Deception-core

Paula Mejía on why shows like Million Dollar Secret and The Traitors are so popular. 

A gaggle of strangers descends upon a remote mansion encircled by breathtaking vistas. Guests soon retreat to their individual rooms, where they are instructed to open a heavy wooden box containing their fate. Most of them nervously turn their brass keys to find nothing inside the chest. But one of them will find theirs stacked neatly with one million dollars. This person’s shot at sticking around, and eventually taking home that cash prize, rests predominantly on their prowess for lying to everyone else in the house: They must not let on that they’re the secret millionaire, lest they get voted off. 

Premiering last week on Netflix, Million Dollar Secret is an unsubtle riff on the 2021 Dutch TV hit The Traitors, wherein a group of “traitors” must deceive their fellow “faithful” competitors to nab hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money by making it to the end of the season without being voted off. The show has been so successful that nearly two dozen countries have announced their own versions of The Traitors (Studio Lambert produced the U.S. version of the show, released by Peacock.) 

Netflix is not the only studio to mold this strain of treachery into a full season of reality television lately. Last fall, USA Network released the first season of The Anonymous—a show that cast fake heiress Anna Sorokin—which involves manipulating fellow players vis-à-vis IRL competitions and by making use of their own digital avatars in the game. Across the pond, ITV took a stab at the concept with Fortune Hotel, which sounds more or less identical to Million Dollar Secret. 

Historically, lying in reality television shows has been understood as the way devious players gain an advantage on their fellow competitors. Lest we forget that in order to outplay and outlast on Survivor, one must still outwit, which is why people like “Boston Rob” Mariano tend to get far on these competition-based shows—no matter how much hand wringing there might be about who’s approaching the game with integrity. But lying on reality TV has always been just that: One of many potential strategies. Then everyone wanted to be on The Traitors.

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