The Bizarro World of Real Housewife TikToks
What happens when you pair members of the beloved Bravo franchise with social media foolishness? You get a collective burst of unintentionally campy surrealism
In her infamous and much-contested essay, “Notes on ‘Camp’,” Susan Sontag wrote that “the essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.” By that definition, TikTok is camp in an app. The platform’s popularity has been built on showing off and showing out, rarely will you find something entirely free of manufactured artifice on the app’s For You page. A new dance craze, trending sound, or challenge pops up every second on TikTok — by the time you upload your video cashing in on the newest craze, there’s already another waiting in the wings, ready to push the last out of relevancy.
I am, famously, 26 years old. Young and hot, vivacious, and full of energy. But in the TikTok world, I am a decrepit corpse. A relic. My bones have been turned to dust. I cannot keep up with the pace of TikTok or its users, mostly young Gen Z high schoolers who, one day, will talk about the time and effort they put into their meticulously crafted TikToks the same way I reminisce fondly on my days coding custom HTML for MySpace layouts…I hope.
I am, however, deeply immersed in another cultural entity that has had itself firmly planted in Camp for years: The Real Housewives franchise. Over time, I’ve noticed that most of the stars of the megapopular Bravo tentpole are, let’s say…not great at social media. Much like I fumble around TikTok looking for which button I tap to edit something, the Real Housewives operate all social media as if they were yelling into a phone made of two tin cans connected by a string, but are completely oblivious to the string being cut. I mean, Real Housewives of New York star Ramona Singer once accidentally posted a screenshot of her bank account on Instagram.
Of course, this is no different on TikTok. If I, a digital native, have difficulty with TikTok, imagine the frustration held by a bunch of 30-to-50-something women who are just famous enough not to have to work but not quite famous enough to refrain from clamoring at some kind of relevancy on social media. Luckily for us, they’re still trying! Something that deeply interests me is the intersection of these two things. Where do Real Housewives and TikTok insanity meet? What happens when you clash camp with camp? Turns out, they converge on a plane that runs parallel to ours but is completely surreal and inexplicable, running the gamut from unintentional terror to confounding mom-meme naivete. And it’s all brilliant.
For convenience (and because Substack can’t embed TikToks), I’ve uploaded all of these masterpieces to YouTube for easy viewing. You do not need to know who any of these women are to appreciate the true batshit beauty of these videos. Context is unnecessary, they stand alone in their art.
Dorinda Medley — Foundation on my Gucci Tracksuit
Remember when people were #DoingItForTheGram? Well, TikTok’s entire existence basically hinges on that principle being applied to every video it hosts. Nothing here really seems natural. Case in point: the amount of foundation and makeup that Real Housewives of New York alum Dorinda Medley applies to her face in this video. She looks like the part of a Drag Race episode where queens are being filmed as they prepare for the runway, halfway into their makeup process and questioning each other about childhood traumas while you look on, ignoring them, wondering, “How the hell does that red foundation blend into that bright orange matte powder?”
Many of Dorinda’s TikToks involve the reveal of a finished look, she’s a huge fan of the before and after. To catch a glimpse at this stage of the process is jarring, but not surprising! Makeup is an art form, one that takes time and requires careful trial and error to perfect! Who among us makeup-wearers hasn’t dropped one of the tools of our craft on the floor, only to pick it up, shrug, and keep going? Whenever I apply foundation to my face or neck, I always worry that I’ll forget I have it on and stain my clothes. Dorinda does not share this worry! She zips a full Gucci tracksuit up to her chin and is ready for the day. It’s bold, it’s confident, it’s admirable, it’s expensive!
It’s also worth mentioning that Dorinda has not figured out how to change her name on TikTok. Her display name is currently “user9966402433826.” I love these women.
Bethenny Frankel — Terror on Tip Toes
Subjecting the reader to horrific imagery is not something I intended to do when beginning this list, so I apologize for this entry, but I can’t let it go unseen.
On her new HBO Max reality show, The Big Shot with Bethenny, Frankel repeatedly hammers it into the viewer’s consciousness that she has no idea what she’s doing on social media. That seems to be an understatement given this TikTok. Bethenny asked one of her poor, fraught assistants to film her pounding her feet onto the floor behind her while she does push-ups, clad in her signature fake half-smile. It’s illogical. Bethenny has made a career on giving the world things that no one asked for, such as Skinnygirl cookware that you can’t even buy online, but her social media is the encapsulation of throwing everything at the wall just to see what sticks.
