As tributes poured in last week for Mackayla “Kash” Paige, some Black YouTubers and podcasters expressed concern about the “baddies” genre of reality TV she starred in and whether it encourages the type of street brawling that led to her accidental shooting death outside an Oakland nightclub.
The 29-year-old East Bay woman hoped that appearing on what are billed as “raw,” “unfiltered” and “unapologetic” reality shows on the Nyx and the Now That’s TV (NTTV) streaming networks would launch her career as an entertainer and entrepreneur, her relatives said.
She was fatally wounded early in the morning on Oct. 11 while engaging in a fist fight with another woman — which commenters have noted was not unlike the angry, physical confrontations she was expected to perform on shows with names like “Real West Coast Baddies,” “RoomH8z” and “Young & Reckless: LA.”
According to Oakland police — and a video recording of the fight that has gone viral — Paige’s scuffle with the other woman turned deadly when Paige’s half-sister, Vernika Dunbar, tried to come to her defense. Dunbar allegedly was armed with a loaded pistol and started swinging it at the other woman. The gun went off, and Paige fell to the ground. Someone’s phone camera continued rolling, so Paige’s dying moments were also recorded and shared online.
Dunbar has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, assault with a firearm and carrying a loaded firearm in public, according to Alameda County prosecutors. Meanwhile, Paige’s family, friends and fans have been left devastated.
“She wanted to be famous so bad,” Paige’s cousin Nicky Clayton told KTVU earlier this week, while visiting a makeshift memorial for her on 14th Street near Harrison Street where the shooting occurred. “She didn’t care how she was going to get famous. I mean, she still had morals, don’t get me wrong, but she just wanted to be famous. She wanted to be a reality star. She wanted to start her own business.”
In an online tribute, another cousin, Charles Shavies, said that Paige, a makeup artist who had addresses in Richmond and Antioch, “was more than a reality TV star and social media influencer — she was a beautiful young woman with big dreams, a bold personality, and a determination to make her mark on the world.”
And yet, as Paige sought to make her mark in reality TV, criticism had already been growing of the baddies genre, especially because of concerns that its version of reality TV amplifies negative and persistent stereotypes of Black women and of Black culture.
Just two weeks before her death, Donnetrice C. Allison, a professor and chair of Africana Studies at Stockton University in New Jersey, appeared on NPR’s current events and culture podcast “It’s Been a Minute” to explain why these shows are potentially harmful. She said they “feed into this idea that Black women are just wild and crazy and all that kind of thing, and they can just snap in any minute and start fighting.”
In May 2025, Essence magazine said in a social media post that these shows present “a double-edged sword” because they are produced by independent Black-owned media companies, which is “powerful to see.” On the other hand, Essence also said these shows monetize “dysfunction, degrading Black women and trivializing Black culture for entertainment.”
Debates have always arisen when policymakers and cultural critics try to argue that popular forms of entertainment — from rock music to rap to movies to video games — are culturally harmful, cause anti-social behavior or motivate people to act violently. Still, Jackson, whose YouTube channel has 514,000 subscribers, made his case that baddies shows glamorize “uncensored conflict culture,” street brawls and losing control in ways that carry “real-life, permanent consequences.”
Paige’s shows are part of the baddies genre but are not officially related to the “Baddies” franchise, a multiverse of content that is produced by a third major online subscription platform, the Zeus Network, which started in 2018. The Zeus Network’s “Baddies” shows are an offshoot of the popular reality show “Bad Girls Club,” which originated on the Oxygen Network in 2006. Concord native and executive producer Natalie Nunn, a “Bad Girls Club” alum, helped launch the “Baddies” franchise at Zeus in 2021 and build it into an “empire” of shows that are now filmed internationally, Complex reported.
The shows on these networks typically feature groups of predominantly Black women who travel together, do promotional gigs, party or live together. Episodes focus on the women’s conflicts, with their arguments exploding into all-out fights. The shows also appear to be produced on a lower budget and put more emphasis on physical confrontations than the female-centric “Real Housewives” shows on Bravo and other cable networks.
