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Callum Marsh

Callum Marsh

Calum Marsh is a New York Times reporter and critic based in Berlin, author of True Lies: The Art of Reality Television and The Glass Box.

Nov 6, 2026

3:25
I would love to know what is your relationship with reality TV from a personal perspective and I guess a professional perspective as well?
3:36
Yeah, I think personally, it's something that I've been a longtime watcher of it.
3:41
And initially, very reluctantly, like I think many people, I watched Survivor in its original run, you know, when I was 10 years old, I think was when it aired.
3:50
And I think I had the feeling that a lot of people did, which is that maybe it was a guilty pleasure, or maybe it was something that I enjoyed, but wouldn't talk too often about.
4:00
But I think over time, I came to realize that there's a lot more craft to it than I than I initially let myself believe.
4:07
And I stopped feeling so guilty about it and started really appreciating it on a more formal level and thinking about it more as a sociological study, almost like not to get too pretentious about it.
4:19
But I had friends who were really into Big Brother.

19 MINS LATER

23:03
Where do you sit with it? How real do you think reality TV is?
23:36
When did the idea germinate or was the seed planted or what made you want to do it or why did you think it was worth telling?
23:43
Yeah.
23:43
So there were two moments, actually.
23:45
So like I said, initially, I didn't really know anything about CrossFit, like other than the methodology.
23:50
But I had a friend at the gym.
23:51
Her name is Serena, and she's Italian, but she used to live all over the world.
23:56
I think she lived in Australia at one point, which is obviously a big place for CrossFit.

1 HR 4 MINS LATER

88:07
Are you, from what you've written and read and who you've spoken to and stuff, are you like confident? Are you, do you think there's like the sun is rising on the horizon or do you think there's stormy waters coming or like, like what's your take?

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