Twitter user Frank Costa made an edit of this with audio from the climax of Ari Aster’s Hereditary over it. It’s decidedly less scary that way.
Kelly Bensimon — The Madonna Lisa
This is actually maybe the most camp entry on this entire list. The Real Housewives of New York alum Kelly Bensimon, whose approach to social media is maybe the scariest and most bizarre of anyone else here, is wild on TikTok, which is why she appears several times on this list. Ms. Bensimon holds onto the last dregs of online hate she receives after being off the show for nine years with a death grip. And lucky for us, because this one TikTok alone provides endless meme fodder for years to come.
I love how the gunshot noises are out of sync with the movements of her body. I love how she wrote, “I’m single mom.” I love how she probably called one of her 20-something daughters from the gym in her building and asked them to come downstairs to record a TikTok for her. Kelly Bensimon is, by nature, completely and utterly camp. And it’s simply because she doesn’t know it.
Gizelle Bryant — Me&U-lholland Drive
I’ve written about it before, but this is one of the greatest short-form cinematic vignettes of the century. While most of the other videos in this list have an intention or idea behind them that is, at least, maybe somewhat discernible, this TikTok from Real Housewives of Potomac favorite Gizelle Bryant is as indecipherable as it is captivating. Gizelle stands as the Housewife on this list who probably understands TikTok the least, I would say Ms. Bryant and I probably have the same skill level when it comes to figuring out what the hell to do past logging in. Most of Gizelle’s TikToks are front-facing videos where she’s showing off a fresh beat or annoying one of her teenage daughters in the car while they’re trying to figure out how to parallel park. But nothing else has come close to the cryptic energy that emanates from this video.
All we can do when faced with a message from God like this is break it down shot by shot. To start, we open with a fake laugh, as if to say, “Oh hello! I wasn’t expecting to see you today!” Gizelle moves her arms in and out to mimic zooming the camera, bringing her phone close to her face and then back away, never fully letting us in to see the woman who is once the artist and the muse laid bare before us. Hard cut.
Now we hold on a large grass plant sitting in a corner for all of one second. Before one can even begin to reconcile with what they’ve just seen, we’ve cut back to Gizelle, who has now teleported to the kitchen, establishing that continuity is not a concern when it comes to her directorial style. In the heart of her home, she offers a smolder to the camera while still using her arms to zoom. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear that this shot is the only one not muted in the final edit, so while Cassie’s seminal 2006 hit “Me & U” plays over the video, so do the searing sounds of the construction work that have been happening on Gizelle’s house for the last two seasons of the show. Then, the final cut.
We end on an insulated mug that reads “HUSTLE Break” sitting on the kitchen’s Carrara marble countertops. Fin.
If I had to guess, I’d say that Gizelle had set out to give more of a cinéma vérité, day-in-the-life approach to this video, but because her TikTok skills are so rudimentary, it became much more of an artistic expression than she ever intended, sort of like the Housewives version of Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. Why the grass plant? Why Cassie’s “Me & U”? So many questions abound and none of them have answers, to look for a reason here is to look in the face of God and ask, “Why?” It’s tempting, but the answer would instantly drive you to madness.
Kelly Bensimon — Death & Taxes & Salad Dressing
Nothing has convinced me that Kelly Bensimon has no frame of mind for what reality is more than this video. For the longest and most wordy entry on this list, I must provide a full transcript:
Hey guys, I was just checking out “The Booze vs. The Bod” aaaaand OR “The Bod vs. The Booze” and it’s just so funny because for so long, you know, I’ve been telling you guys that, you know, you can drink. And have fun. But you don’t have to drink every day because you don’t need to drink every day. I mean you have a great life. You are healthy, you are happy, you have your family, you have your friends, you have your job, you have your interests. And if you don’t have a job, you can DM me and we can talk about what you’re really good at and we’ll figure out, you know, how I can help you. The other thing is that, alcohol…salad dressing? Those are the killers if you guys want to lose weight and look great for summer. Keep the alcohol to a minimum and definitely keep the salad dressing to a minimum. Use a lemon! Use a lime! Use…oranges! Oranges are amazing………orange juice is amazing over a salad, it’s so fresh. Try that instead. of. the salad dressing. I’m Kelly Killoren Bensimon. *triple kiss sounds*
Where the fuck do I begin?
