To Be Real: On Emily Nussbaum’s “Cue the Sun” | Hacker News Reader

To Be Real: On Emily Nussbaum’s “Cue the Sun”

lareviewofbooks.org

36 pointsdredmorbius12 comments

Some very interesting cultural through lines highlighted here.

> For Nussbaum, the clip shows COPS and America’s Funniest Home Videos (both premiered in 1989) were also “the first draft of internet culture.”

While this comparison is probably as old as YouTube itself, it’s fascinating to look at the evolutionary parallels from those first clip shows to the comparatively far more elaborate reality TV that begins a decade later.

Observe how the prototypical YouTube content, the “cat video,” has long since given way to something much closer in form to the evolution of reality TV described in the book review: vloggers, blending autobiography and contrivance with increasingly sophisticated production values, the rise of the influencer, and its proliferation across platforms including Instagram and TikTok.

Kind of strange not to comment on the absurdly prescient film that provides the title of the book in review: Peter Weir’s The Truman Show.

It’s fair to say that reality TV and its tropes were not unknown when the film premiered in 1998, but they were seen as an MTV novelty. The Truman Show made what was essentially a metaphysical argument about being the star of your own life that has stood the test of time and then some.

I do wonder sometimes what a 20yo today steeped in the world of TikTok, Only Fans, and Donald Trump would think of Truman—as someone that age when it was released I can say it seemed fantastic. If we only knew!

How will it end?

That is mentioned in some of the interviews about the book. KQED's Formum specifically addressed The Truman Show. That segment can be listened to here:

<https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101906163/emily-nussbaum-tell...>

(I've also caught Nussbaum on The New Yorker Radio Hour, and possibly elsewhere, she's making the rounds at the moment.)

I watched a "reaction video" to The Truman Show recently where the hosts were wholly unfamiliar with the movie beyond Jim Carrey. They focused on the cruelty of faking the family, relationship, and community around him. The film also shows that acting wasn't enough, and the corporation/creator essentially "cheat" to keep him from leaving and being his own person. So you can see that part of the movie without thinking it's no big deal in social media world.

I also watched a channel which uploaded daily vlogs during 2020, and the person said that as a kid she wondered if The Truman Show could be real and happening to her. And now she sort of created it for herself? Something to think about.

One of my favorite lines in all of cinema. To literally play god, "let there be light", indeed. Gave me chills the first time I heard it, and still occasionally since.

Same here. It is also interesting (and I am sure quite deliberate) that Ed Harris' character who spoke that line was named Christof.

If you haven't seen it before, check out The Year of the Sex Olympics. 1968, almost perfectly predicting Survivor-style reality TV and a lot of 2000-era television culture.

Funny, I don't see it as being prescient or having parallels at all.

The Truman Show is the story of a man thinking he lives in the real world (he is not aware of being a star and has no desire to be one), and discovering his world is actually a TV show set. And whether he will choose to escape his entire gaslit "reality".

I don't really see what it has to do with Donald Trump or TikTok. That aspect of the modern world is about people wanting to be stars. While The Truman Show was about the exact opposite of that.

Sure they both involve reality TV, but I don't really see anything "prescient" about the movie. I do wonder if it was a little bit of inspiration for last year's Jury Duty [1] though...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_Duty_(2023_TV_series)

People on IG and TikTok are creating shows of their every day life. While they may want to be stars, those around them brought in to create the clip, surprised / accosted into reacting at home or on the streets, etc., are exactly like Truman from the movie.

Nothing about Trumans life is equivalent with social media influencers besides filming their lives in an intrusive way. Someone earlier said it was fantastical, which implies a sort of positivity to the fame and Truman's situation.

Truman lives as a captive, in a false world controlled by a corrupt evil person. Influencers have agency and awareness of their choices.

Truman was a prisoner being abused since being a child even to the point of almost being murdered to maintain control as he discovered the truth and tried to leave.

Maybe we are all Truman once the general public realizes the extent of the surveillance state and associated psychological control which is similar to the movie.

There is a great episode of Analyzing Evil on YouTube that takes a close look at Cristof's character as well.

It's amazing; there is so much TV content out there now I was totally unaware of this show.

The prescience isn’t about Truman—I don’t think anyone was predicting an orphan baby would be locked and raised in a TV set, that’s deliberately fantastical—it’s about his producers and audience.

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