The past is never past. Every headline has a history. Join us every week as we go back in time to understand the present. These are stories you can feel and sounds you can see from the moments that shaped our world.Subscribe to Throughline+. You’ll be supporting the history-reframing, perspective-shifting, time-warping stories you can’t get enough of – and you’ll unlock access to our sponsor-free feed of the show. Learn more at plus.npr.org/throughline
The past is never past. Every headline has a history. Join us every week as we go back in time to understand the present. These are stories you can feel and sounds you can see from the moments that shaped our world.
Subscribe to Throughline+. You’ll be supporting the history-reframing, perspective-shifting, time-warping stories you can’t get enough of – and you’ll unlock access to our sponsor-free feed of the show. Learn more at plus.npr.org/throughline
We live in divided times, when the answer to the question ’what is reality?’ depends on who you ask. Almost all the information we take in is to some extent edited and curated, and the line between entertainment and reality has become increasingly blurred. Nowhere is that more obvious than the world of reality television. The genre feeds off our most potent feelings – love, hope, anxiety, loneliness – and turns them into profit… and presidents. So in this episode, we’re going to filter three themes of our modern world through the lens of reality TV: dating, the American dream, and the rage machine.
