A friend of mine is working on a game show, and he related to me the following story:
We have a lot of contestants on our show. Like, a LOT. Casting has more PA’s than production just to keep track of them all.
When the contestants check in, we give them all name tags. Along with their names (duh), the tags also have a little code, like “WM3,” or “HF5.”
It didn’t take long to figure out that the first two letters were race and gender– White Male, Hispanic Female. But I had no clue what the numbers meant. They didn’t seem to correspond with age, weight, economic background, height, anything.
I didn’t have much else to do but mingle with the contestants while they were waiting to take their turn. After a while, I finally did notice a pattern– I enjoyed talking with the fours and fives much more than the ones and twos.
Suddenly, I figured it out! They were ranking the contestants’ intelligence based on the application on their test.
So, what he’s saying is, if you agree to be on a game show, you’re going to become an Alpha or an Epsilon.
Just one more reason reality TV is creepy.
