How Tom Sandoval Became the Most Hated Man in America

There’s a lot of young man’s anger in that show that’s kind of disguised as absurdity or silliness,” he says. “I don’t always want to do that. Or if I did do that all the time, it would be awful. It’d just be, like, Fuck this guy .”

The age of prestige TV has buried that influence deep. The blanket denial of the televisuality of these television shows has turned this ancestor into a shameful secret. So much so that, often, when a prestige TV series is perceived as too much, too excessive, (too female), (too queer), it’s criticized for being too soapy.

I mean this is a shockingly common attitude, actually: You watch made-up people on TV or the internet getting dramatic or romantic or audacious or yes, obnoxious, and you say, “Mmmm, I love this person!” But in your everyday life, no one is allowed to break out of a tiny conversational and behavioral cage, or you start to feel unsteady.