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The Activist Show x CBS x Global Citizen

Source: CBS / CBS

The deluge of unscripted competition series was born from the reality television era and plenty of explosively bad ideas have emerged from that space. An upcoming series, The Activist, adds to that unfortunate and growing legacy with Twitter fans voicing their displeasure.

As announced in a recent press release, The Activist will be co-hosted by Usher, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Julianne Hough, and the series, developed by Global Citizen, will air this October on the CBS network.

From the press release:

THE ACTIVIST is an unprecedented series featuring six activists from around the world working to bring meaningful change to one of three urgent universal causes: health, education, and the environment. The activists will compete in missions, media stunts, digital campaigns, and community events aimed at garnering the attention of the world’s most powerful decision-makers, demanding action, now. The competing activists’ success is measured via online engagement, social metrics and hosts’ input. The hosts will guide the activists through their journey, with plenty of surprises from high-profile public figures.

While the idea behind the series might be well-meaning, a series pitting activists against each other in even the friendliest of competitions doesn’t seem like that serves the high purpose that the show creators might be aiming for. The challenges that the contestants will face are promoting their respective causes and the success will be measured by how folks online respond to their efforts.

Between the three times, the overall goal is to get their message to the masses, create solid action plans, and then they’ll be going on to the G20 Summit in Rome, Italy at the end of October. There, they will have an opportunity to meet with leaders from around the world and hopefully obtain funding for their activism cause.

The five-week series makes its debut on Friday, October 22 on the CBS Television Network and will also stream live and on-demand at Paramount+.

The response to The Activist has been lukewarm overall and we’ve got some of the reactions from Twitter below.

Learn more by clicking here.

Oh, and here’s some activism that actually seems cool and not centered on winning something.

[h/t Deadline]

Photo: CBS

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