Thirteen seasons. An unchanged candy-pink house. Contestants smoother than a Miss Botox’s forehead. And that robotic voice, a relic of a future we should have abandoned. Secret Story 13, broadcast on TF1, is not just entertainment for fallow brains: it’s a sociological time capsule, a – often shattered – showcase of our most… unsettling aspirations.
With its 2.3 million weekly viewers, and 125 million TikTok views in two weeks, the beast impresses. Indeed, it doesn’t just exist. It imposes, colonizes, fascinates. But fascinates whom, and above all, for what?
Christophe Beaugrand: the last man standing in a world of silicone
Fortunately, there is Christophe Beaugrand, herald of a certain television professionalism, survivor of a journalism on the brink of extinction. His hairstyle holds firmer than the moral principles of his show roommates.
Recently a victim of a burglary alongside his husband Ghislain Gerin and their son Valentin Beaugrand-Gerin, then a target of digital homophobic violence of abysmal baseness, Beaugrand did not waver. While the haters ranted, he, impassive, announced the nominations as one recites Racine: stoic and impeccable. We would have gladly entrusted him with a special edition on LCI instead of Arlette Chabot, but France unfortunately has its traditions.
Casting: the best of the worst, selected by a drunken algorithm
Welcome to the official colocation of the Republic of TikTok. This 2025 class seems to have been designed by an AI on anxiolytics.
- Adrien, the child of emotional family reunions.
- Aïmed and Célia, the "transparency" duo, stuck in a house full of distorting mirrors.
- Anita & Noah, a failed reincarnation of Romeo and Juliet, Reims style.
- Constance and Damien, a couple as credible as an ad for ethical deodorant.
- Dréa, a cardboard K-pop icon.
- Ethan, little brother of a footballer, capitalizing on his DNA like selling a franchise.
- Mayer, IQ on display, but neurons on leave.
- Pimprenelle, emotion incarnate and a walking tearjerker.
- Romy, influencer of herself.
- Théo, avatar of glamorized precarity.
- And finally Marianne, 11 first names, as many facets, no coherence.
All carry secrets calibrated for buzz, with confessions under cellophane and monetized sufferings. Moreover, the storytelling is oiled with product placement.
An audience that scrolls faster than its shadow (and its conscience)
According to a CSA (2024) report, 78% of 15-24 year-olds consume reality TV through YouTube and TikTok clips. Worse: 47% of them believe that any staging is acceptable if it leads to success. And one in three has already cited a reality TV contestant as a "life model."
A model? Yes, a model. In plastic, obviously.
It’s not that young people are naive: they are just educated to profitable emotion. Substance no longer has form. Only the perceived intensity counts, even if simulated. And why not? Since even 28% of high school students consider a career influenced by reality TV (INJEP, 2023). The royal road: from the teenage bedroom to the villa in Dubai.
Does the State sponsor collective brainwashing? Spoiler: a little, yes
Yes, France indirectly finances this neo-baroque fresco of emptiness. Thanks to some technical subtleties, shows like Les Anges or La Villa have received up to €130,000 in public aid per season, via the CNC (Mediapart, 2022). It’s a drop in the ocean of a global budget, but a symbolic slap to collective intelligence.
From tear to like: the economy of scripted pathos
The rule: the sadder it is, the more it clicks. Parental rejection? Emotional jackpot. A disability? Prime time twist. A tragic accident? Welcome to the elite of storytelling. The "secret" is no longer secret. It is produced, cut, marketed.
As Laure Murat points out in The Society of the Spectacle 2.0, this reality TV is a "school of emotional deceit." We no longer hide our past: we monetize it.
Politics and reality TV: the same mirror, with more costumes
According to Philippe Riutort, political scientist, "reality TV has infiltrated political codes." Feigned confessions, calculated buzz, orchestrated clashes: election campaigns are now prime time shows.
In 2022, 53% of young voters first learned about a candidate through their viral content. And some former "contestants" are now elected officials, commentators, YouTubers… Or all of the above. The conversion is fluid, the ambition always horizontal.
A law? Yes, but as soft as a protein capsule
In May 2023, a law regulating influencers banned the most blatant scams. But the nuclear core of reality TV remains as free as air – or rather, like a ring light.
The Conseil d’État confirmed that this type of program does not fall under education or politics. So, total freedom to promote 4K liposuction or spray collagen.
Despised in public, consumed in secret: French schizophrenia
67% of French people say they hate reality TV, according to Harris Interactive (2024). But 52% watch it "occasionally", and 31% "regularly". There you have it.
National hypocrisy? Rather a modern self-flagellation ritual, half-derision, half-dependence.
For Pascal Lardellier, author of The Great Blunder of Reality, reality TV is the logical mirror of a society of permanent exposure. It’s a refrain of accessible drama, an odyssey without Homer but with hashtags.
Secret Story 13: mirror of our time or vortex of vacuity?
Season 13 does not deviate. It brilliantly executes its scripted void agenda:
- Secrets without mystery.
- Contestants without mystique.
- Ridiculous challenges but never failed in terms of audience.
- And an audience that, while mocking, continues to click.
Reality TV today no longer aspires to educate or entertain. It absorbs. It reflects.
And perhaps this is now the noble function of television: to transmit nothing, to elevate nothing, but to caress the surface until the extinction of the fireflies.