How DOGE became a horror movie trope

Like Michael Myers before it, DOGE cannot be killed. Despite its July 4th, 2026 expiration date, it marches on in mutated forms - even though an estimated 700,000 people have died as a result of DOGE cuts. I’ll get to that at the end of the newsletter, so keep reading.

For now, let’s dive into one of the most contentious corners of the internet that I’ve been following like Emperor Palpatine with great interest.

It’s … the world of reality TV casting coaches.

On a 1-10 scale that goes from “no reality TV” to “I watch the Big Brother live feeds.” I’m probably an 8. I enjoy the behind-the-scenes stuff, especially how production makes decisions. It tickles a part of my brain, probably the same part of my brain that thinks The Truman Show was a masterpiece. I’m gonna start from ground zero on this story, so don’t worry if you’re not a weirdo like me. The best part about it is that none of this reality TV drama takes place on screen. It’s all off-screen and the main perpetrators aren’t even on the show.

I’ve spoken ad nauseam about Survivor casting before and how hard it is to get on the show. I’ve come close many times. It’s heartbreaking. It’s annoying. It’s a bizarre process that I mostly cannot legally discuss. What I can tell you is that you are rarely, if ever, privy to the conversations happening in the casting office. Even people who get cast on a show don’t necessarily know why they got cast. There are plenty of tips. CBS casting director Jesse Tannenbaum is constantly reminding people that he makes videos about what you should do on camera.

Be yourself! Stay relaxed! Tell us about yourself! Don’t try to be something you’re not! Don’t strip naked and streak across your town because we’ve already seen it!

Some people take this advice and never get cast. Some people take this advice and get cast immediately. More confusingly, other people apply 19 times and finally do get cast and have no idea what they did differently on the 19th time.

My personal opinion? They have certain archetypes and psychological profiles they want in every cast. Once they hit those benchmarks, they don’t even bother talking to people in those categories - unless it’s a major celebrity or professional athlete. Or unless CBS steps in and insists a certain person is cast (like Ozzy on Season 50). I think for some people, it’s just bad luck. I also think the process is far more subjective than they are willing to admit. In other words, it’s vibes.

That’s where casting coaches come in. Whoa, take it easy JD. “Coaches” not “couches.” A casting coach is hired by someone to help them get on the show. They teach you how to package yourself for reality TV casting directors. They’re not telling you to be someone other than yourself, they’re just making sure you highlight aspects of you that may help get you cast. Essentially, they’re training you for a job interview. Casting coaches are not associated with the show or production. Ok, all caught up? Time to introduce the main villain of this story (if you work at CBS).

In 2016, Adam Klein competed on season 33, Survivor: Millennials vs Gen X. It’s one of my favorite seasons. At the end of the show, he won in a 10-0 vote - a very rare feat. It’s one of the best casts and best concepts the show has ever engineered (far better than when they separated tribes by race in 2005).

Klein went on to compete in Winners at War in 2020. While the edit made him seem a bit dopey and out of his depth, I found his gameplay smart and flexible, if a bit chaotic. He’s a goober but I think that’s his secret weapon too.

After Winners at War, Adam started competing on reality TV from a new angle: he became a casting coach. At first, he proudly revealed his victories. Right out the gate, for a not-small fee, he helped get quite a few people cast on Survivor and other reality TV shows. From a business perspective, you can see why he would brag about this. You want to get on this show? Remember so-and-so from last season? Adam got them on.

But very quickly and swiftly, the tides turned. The casting department and Jeff Probst turned on Adam with great force. A number of times, on the official Survivor podcast, Probst went after Adam and his casting coaching.

The attacks were quite pointed and, short of lawsuits, very clear in their intent. Basically:

Adam, stop coaching people. Everyone else, stop hiring Adam.

As some people have pointed out in the Survivor fandom, this isn’t Adam’s fault. It's casting. Since season 41, they had been on a streak of hiring mostly white collar liberals. There was racial diversity in the cast, thanks to CBS’s 50% or more BIPOC rule (a rule now eliminated by David Ellison), but outside of some genuinely beautiful conversations about different cultural backgrounds, everyone talks and thinks the same. The show has become a formulaic parody of itself (that, yes, I still sort of love).

