Even having the opportunity to get fired from The Apprentice fueled Trump's candidacy.
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In The End, Several Voters Felt Like They Bonded With Him Because Of The Apprentice
Which finally brings us to one of the strangest psychological phenomena plaguing America. We -- for some reason -- think celebrities matter. From people advocating The Rock would make a great president to just assuming celebrities are automatically experts on just about any subject, there seems to be an inherent preference for those we've watched on TV. Turns out, there totally is!
See, there's this thing called parasocial bonds. These are essentially one-side relationships with people we see on TV. We as humans crave relationship, and so if we watch somebody on TV enough, most of us will, on some level, begin to bond with that person. At its most benign, it means we just love Oprah and desperately want her to soothingly run her hands through our hair and give us a free car. At its worst, it means we'll inherently trust a political candidate because we feel like we know them, even though obviously we don't.
According to recently released studies, The Apprentice and other TV ventures appear to have played a significant role in Trump's election. Basically, people who voted for him were much more likely to have watched him on TV. In fact, how much Trump TV they'd watched was significant contributor even when considering other factors like party affiliation. Basically if you watched him enough, you wanted to vote for him.
So if the man had just gone off the air back in 2007, fewer people would have been actively engaging with his content, and fewer would inherently trust him, and fewer would have voted.
What I'm trying to say is, be more like Trey Stone and Matt Parker, TV writers. Look what happens when you don't think of future revenue streams! Chaos!
Jordan Breeding is currently the creator, writer, and host of Cracked's new YouTube series "Your Brain On Cracked." He's also on Twitter and has written for a whole mess of other sites.
Top image: FremantleMedia