reality had been a momentous discovery, even if something of a misnomer. For what viewers were flocking to was both real and not real, a distortion for the sake of spectacle, calibrated to harvest the most attention at the lowest price possible. It was, however, real enough to be believed—not literally perhaps, but in the way scripted drama is believed—and, by the new millennium, to have a whole nation of viewers content, in effect, to watch versions of themselves with vicarious delight. Thus would television enter the new millennium, perilously dependent on someone else’s idea of real life
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