In 2000, a truck driver from Wisconsin, a whitewater rafting guide, a former Navy SEAL and an openly-gay corporate executive came together to form an alliance. Now, it’s just everyone sitting around a campfire saying “exaaaaaactly.” Most people in the cast are comfortable. The money isn’t life-changing. Therefore, they’re unwilling to backstab someone with no remorse, making for less compelling television. With these modern casts, Adam is just helping people magnify the qualities its casting director clearly wants on the island.

Still, you can understand the frustration from production. A former winner of the show, who had once strategized his way to the million dollar prize by manipulating fellow contestants, was now making money by manipulating production. The jobs they held so sacred, the free will they valued, was all an illusion.

Still, Adam Klein did not stop. Recently, instead of naming anyone specific he helped get on the show, he just posted the numbers themselves. They’re even more impressive than before:

Within a few days, Tannenbaum had already posted to his Instagram stories, reiterating that CBS did not condone hiring a casting coach (even though it’s perfectly legal).

Strangely enough, the biggest issue with this has never been raised by CBS. People who are better off have a better chance to get on the show because they can pay someone like Adam. But, as I mentioned earlier, almost the entire cast every season is filled with white-collar contestants who could afford a coach anyway. If CBS highlighted this part of the problem, then they would have to start explaining why their casting model has completely shifted in the last decade.

What do you think? Let me know at [email protected].

One of the best things about living in Kansas City is that BBQ is abundant, something many visiting World Cup teams quickly came to learn. This means that even at the grocery store, you can just pick up the most delicious BBQ-soaked meat imaginable then throw it on the grill.

Thank you, Hy-Vee, for making our Friday that much easier. And thank you, whoever works at Hy-Vee, for reaching out to us after this newsletter to become a sponsor (I am ✨manifesting✨).

Guys, it’s happening. Slowly but surely, our long-form series is preparing to launch. This week, that meant looking at the first draft of our new animated intro by the great Sarah Hashemi (another former Washington Post colleague).

I could not be more excited for what we’re making. Once it launches, this series will be weekly. So we’re doing everything we can now to make sure it’s a well-oiled machine from the beginning. I’ll keep you updated!

I genuinely thought DOGE was dead. I’d seen a handful of articles that they had closed up shop. I knew about the July 4th, 2026 deadline to self-detonate. In my mind, and I think most of yours, the reign of terror was really just those first five months of 2025 before Elon Musk ran out the back door, having successfully destroyed a good thing yet again.

That said, we knew the aftermath was long-lasting, even permanent. When cuts were made to USAID by DOGE, every person with a head and a heart vocalized just how bad that could be for millions of people around the world. But I had no idea DOGE literally still exists, or to hear Katie Miller talk about it, “it never terminates.”

Even as Republican lawmakers like Senator Thom Tillis push back, making a point to say they liked the idea of DOGE but not the execution, it just continues to exist. Like Freddy Krueger, it finds its way into our nightmares, or more specifically, in various jobs across the executive branch of government and in a Trojan horse-like entity called the National Design Studio, run by DOGE employees, including the now 20-something staffer known as “Big Balls.”

Over a year away from that initial wave of cuts, you may wonder, outside of the thousands of people DOGE displaced in the name of a once-cute dog meme, if they saved any money? Nope. It cost more than $165 billion. That’s more than $1,000 per taxpayer so people like Elon Musk could break shit and tweet about it.

Look for a video on DOGE this week. And do not be surprised if it’s horror movie themed.

Here’s Friday’s video, our first collaboration with the Teen Creator Network at MediaWise. These videos won’t be any different from our normal content, just now with 100% more amazing teen creators.

I hope you like these videos. We had a lot of fun in the first week. I was genuinely impressed by their input, including our editor for the week Lili Faruki, who knocked it out of the park.

Finally, as always, we want your feedback on all things LNI - whether it’s this newsletter, our videos, or something else. Even if we don’t respond, we read everything.

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