Writing About Reality TV Becomes Rite of Passion

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

I am not a huge fan of reality TV myself. I'm just not into all the drama, you know, the manufactured aspect of it and such. But business wise, I know it is a juggernaut. Business wise, you know, and you probably know this too, like why are there so many reality TV shows now, just because audiences love drama and studios love the low production cost of most shows. You know, with reality TV, you don't usually have to pay the talent.

There are sponsorships galore, you know, everything you see in a reality TV show has been paid for in some fashion. And in some cases, the script just kind of writes itself, like the crews are there to just kind of shoot whatever happens. And then of course, it goes into editing and you know, there's much more to be done there. But the point is, compared to lots of other production, it can be a much lower cost and then people like it. So you know, today's featured side hustler is much more of a fan than I am of reality TV.

In fact, he's a super fan. And I do respect that I always respect when people are just kind of all in with something. And so the story I'm going to tell you about this super fan involves a blog about reality TV that brings in a full time income, or at least an income that could be full time. He's actually working a day job as a journalism professor. But as you'll hear in this story, the blog is doing very, very well.

So it's the best of both worlds, because he's got the day job, but he's got the side hustle that brings in a lot of money, providing him choice, opportunity, possibility, all good things, which is of course, what side hustle school is all about. So that story writing about reality TV becomes right of passion coming up for you right after this message from our sponsor. Back in the 90s, when Andy Dienart was in college, there were only two reality shows on network TV, Survivor and Big Brother, and two others on cable. There were no websites covering these new shows. And of course, networks like Twitter and Facebook didn't exist.

As a college intern at student.com, Andy would talk for hours about his love for the real world, even though the other interns made fun of his passion. This obsession paid off though, because a year later, one of those old co workers became an editor for a web magazine and suggested Andy write about the new season of the show. This was way back in 1999. And Andy wrote a weekly column about the real world Hawaii. But when a new editor came along, Andy was fired, depressed and missing the chance to write and joke about the shows he loved.

He went online, but could only find bits of news and gossip scattered around the web. There just wasn't one central place of information. You know what happens next, right? Andy D'Nert created it. He called his creation Reality Blurred, and it officially launched in July 2000 with a grand total of three posts.

Although he never marketed the site, he did submit it to Google and Yahoo and other search engines because there were other search engines back then. It was a long time ago. People found it because they were looking for news about reality TV, and there just wasn't a lot of competition. And over time, the site's popularity grew. Several months after launch, Reality Blurred was reviewed by Entertainment Weekly, which gave it a big boost in traffic.

Then a film crew showed up to interview Andy for a documentary when he was hosting a survivor finale party for some of his friends. The news was spreading quickly. Now at this point, Andy was a year out of college and writing for a couple of hours in the morning and another hour or two after work. Over time, he went from simply providing links to reality TV news to recapping episodes and giving his opinion about what was really going on with various shows, always back-checking the information he shared and providing links to sources. So far, it had just been a labor of love, but in 2003, he began running ads.

It happened when a TV network representative reached out and asked about placing an ad for a new show. This is funny. Andy had no idea how to price an ad, but at the time, he needed a new computer that was going to cost him $2,000, so he gave the rep that price and they immediately said yes. Andy was shocked, but managed to cash the check and order the computer. Monetization continued from there.

He now uses Mediavine to handle ad inquiries, and he earns money from affiliate links. He also has a Patreon account where readers can donate monthly. Finally, he has a weekly email newsletter called Reality in Focus that highlights the best of reality TV, maybe the worst too, and points out stories that readers may have missed during the week. Readers have the option to upgrade to a paid version, which entitles them to premium bonus content. Now, over the years, Andy's had the opportunity to go to Gabon, Brazil, and Samoa to report on Survivor when it was filming in those locations.

He also spent a week as part of a small press contingent interviewing contestants, observing the crew, and watching the first episode of the season being filmed. If it sounds glamorous, just know that he paid for his travel expenses out of pocket. They weren't covered by the TV network. Reality Blurred is still mainly a passion project for Andy. Since 2002, he's been teaching writing and journalism at Stetson University in Florida.

But let's be clear, this is a very profitable passion project. On average, he earns $10,000 a month from the project's various income streams. He's had to fight to keep traffic coming to his site, since there's now a lot of online competition from content farms, which produce a ton of low-quality pages. But being first, and being so consistent, has certainly helped. Andy's currently working on a memoir that details his cytosol journey and goes behind the scenes of reality TV.

Awesome. As I said, I love and respect the superfan aspect of projects like these, people who are just really into something and go all in and dig deep. Over time, they're generating lots of traffic to their website and also cultivating a community at the same time. You can notice that because of the Patreon, the weekly newsletter. It's not just about random web traffic.

He's actually trying to convert people to loyal readers who will return day after day, week after week. If you look at realityblurred.com, you can see more about the model, understand how he puts together all this editorial. It's a content-intensive project because you have to watch a lot of reality TV and write up various recaps, cover news, et cetera. But again, it's turned out quite well. Also, how long has this been now, like 20 years?

Well done, Andy. Thanks for letting us feature at your project, listeners. I hope you check it out. Also listeners, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. Today's show notes, including links to everything I mentioned here, will be at sidehustleschool.com/18091809.

If you've got a comment or question for the show, you can leave that there as well. I hope you will subscribe or follow Come Back Tomorrow new episode every day. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School. From the Onward Project.