Nadja Spiegelman

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times Opinion.

You've heard the news.

Here's what to make of it.

I'm Nadja Spiegelman, an editor at New York Times Opinion.

Like so many millennials, I recently binned the Netflix docuseries Reality Check, Inside America's Next Top Model.

I was in high school when that reality show first aired, and I was completely addicted to it.

The original show was a reality TV contest hosted by Tyra Banks, who plucked young women from all over the country competing to win a contract with a modeling agency.

I'd never seen anything like it.

No one had.

I'd never seen real girls on television talking about being gay or being curvy in a world of heroin-chic thinness.

And at the time, I remember that representation felt truly revolutionary.

But then revisiting the show now in 2026 through this docuseries, what stands out the most is how these girls were horrifically critiqued for their appearance in a way that we've come to think of now as completely unacceptable.

The documentary reveals a lot of disturbing details about how those contestants were treated.

And as we think about how much has changed in the more than 20 years since this show first aired, we're also confronted with how much hasn't.

To talk about these changes, I'm joined by opinion writer Jessica Gross, who writes extensively about culture, and Kendall Wertz, strategist and co-founder of The Jefferies, a creative talent agency.

Hi.

Hi.

One of the things Tyra Banks has made most famous is the word smize, which is a certain kind of look that you can have in your face where you're smiling only with your eyes.

And I think everyone who's around our age who grew up watching America's Next Top Model at least tried to smize.

So I want to know if you guys know how to smize.