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“I know you said you’re not politically conservative, but with your doctorate in religious studies and your look, you could get a lot of work as a talking head or host for a conservative outlet. They love blonde, girl-next-door types.”

I heard some version of this from half a dozen agents when I was looking for TV work. I wasn’t surprised. It was not the first time I was asked to lie about my identity for the sake of making “good” television. As a former reality TV star, I understood the game well.

The first time I realized I was a brand, not a person, was in 1998. I had just starred on the MTV reality show Road Rules: Down Under. Like many young people in the late ’90s, I had loved the new wave of reality TV shows like Real World, and I found the unscripted and seemingly “real” nature of the cast members refreshing and authentic.

I decided to audition (via VHS tape!) to be a part of one of these social experiments. I was thrilled when I was chosen for the “ride of my life” as a cast member on Road Rules. I filmed my first season of reality TV at 18 years old.

It wasn’t until after we wrapped up filming and the show began airing that I began to see that through editing, I had been distilled down to a particular trope.

I was quickly asked to appear in promotional ads for one of the show’s sponsors, a pager that would alert users of news and pop culture happenings.

I was asked to read a script in which I said I was from a “small town in Pennsylvania.” It wasn’t true — I’m from Pittsburgh. When I mentioned that this description was inaccurate, they told me it didn’t matter as long as people thought I was from a small town. They wanted me to be more “relatable.”

The blonde, naive, virginal Christian character they had cast couldn’t be from a city like Pittsburgh, and MTV wasn’t about to let facts get in the way of a stereotype. So I held my nose and read the script.

Before I appeared on the reality television show, I believed it was about real, if highly edited, people. Over time, I became increasingly aware of my role as a character and a commodity. Follow the proverbial script and you can make money. And I did for a while as I continued to appear on the Real World/Road Rules spinoff The Challenge, as a means of financing my education.

After I finished my doctorate in religious studies, I wanted to combine my love of television with my academic experience, and met with several agents who were willing to take me on as a client. I was interested in hosting shows, anchoring news programs, and appearing in on-air panel discussions.

There was only one catch: Apparently, my particular look (blonde, slim, white), my religion-focused education, and my “bubbly” personality were the right combination for a specific audience. I heard again and again from my agents that to succeed, I needed to portray a political conservative.

My look and background made me the right fit for conservative news

We hear a lot of rhetoric about how the mainstream media is liberal, but when it came to “my type,” the demand seemed to come from conservative outlets. I’d have to proclaim a “war on Christmas” or conduct sympathetic interviews with bakers refusing to make cakes for gay couples. I didn’t have to believe it; I just had to say I believed it. If I did, there could potentially be a huge payday, I was told.

People have long claimed the Ann Coulters and Tomi Lahrens of the world don’t actually believe what they promote. The cartoon The Boondocks even devoted an entire episode to this theme, showing Coulter working in cahoots with a liberal foe. According to this theory, their provocative content is meant to be hyperbolic entertainment. When conspiracy-touting right-wing commentator Alex Jones was fighting for custody of his kids, his attorney claimed in court that Jones’s political persona was merely “performance art.”

I can’t say whether Coulter or Lahren believe what they say. I can testify that there’s a market for their type — and that producers don’t really care if people who look like them believe their rhetoric. And because my small-town, naive “Susie” brand wasn’t going anywhere, going stridently conservative was my best hope.

Reality TV has exploded in popularity since Road Rules, and 24-hour cable news has adopted the he-who-screams-the-loudest-wins style that reality TV perfected. Its on-air talent has embraced the genre’s character-driven branding. Pundits have molded their personas to stoke outrage and grow their fan base.

I can’t say going the Tomi Lahren route wasn’t tempting. Getting in the door in Hollywood is difficult, especially when you’re a reality star has-been/never-was. In a small way, the persona people were encouraging me to adopt would have fit — I was once a conservative who even worked on George W. Bush’s presidential campaign. And there were some like Megyn Kelly, who worked for Fox News and seemed to embrace a conservative ideology, who were able to maintain enough journalistic neutrality to move beyond the right-wing bubble. But in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Ironically, it was the socially conservative moral code I grew up with that kept me from compromising my conscience. Prosperity gospel misreadings of theology aside, Christianity reminds believers that there are many things money can’t buy. I was hustling in the creative market just like everyone else, but I wasn’t about to sell my soul for a conservative-slanted shortcut.

The same churchy roots that got me cast as a reality show trope were the ones preventing me from selling out to Fox News and Breitbart. I wasn’t necessarily serving God — at least not in the way my family had hoped — but I wasn’t about to toss my integrity aside for Republican cash, either.

To many people, it doesn’t matter if all the coiffed Fox News anchors believe the talking points they shout. In the age of fake news and reality TV, we have made peace with the human-as-brands model. And all my years watching producers get rich spinning footage to craft characters out of complex people made me realize I was ready to write my own story. My story right now reflects who I am, even if it’s not the shiniest product on the shelf.

While I might never really hit the big time, I’m fine with being that girl from a ’90s reality TV show who isn’t really from a small town in Pennsylvania.

This essay was originally published on Medium.

Susie Meister has a PhD in religious studies and hosts the Brain Candy podcast. Follow her on Twitter @susie_meister.

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