Stacey Estrella is launching her own fashion label this fall, but no matter how successful it becomes, she may always be remembered as the designer who can’t sew. Estrella, ’88, was among 15 designers last summer on the third season of Project Runway, a reality TV show on the Bravo network where clock-racing contestants take up their needles to stitch dresses—and stab one another in the back. It was the chance of a lifetime, which, sadly, evaporated in front of 3 million viewers.
Estrella was “auffed” by the judges in the first episode, after she was initially flummoxed by the industrial sewing machine confronting her. But the truth is, she completed her Bohemian skirt on the behemoth. “Reality tv is totally not real,” Estrella says. “It’s anything but. They exaggerate and blow out of proportion whatever weakness one has.” Then, the bloggers pile on. “Strangers take these liberties to make assessments of you, your personality, your looks,” she says. “I wasn’t prepared.”
Estrella (Photo: Project Runway/Bravo)
By now, there could be a college class on how to survive reality tv stardom—and notoriety. Some Stanford graduates, in fact, would find it quite practical. In the past seven years, since the original Survivor aired on CBS, at least a dozen Stanford alumni have made the leap into minor-league fame with reality tv turns. The original Bachelor series even featured a shot of Hoover Tower in the opening credits, as a voiceover talked up hunky Alex Michel’s credentials. Michel, MBA ’98, wanted to find true love in front of a national audience, but ended up single—and scrutinized, thanks to reality tv. (Michel, trying to move beyond his Bachelor days, declined to comment for this story.)
Several years ago, I interviewed a casting director for Survivor, who told me that she looked for three things in a contestant: “sex, conflict and humor.” Because viewers need to identify with whom they see on tv, most casts also are a palette of stereotypes. Graduates of top universities usually serve as the resident brain, though in the hands of mean-spirited editors, they often end up looking not so smart. (On The Apprentice, Donald Trump likes to milk the juicy moment before he fires a Harvard grad.) Curtis Kin, jd ’96, who spent an entire summer shacked up with strangers on Big Brother in 2000, says his law degree helped get him through the door. “I added some diversity,” he says. “Every reality show bothers to cast one lawyer.” Yul Kwon, ’97, from last year’s Survivor: Cook Islands, was told by a casting agent to come to the final interview dressed in a suit and glasses. “When I got there, I was the only guy wearing a suit,” he says. “They knew my background and they liked the fact that I went to Stanford.”
Kin (Photo: Big Brother/CBS)
But what many reality TV snobs can’t comprehend is why anyone normal, or smart, or sane, or successful, would shed their privacy (and dignity) to appear on a reality tv show. After all, on Big Brother, Kin had to shower in front of cameras while a nationwide audience debated whether or not he was a loser. The Stanford reality TV contestants will tell you that they, like anyone else, wouldn’t mind a nibble at fame. “I was never exposed to the tv industry, and wanted to see what it was like,” says Sun Koo Kim, MS ’06, who competed on the Animal Planet series Chasing Nature, where engineers invent devices that mimic animals’ abilities. Kin says a high point for him was attending the Emmys after he took third place on Big Brother. “It’s very fun in certain respects to be recognized,” he says. “It’s intoxicating. But I also realized it’s not something that I need to recapture.”
One thing contestants do want to capture, though, is the prize. Usually, it’s a lot of money, a magnet that draws smart, competitive applicants. At its core, reality TV is the new game show on steroids, Jeopardy! with easier questions (on top of absurd challenges that involve rodent intestines). On Survivor, Kwon took home the $1 million loot after everyone else was voted off the island. When he returned home to San Francisco, he felt vindicated, and quickly quit his mundane job as a consultant. “Being on an island for two months,” he says, “I couldn’t bear the thought of making PowerPoint slides anymore.” In the short term, he decided to devote more time to charity work and promoting bone marrow drives in the Bay Area. “If you look at Survivor winners,” he says, “they haven’t been good role models. Richard Hatch is in jail. Another winner had done porn. I’d like to change that mold.”
Kwon, center(Photo: Survivor/CBS)
Kwon’s sentiments got me thinking. Why shouldn’t more upstanding citizens try to make the world a better place through America’s Next Top Model? As someone who watches reality TV so regularly I can tell you Omarosa’s last name and Sanjaya’s hometown, I’ve madly imagined myself becoming an American hero not through sports or public service or saving the life of a small child—but by winning a show like Big Brother. On a recent Saturday, I checked out the auditions in downtown New York, just to see what it’s like to be among the attendees who aspire to greatness by eating pb&js and making small talk with host Julie Chen. I expected a crowd of thousands. There were slightly more than 150 people there.
You wait for a very long time, more than six hours, in a room that smells like deodorant. You fill out an application with difficult questions like “Who is your hero?” (The obvious answer: “Janelle from season six!”) You make small talk with the other contestants. Some of them look like they should be auditioning for The Bold and the Beautiful; others, you think, might live in the subway tunnel. One middle-aged woman, dressed in lingerie, tells you she’s a stripper and an expert in domination. You wonder: if you both got on the show, would she join you in an alliance? But beyond an obsession with fame, all the contestants are here for the same reason. Even if they don’t win, they say, they hope they’ll have a better life simply by being on TV.
Kim, left, with Mike Lin (Photo:Michael Macor/SF Chronicle)
It might sound idealistic and naïve, but it’s true. Stanford alumni say their tv stints have changed their careers. “It’s nice to have on your résumé,” says Jess Dang, ’03, a consultant who had no chef training when she appeared on The Next Food Network Star last year. Now, Dang writes a food blog for her new groupies and hopes to use her five minutes of fame to open a catering business. Survivor led Kwon to an attractive new gig: cnn just signed him as a guest correspondent to cover Asian-American issues. Even Estrella is grateful for her time on Project Runway, which she says has allowed her to get a fashion line off the ground with independent retailers. “I chose to do it for the exposure,” she says. “It was a clear strategic decision on my part as a businesswoman. It opened up doors in public speaking. I also kept designing because I realized I’m happiest when I’m creating.” But only if there isn’t an industrial sewing machine in the room.
Ramin Setoodeh, ’04, is an associate editor at Newsweek.
