Amazon Thinks I Watch Too Much Reality TV

The other day my friend sent me an article  about the shockingly specific customer profiles Amazon keeps on us. For example, Amazon knew that one customer had a flat butt and cussed when she was scared.

I was like, Oh shit. Is this article about me?

Of course I had to find out what Amazon knew about me. Of all its observations, these were my two favorites:

The first one made me feel smart. The second one, slightly judged.

Anyone who knows me knows that I looooooooove reality TV. Most of my friends are under the mistaken impression that reality television is beneath them. But if I could just tie them to a chair and make them watch even the first season of Floribama Shore, they would understand.

They’d meet eight people dropped into a beach house with alcohol, childhood baggage, at-times questionable romantic judgment, and the real consequences of an unjust criminal justice system. Somehow, they also grow. In other words: character development. 

And Floribama Shore isn't even where my education began.

I came of age with the OGs: The Real World. Road Rules. (Kit + Mark Forever). People willing to have a complete psychological unraveling while wearing a puka-shell necklace and being filmed by six cameras.

Reality TV is a mirror for each of us and our own terrible decisions. The people on it are recognizable versions of us: impulsive, vain, wounded, funny, jealous, hopeful, self-sabotaging, trying to grow, making awful choices and then living with them. 

So yes, Amazon. I watch it extensively. But I prefer to think of it as research.