It’s Time to End the ‘Bachelor’ Franchise – The season-scrapping scandal around Taylor Frankie Paul is just the latest example of a long string of toxicity surrounding the ABC shows.

He tugs on the line.

Carmelo said your face looks like a clock, and I believe Carlos is a ho.

I feel like you're just here for the zip line

MOVE!

They’ll only be there for the zip line though…

But I feel like then dudes would just be there for the zip line

And put a shark in the water

Honestly if they had gone ahead and proceeded with this season after that video came out about her, this probably would have been the highest rated season of all time.

Add in a bare knuckle boxing segment

There is something really bad waiting for her at home…

It doesn’t anymore. Ratings slipped a lot in the past few seasons and Taylor was their hail mary to inject some drama and bump the ratings. That failed because they were forced the cancel the whole thing and eat the costs.

I don’t think it does. Based on a sample size of the women in my life not once has the Bachelor come up recently, Netflix and the other streamers have figured out much more successful models. Love in Blind, all the Island shows, there are a million dating shows now.

15 years ago I’d say so, but not anymore

My SO watches a lot of the bachelor shows. So I’ve endured quite a bit of it over the years. It is sort of structured like comfort food for its viewers. The show hits roughly the same beats. People use sort of this jargon internal to the show. There is a heavily produced aspect to it as well. Especially heavy handed is how production puts the bachelor or bachelorette on this sort of pedestal and treated like a perfect person. Production clearly gives them a lot of media training and tries to keep them from looking bad. Because if they look like an ass, then why would the 30+ people they’re dating want to proceed? The person chosen to be the bachelor(ette) is usually a contestant from the previous season, who was relatively unproblematic and not the “villain” of that season and managed to show some personality to make it pretty far. The drama is usually derived from the 30+ contestants fighting with each other or getting frustrated with a lack of one on one time with the bachelor(ette). So yeah Drama is a huge part of the show but usually the bachelor(ette) is not the source of drama. They’re usually kind of boring and often not even around. They’re more of a prize to win than anything else. And all the contestants always talk about them in an idealized way. So picking a woman with a very public history of domestic violence was a huge departure for the show. And I guess they were worried about their brand which relies on a pretty loyal fanbase to be the ratings juggernaut it is.

the bachelor universe has been on life support with how popular all the streaming dating shows have become (love is blind, love island, etc) that this season was supposed to breathe life back into it + bring in the audience from secret lives of mormon wives so the cost of scrapping an entire season and the loss of a new audience base might have them cutting their losses and just ending the franchise

It's exposing the grift too much. The details of what happened was known and addressed for years before now. The video coming out just highlights that they were willing to star a domestic abuser in order to stir the drama.

Seriously. Honestly, with the amount of terrible people on each season, its surprising that anyone even blinked at the latest drama. Chris soules killed a guy and was [likely] drunk driving but you can still watch the guy's season The whole show is built on toxicity - the producers actively encourage it.

They probably knew all of this already and just had their hand forced by release of the video.

Thank you intelligent thought thinking person

I’d say Bachelor/Bachelorette are more like romance p***. They are all dressed nice, going on romantic dates, giving roses, living in a mansion. There’s drama too obviously but the main focus is sappy romance.

C**** outrage is the best business model for TV. Minimal production costs that drive maximal engagement. It’s polluting society’s moral fabric, destroying communities and causing the downfall of institutions that have helped drive a healthy society - but as long as it’s a c**** way to sell soap, it’ll never stop.

We expected better from the woman who got famous by dancing on TikTok and f****** her friends’ husbands (that’s seriously where this Mormon Wives show came from)

That's not true. Happens all the time in fact. It needs to not be so trashy that it draws ire, but also not become boring. And because many more dating shows have shown up and reinvented things, the Bachelor/ette have gotten boring to their fans.

Which makes any particular piece of trash extremely replaceable.

Pacifiers for a listless population separated by oceans from the destruction caused by their desire for strife and drama. 

Absolutely was just thinking this. UnReal is a show that stuck with me long after viewing, as well Sarah Gertrude Shapiro's more direct statements about her experiences working on the bachelor franchise.

Check out Burning Love, truly a hidden gem.

Family Guy, and comedy in general, really points out the absurdities of our society. Why we put up with it I don’t know

One was filmed beforehand, the other is filmed live.

> If people want reality, they can go out on the street and see it up close. People want _curated_ 'reality', not _real_ reality. They want 'reality' where the people are prettier, the drama is juicier, the boring bits are cut out, and there are 'storylines'. I suspect reality TV will continue to decline, though, as YouTube, Twitch, Instagram and TikTok take its place. There are plenty of people willing to broadcast their daily lives onto the internet for the world to see, bypassing the TV networks and production costs entirely. And for a lot of viewers, the parasocial aspect—being able to interact in comment sections or live chats, and feeling they have some kind of personal relationships with the people they're watching—is an additional level of appeal. That interactivity contributes to the fantasy of "maybe this person will fancy me back", makes it feel more tangible, etc. So while I agree about reality as a genre largely being toxic, c**** and full of exploitation (of its 'stars' and audiences), I don't think it's going anyway. It's evolving, and it leaving the hands of TV producers is likely going to lead to it being even more toxic, unfortunately, as people make it their livelihoods, and as TV regulations stop applying.

These shows succeed because people are on their devices all the time. They often don’t want a show that requires them to turn their phone off and concentrate. These reality shows fit the bill perfectly because you can easily play it in the background while not disturbing your online feeds

I don't watch the Bachelor but it's funny to me how people have this reaction for trashy tv women like and not trashy tv men like aka sports lol. Sports fandoms bring out the biggest idiots I've ever seen who have a parasocial relationship with men they've never met and some of whom are bankrupting themselves on sports betting. Shame they don't want better for themselves

Like PT Barnum said: " There's a sucker (in this case "idiot") born every minute" The networks are keeney aware of this. There will always be a bottomless pit of human stupidity to draw from.

*Teacher. Mother. Secret Lover.*

Blow up your TV, throw out the paper

She’s kind of odd looking but overall just seems like a terrible person. Emotionally stunted with no accountability and thrives on conducting herself like a cunning teenager.

She looks like DW

I don't even watch reality TV, and I enjoyed that one. Dark as all hell, but a really good show!

The funny thing is that two very educated people in my circle, who go to plays and concerts, read extensively, are knowledgeable about current events and politics...love The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. Loads of millennials I know, also smart and educated, are hooked on Love Island and Love Is Blind. I just don't get it.

Or you judge them and are biased against them so end up not liking them... I'm sure if we put you in a room full of 100 secret bachelor watchers you will gravitate towards and make friends with at least a few of them.