpump, like a vain but ultimately caring mother, hands down her heteronormative wisdom to a rotating stable of ambitious, attractive, horny 20something-year-old employees. How’s that…