Selling Sunset and the healing powers of frivolous gossip

Netflix's reality hit is the full cup of tea America needed

Selling Sunset.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Courtesy Netflix, FotoMaximum/iStock)

First COVID-19 came for The Bachelor franchise. Then it postponed Real Housewives and forced a reimagining of the daily talk show. But let the history books show that, try as it might, the pandemic failed to defeat a human instinct so natural that we are already experts at it by age 5: our need to spread and consume gossip.

Netflix has been an unsung hero of the last five months, creating one of the pandemic's first pieces of cultural bedrock and filling up our queues with a healthy supply of mindless, guilty pleasure television. But the streaming giant's most enticing pandemic Cinderella story comes from a group of ostentatious realtors who are finally cashing in on what viewers want to buy.

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Marianne Dodson

Marianne is The Week’s Social Media Editor. She is a native Tennessean and recent graduate of Ohio University, where she studied journalism and political science. Marianne has previously written for The Daily Beast, The Crime Report, and The Moroccan Times.