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"During last Tuesday's presidential debate, Romney answered a question about pay equity by saying that he made sure his chief of staff could leave work in time to cook dinner for her family. "The Bachelor" has resurrected the same regressive view of relationships, showcasing bubbly babes promising to "make the best wife" for ABC's husband-in-chief "because I would be a servant to him. And if he comes home from a long day at the office, I'll just rub his feet and have dinner ready for him!" For more than a decade, reality TV has stuffed "binders full of women" with stock characters:"

"There was a time when The Learning Channel (TLC) actually focused on learning. There was a time when Bravo programmed cultural events. Now, entire networks have been revamped to prop up reality shows that aren't even real. As a result, the inability to pin down what's actually happening - to separate what's real from what's fake - seems to have infected everything. Take the 24-hour news cycle. The crop of pundits paid to fill airtime and spew talking points are just like those kids on The Real World, who knew exactly why they'd been cast and played their roles with gusto. In hindsight, it was only a matter of time before there were political consequences for blurring the line between real and fake."

"From reality TV show Big Brother to warnings about surveillance, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four has had a lasting impact on modern society. With the very idea of truth under attack, the Guardian's Dorian Lynskey explains why, 70 years after publication, the dystopian classic might matter more than ever."

""A little bit famous" is the domain of Instagram influencers, reality TV contestants, YouTube creators, pageant queens, and mid-roster athletes who you yourself might not recognize on the street, but someone would. Over the past year, another group have entered this category: TikTok stars. These people, most visibly teenagers, have found huge audiences on the nascent app known for short video posts"

"The final installment of "American Idol" closed with 13.3 million viewers, the highest viewership for the show in two years, according to Nielsen. "Idol" was the highest rated show on Thursday night in total viewers and in the 18-to-49 year old age bracket that is important to advertisers. The final episode was a two-hour celebration of the show's 14 years on the air. Former judges like Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul appeared on stage, while dozens of former contestants like Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Hudson and (a very pregnant) Kelly Clarkson performed. Trent Harmon was announced as the final "American Idol" winner, beating out La'Porsha Renae. The show was once a ratings juggernaut for Fox. At its height 10 years ago, it routinely drew 30 million viewers an episode, the sort of numbers that these days are reserved for National Football League playoff games."

Perhaps at some point in the past few years you've told Facebook that you like, say, Kim Kardashian West. When you hit the thumbs-up button on her page, you probably did it because you wanted to see the reality TV star's posts in your news feed. Maybe you realized that marketers could target advertisements to you based on your interest in her. What you probably missed is that researchers had figured out how to tie your interest in Ms. Kardashian West to certain personality traits, such as how extroverted you are (very), how conscientious (more than most) and how open-minded (only somewhat). And when your fondness for Ms. Kardashian West is combined with other interests you've indicated on Facebook, researchers believe their algorithms can predict the nuances of your political views with better accuracy than your loved ones. As The New York Times reported on Saturday, that is what motivated the consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to collect data from more than 50 million Facebook users, without their consent, to build its own behavioral models to target potential voters in various political campaigns. The company has worked for a political action committee started by John R. Bolton, who served in the George W. Bush administration, as well as for President Trump's presidential campaign in 2016. "We find your voters and move them to action," the firm boasts on its website."