'The Activist' Reality Show Switches To Documentary After Backlash

CBS is changing course with its reality show, The Activist, opting for a documentary instead after severe social media backlash when details were revealed to the public.

Source: ANGELA WEISS / Getty

The content game is more competitive than ever at the moment, with every company having its own streaming service ready to fight for every consumer’s subscription. Along with their own streaming service, many companies are reusing the intellectual properties they own to do remakes or TV shows. We’ve asked companies to think outside the box and stop rebooting old shows and CBS heard us…but maybe that’s a bad thing.

Last month, the network announced a new reality show called The Activist, with the format of the show featuring six activists competing to see who could get the most attention on social media for their respective causes. Not even minutes after the show description was up on social media, the backlash began.

Global Citizen issued a statement after the backlash and agreed to make the show a documentary instead of a competition series. How this made it past a PR rep, several lawyers, and tons of activists and nobody saw the issue is mind-blowing.

Now, the documentary is still slated to feature Usher, Priyanka Chopra-Jonas, and Julianne Hough. Hough took to her personal social media to proclaim that she “isn’t an activist”, despite signing up for a show under that name. You can read her entire statement below.

“I do not claim to be an activist and wholeheartedly agree that the judging aspect for the show missed the mark and furthermore, that I am not qualified to act as a judge.”