In the aftermath of Paige’s death, people online have brought up the fact that hers is the second shooting death in the Bay Area this month that is related to a baddies-themed show or cast member.
On Oct. 3, a 47-year-old security guard, Ulysses Davis, was shot and killed outside of a Zeus Network “Baddies” event at San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre, KTVU reported. Davis was helping to escort a “rowdy” woman from the theater when she allegedly fired a gun at him, striking him in the back while his wife and six children looked on, Davis’ brother-in-law told KTVU.
Davis’ killing prompted podcaster and media personality DJ Akademiks to call out Zeus Network president and CEO Lemuel Plummer for producing content that rewards “bad behavior.” He said these shows create an environment where people are desperate to stand out, so they will act ever more outrageously and violently to keep the cameras on them. He also suggested that this behavior could spill over into their off-screen lives, saying: “All of these things will end in the same result. It’s going to end with people being hurt and hurt badly.”
Regardless of what critics say, the baddies shows on these networks have developed a fiercely loyal Gen Z and millennial fan base, according to a 2025 profile of NTTV founder Teleau Belton.
In the BlackEnterprise.com profile, Belton talked about wanting to build “a cultural movement” with a network of reality shows and other content that can “connect the culture directly to the people.” The reality shows also can provide cast members with “opportunities that they never would’ve had before.”
Both his network and the Nyx Network paid tribute to Paige this week, describing her as a beloved member of their TV families.
On Reddit threads about the baddies shows, some viewers described them as “guilty pleasures.” On “It’s Been a Minute,” Allison likewise said she knows a lot of people who “really do enjoy these shows, and the most common reasoning I hear from them is it’s an escape. Like it’s a kind of mindless fun, and you’re just watching people, you know, go crazy.”
Allison also described the “train wreck quality” of baddies shows, while “It’s Been a Minute” host Brittany Luse said she found them “distressing” to watch.
On the r/blackladies subreddit, a woman echoed concerns raised by Allison and Luse, saying these shows portray Black women as “loud and raunchy ghetto and ratchet.” The latter is a slang term describing a person as low-class or out of control. “I don’t see many shows or other forms of media that portrays us in a positive light,” this commenter said.
Allison agreed that the limited representations of Black people in mainstream culture means that baddies shows can have an outsized influence in how Black women especially are perceived. Because these shows are billed as reality TV, they also give viewers the false impression that “this is reality,” Allison added.
Instead, she and other critics have said that the shows, inadvertently or not, present updated versions of racial stereotypes that go back in U.S. history to at least the Jim Crow era. The stereotypes include the sassy Black maids and mammies of old Hollywood movies and the Sapphire character from the “Amos ‘n’ Andy” radio show — a woman who is ornery, mean and “constantly nagging, especially Black men,” she said.
Allison doesn’t think it’s the responsibility of Black people to end the racism inherent in these stereotypes. But they should be willing to address racism whenever it comes up in the media they are consuming — or as Essence magazine said, “to demand accountability.”
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As for women, like Paige, who clamor to be on these shows, Allison and Luse said they understand why they would see them as one of the few avenues available to them to get noticed for their talent, including their ability to perform on camera. Still, Allison said: “It’s kind of sad that … if you are a good singer or rapper or whatever, to get your foot in the door, you have to kind of do this.”
In his interview with BlackEnterprise.com, Belton dismissed concerns that his shows are harmful, saying they deliver “exactly what our audience asks for.” He also said their casts reflect people from all walks of life, the majority of whom begin scoring brand deals and acting gigs from their time on the shows. Belton said: “We also educate our cast about TV and the business they are getting into so that once they leave here, they can go out and handle business on their own.”
That was certainly Paige’s hope: to gain experience and move on to new opportunities. But now her family is left to mourn her loss and the incarceration of her half-sister. “My niece was outgoing and was reaching for the stars,” said Ebony Thomas, of Oakland, who also visited the memorial this week with Paige’s mother, Cynthia Shaver. “We’re a family that stays together and prays together.”
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