For starters…salad dressing? I love that Kelly weighed salad dressing and alcohol as the two most sinister foods when it comes to health and said, “Salad dressing is the one you REALLY have to watch out for.” Is salad dressing really the big, deceptive killer here? Can you imagine your friend telling you they’re trying to lose weight so they cut out salad dressing? Are we at a Bally’s Total Fitness in 1996? To her credit, lemon and lime and orange are all good suggestions for salad additions, but what about more practical and nuanced flavors like a nice, crisp pear-infused white vinegar? Ground Dijon mustard stirred up with some lemon juice and balsamic? I keep imagining Kelly dumping a splash of pulpy Tropicana onto her massaged kale and slurping it up like a cold soup. Health goals :)
Also, I’m dying to actually DM her and say, “Hey Kelly! I saw the TikTok where you told your followers to message you if we didn’t have a job so we could nail down what we’re really good at.” I’d love to just ping-pong back and forth with her in the DMs to try to nail down a career path for me, but I’m 98% sure she has a Google alert set for her name and will see this before I can make that happen. I love Kelly Bensimon — a former model, ex-reality television star, and current millionaire realtor — telling me, an unemployed writer isolated from friends and family and barely getting by in the middle of a pandemic, that I have a great life! Thanks so much for the reminder, Kel. I’ll be sure to remember that next time I head down the salad dressing aisle.
Danielle Staub — Reeling Myself
Danielle Staub is a force of nature. The former Real Housewives of New Jersey star is scrappy to her core and tough to the bone. She’s convinced that every single person in the world has it out for her. Bravo once posted a throwback video of her getting stood up on a date from RHONJ season one and Danielle misinterpreted their caption as a veiled threat to her life, as documented on her podcast:
But despite all of her time spent consumed with other people’s opinions of her, Danielle Staub still finds the time to feel herself, as evidenced by this video where she stares directly at herself in the camera while moving sensuously to Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj’s 2014 collaboration. Danielle understands that it’s important to pause, breathe, and revel in your own beauty once in a while, and I think that’s something that we all could learn from!
Kelly Bensimon — Life is a Highway!
In our final Kelly Bensimon entry, the queen of Housewives TikTok pours power steering fluid into her car and gives the camera a gleeful thumbs-up before the video fades to white, which I’m assuming means that she was touched by an angel and went to Heaven?
Dorinda Medley — The Purge: Election Year
If you thought Bethenny Frankel smiling devilishly into the camera while banging her toes on the ground was going to be the scariest thing on this list, you thought wrong! Dorinda Medley is back, and this time, she’s got her hand over her heart, a mask with the signing of the Declaration of Independence printed onto it, and a chilling stare that pierces the camera, embedding itself into the soul. Posted on Inauguration Day back in January, this reel feels more like a horrific omen of what’s to come than a cause for celebration. What does Dorinda know?
Dorinda slowly leaning into the camera to show off the image on her mask, eyes just barely peeking over the top of its seams and her face entirely devoid of expression, is one of the most unsettling images on the internet. This is like Real Housewife creepypasta. This feels like the last thing I see before I die, my killer having just knifed me down and slowly peering into my eyes as they watch the life drain from my body before unhinging their jaw to swallow me whole. So, actually, a very appropriate metaphor for life under American politics!
Seeing the women of The Real Housewives franchise try to translate their innate ability to make legendary reality television into interesting (or even sensical) video content for social media is an endless riot. If anything, it proves that The Real Housewives are truly real. Try as they might to come off in a way that may favor them when they’re broadcast into our homes, their quirks and eccentricities are impossible to mask on the internet — especially when it comes to the eyes of Gen Z, who can turn anything and everything into a meme. Once again, these women putting in the work. They’re making content more surrealist and watchable than 90% of anything else on TikTok. The Real Housewives are ushering social media into its arthouse era, and I’ll be there for every frame.