Why do you deserve a baddies chain Ep.3 Black Women’s Social Health and Media Consumption

The third episode discusses the social and psychological impact of reality TV, particularly on Black women. It highlights how the repetition of negative stereotypes in media environments can shape social perception and create emotional pressure. The concept of stereotype threat is explored, along with the idea of weathering, which describes how chronic stress accumulates over time. Social media intensifies these issues by magnifying visibility and reducing individuals to characters. The discussion also touches on how online culture desensitizes people to emotional harm and promotes unhealthy behaviors for the sake of engagement. Overall, the conversation emphasizes the need to critically examine the societal norms and systems that profit from harmful portrayals of Black women in media. Welcome back to the third episode of Why Do You Deserve a Baddie's Shame. In the first two episodes, I talked about historical roots behind the portrayal of Black women in media and how modern reality television, especially baddies in this network, profits from conflict, virality, and hyper-visibility. But in this episode, I want to focus less on the history and more on the actual social and psychological implications of these media environments. Because, honestly, I think conversations about reality TV often stop at entertainment. People often say it's just TV or people should just stop watching. But the bigger question that I'm posing here is what does living in these media environments actually do to us socially? Because media doesn't just entertain people. It shapes perception, it shapes communication, and it also shapes emotional environments. So over time, I think it can shape social health, too. And one thing I kept thinking about while researching this project is how much repetition matters. Because one reality show alone probably is not going to completely shape somebody's understanding of Black women. The issue is repetition. There's across reality TV shows, there's repeated aggression, repeated conflict, repeated emotional spectacle. And eventually those portrayals stop feeling exaggerated and start feeling normalized socially, especially online where clips spread faster than context. People may not even watch full episodes anymore, but they do see the moments, the fights, arguments, the memes. And when certain portrayals become some of the most visible portrayals of Black women online, those portrayals begin shaping social perception, whether people realize they are not. Yes, I may use a few Natalie Nunn memes, but also my perception of her is kind of based off of those memes. At the same time, regardless of if that is her character or not. One concept I found really interesting while researching this project was stereotype threat. Basically, the idea that awareness of stereotypes can itself create stress and shape self-perception. And I think this matters because Black women are already very aware of stereotypes like the ones I talked about in episode one, the jazz, the sapphire, angry, loud, aggressive, difficult, hyper sexualized. So when reality TV and social media constantly circulate these portrayals publicly, people aren't just consuming these stereotypes externally. They internalize the awareness of them, too. And I think that can create emotional pressure and self-monitoring socially. So, for example, it's constantly thinking, like, how am I being perceived? How do I present myself? Do I sound too emotional? Do I sound like this person? Do I like that person? And these pressures already, I think a lot of Black women already navigate those pressures in everyday life. And also, I feel like it's important to talk a lot about gendered racism because Black women experience stereotypes through race and both gender at the same time. And social media definitely intensifies this, especially now where Black women exist under constant visibility online. So constant commentary, constant judgment and public scrutiny. It's like magnifying glasses. You can't make a mistake at all. Internet culture can be really cruel sometimes. So people turn emotional moments into memes and reduce women into characters and consume trauma presented on various shows like entertainment. And I think one dangerous thing about hypervisibility is that people stop viewing public figures as true human beings. And I think one public health concept I kept thinking about while researching this project is weathering. So weathering basically describes how chronic stress accumulates in the body over time. And usually when people talk about weathering, they're discussing larger systems like racism, economic inequality, discrimination and social stress. So I'm not saying that reality TV alone creates health problems, but I do think it contributes to a broader social stress environment, especially Black women who are constantly exposed to what I mentioned before, stereotypes, public scrutiny, emotional labor and constant pressure to perform visibility publicly. And honestly, social media makes that pressure feel nonstop now because television companies that are based in reality, it no longer ends when filming stops, the performance continues. And so I definitely think that social media has really changed identity performance completely because now visibility is valuable. Followers, attention, all of that is a dollar amount now. And so people start performing versions of themselves online that are more likely to receive engagement and algorithms, unfortunately, reward this. So they reward the loudest moments, the messiest moments, not necessarily the healthiest moments. And I think the younger audiences especially are growing up inside these environments constantly. And then it makes them desensitize. I think the Internet culture has made people increasingly desensitized to emotional harm. So fights, I mentioned it, fights become memes and trauma becomes reaction videos. And so people consume emotional breakdowns almost instantly now before even processing them as real emotional experiences. And it's because online culture moves so fast. Audiences, especially those in reality TV, stop asking why is this happening and they ask who won instead. It's always who won. It's not who went through this or why did this happen to this person and why is it coming up now. It's always who won or like what did they say and what did she say. And I feel like this commentary also makes parasocial relationships even more intense because audiences become emotionally attached or detached to people they don't actually know. So people pick favorites, attack cast members physically and online and defend cast members also. And because reality TV now continues to do Instagram lives, TikTok lives, podcasts, interviews, audiences feel constantly connected to these people's lives. So that also means surveillance never stops. And honestly, I don't even think most people consume reality TV because they consciously want harm. Research on reality TV consumption actually shows people often watch for escapism, entertainment. And so people come together to talk about it and people know which, well, maybe they don't, but I think people know which content is toxic or exaggerated, but they still can't look away. And so as I said before, social media really, really intensifies all of this. And so at the end of the day, I don't think this conversation is just about reality television. I think it is more about the kinds of social environments or normalizing online. So what behaviors get rewarded, what identities get amplified, and also what emotional conditions people are expected to live under publicly? Because media doesn't just entertain people, it shapes social health as well. And if Black women only become hyper-visible through conflict, humiliation, emotional chaos, or spectacle, then I think we have to critically question the systems profiting from that visibility.