Maybe Lady Gaga will release 4 seconds of digital signal overload to compete with Taylor. It will knock Swift out of first place. Katy Perry then will release 10 seconds of amplifier hum but it will flop because it lasted longer than her listeners' attention spans. Foo Fighters will revive their flagging careers with 2 seconds of traffic noise which will be hailed by fans as a brilliant innovation. Billions of dollars will be generated for the labels as a result. And so it goes.
In the 50s, there was the payola scandal. This was where labels paid DJs to play their latest releases. It turns out that just about every DJ in the country with any clout was neck-deep in it, including Dick Clark although he got away with it. Alan Freed didn't and it ruined his career because he wouldn't deny that he had accepted the money. It gave us a lot of rock n roll but also a lot of schlock:
Connie Stevens and Ed Byrnes - "Kookie, Kookie" (Lend Me Your Comb) - YouTube
Once again, payola revealed that the songs that became the hits were already decided beforehand and it was done for money. But , at least, the DJs had some amount of autonomy to play what they wanted. After the payola scandal died away, mass media did away with it by having the stations program every song, every commercial, all the on-air banter, etc. Most of the broadcasts you hear on radio are no longer even live but have been pre-recorded and heavily edited. So, really, nothing changed except to get worse.
At this same time as the payola scandal, there was a TV game show scandal where certain contestants were given answers beforehand so that they would win and keep coming back because it was good for ratings. It was a secret form of reality TV.
So this reality TV culture has really been going on long before there was anything called reality TV. We were born into it, grew up with it, regarded it as a norm, accept it as art and culture. And so it is. The obligatory 15 minutes of fame is now 8 seconds of static. So enjoy it. Be sure and post a review.