‘Welcome to Plathville’: Are Viewers Being Gaslit?
Welcome to Plathville has veered so far off course, and there is so much revisionist history within the show’s storylines that it’s become one of the most off-putting elements of the TLC series. Are viewers being gaslit?
There’s so much to unpack within every episode of ‘Welcome to Plathville’
As Welcome to Plathville continues to evolve, it has gone the way of every other TLC reality television series. Storylines change. But this has resulted in a revisionist history and gaslighting –a significant sticking point with most viewers.
The Plath family is dealing with two significant splits: Barry and Kim Plath, the parents, and Ethan and Olivia Plath, their son and ex-daughter-in-law. This division caused turmoil in the clan but has also resulted in a history of revisionist storylines.
On Reddit, fans discussed how much the series has switched up storylines, and they felt gaslit. One viewer wrote, “They are all doing it. It’s so bizarre! They are all so broken it’s uncomfortable to watch. The show’s charm was Ethan, Moriah, and Micah trying to find themselves and break from the cult. Now, they are all becoming Kim 2.0. Rewriting history even though we are all witnesses that what they say is not what we saw.”
A second Redditor penned, “I keep yelling at the TV, ‘But we saw that happen!!!'”
“They remember things differently too but are desperately trying not to,” said a third fan of the series of the Plath’s changing stories to suit their narrative.
A fourth viewer wrote, “After watching the last episode, I think it’s hilarious that Ethan is trying to frame his issues with his mother as an Olivia problem. And even more hilarious that they expect the viewers to buy this crap.”
Who has changed the most on ‘Welcome to Plathville’?
Without a doubt, the person who has changed the most on Welcome to Plathville is Kim Plath. She used to be portrayed as a former rebel turned conservative mother of eight. However, after splitting from her husband, Barry, she appears to have returned to her rebellious ways.
So, were the Plaths as conservative as they seemed on television during the show’s earlier seasons? How could one person switch so quickly from one extreme to the other as Kim has?
Perhaps Kim didn’t change as much as viewers believed she did. She may have been playing a role in trying to raise the perfect family and giving them the life she wanted but didn’t have as a child.
This point came to light when Kim and Micah discussed why the Plath children were raised so conservatively. The Plaths were ultra-religious, homeschooled, sheltered from technology, and on a farm far from others.
Kim told her son that between the ages of 4 and 5, she was sexually abused by a babysitter. Her mother was a single parent. She hired the teen to watch Kim but was unaware of what was going on while she was at work.
“That is why I always knew where they were, what they were doing, who they were with, whatever,” she explained during the episode. “That played a huge part in me being protective — maybe overprotective — but to me, the risk of not being overprotective enough is so great that I’d rather err on the side of overprotecting than under and have something like that happen.”
So is ‘Welcome to Plathville’ real?
Welcome to Plathville continues to stump viewers, who try in vain to follow along with the family’s adventures and misadventures. With all the twists and turns in the family’s interactions, it’s difficult to judge which storylines are real and which are manufactured for ratings.
For example, Micah’s California friends Kapish and Hayden were reintroduced in an episode with Olivia. They were strictly known as Micah’s California friends who didn’t know Olivia when he lived in California. It appears Micah didn’t keep in touch with a lot of his friends from the Sunshine State, but it is unknown if they are estranged.
Suddenly, the two men appeared during the series’ most recent episode as Olivia’s friends during an at-home sex ed class. While their attendance at that event seemed strange, perhaps Olivia kept in touch with them after meeting the men at Moriah’s record release party on a California beach years earlier.
However, these types of interactions lead viewers to continue to believe the show is staged and that they are being gaslighted for ratings. Do you think the Plath family is going along with forced or fake storylines on Welcome to Plathville?
Welcome to Plathville airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET on TLC.
How to get help: In the U.S., call the RAINN National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 to connect with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area.
