The Spin Crowd
The Spin Crowd was an American reality television series detailing the lives of six employees who work for Command PR, a Hollywood public relations firm. Created as a spin-off from the E! channel's series of programs centered around the Kardashian family, the series premiered on August 22, 2010 and ran for one season, its final episode airing on October 10, 2010. The series received generally poor reviews from critics.
The Spin Crowd
Reality
- Jonathan Cheban
- Simon Huck
- Lauren Stoner
- Katie Mox
- Erika Ledesma
- Summer Hill
United States
English
1
8
- Gil Goldschein
- Jeff Jenkins
- Jonathan Murray
- Kim Kardashian
- Russell Jay
22 to 24 minutes
August 22 –
October 10, 2010
Premise[edit]
The series follows the employees of Cheban's public relations firm, Command PR (currently Command Entertainment Group); in addition to Cheban and Huck, Lauren Stoner, Katie Mox, Erika Ledesma, and Summer Hill feature prominently. Focuses in episodes include helping celebrities promote products (such as Mario Lopez[1] and Carmen Electra[9]) and the daily lives and personal drama between the firm's employees. Cheban and Huck's dynamic is a prominent focus, with their personalities clashing and creating many of the show's dramatic moments.[1]
Reception[edit]
Reviews[edit]
While performing highly in viewership ratings,[3], The Spin Crowd received overall negative reviews from critics, Cheban's actions being a large source of the criticism. Lindsay Hurd stated that it "doesn’t give a worthwhile look into the world of PR".[8] Brian Lowry criticized Cheban's behavior on the program, deeming him "a complete knucklehead and an HR nightmare."[6] While admitting that Cheban and Huck's dynamic was "fun to watch", Barry Garron admonished the "hostile work environment" cultivated by Cheban, and accused the series of creating a "sanitized" image of the public relations industry "for the benefit of the celebrities who appear on it".[1]
Criticism[edit]
The series has been accused of perpetrating stereotypes of women who work in the public relations industry, with.an emphasis on the social lives of the characters over their work. When compared to the docu-series Kell On Earth, Cherese Colston wrote that "The Spin Crowd offered the most unrealistic depiction of women in the PR field and the PR field in general."[10] The series glamorized the importance of physical appearance in the PR industry, especially those of women; Camille Renée Hashem observed that "it seems as though the staff are there to look good instead of actually work."[11] Critics specifically highlighted and condemned a plot line in the first episode, "Image Is Everything", in which Cheban pressures employee Erika Ledesma to undergo a collagen lip injection procedure,[1] an event described by Hurd as a "misogynistic act".[8] The focus on the physical appearance of female employees leans into to the stereotype of the sexualized female PR representative overall perpetrated by the program.