Twenty Years Of The Bachelor

Two decades and we still can’t stop watching…

By Caroline Kawabe

Confession: watching reality television is my guilty pleasure. It’s not something I am proud of, but it’s true nonetheless. There’s something special about getting together with family or curling up on the couch with roommates on Mondays to watch The Bachelor, something that I just really look forward to. Whether or not you admit it, a lot of us are probably on the same page.

The Bachelor has a seemingly dubious plot-line of embarking on a journey to find love, where one man or woman dates around 30 eligible bachelor(ette)s in hopes of finding his one true love, ending the season by getting down on one knee. This often-criticized show has been around for nearly twenty-one years. Amidst those 20 years, the franchise has expanded to include shows such as The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise. Fans of the show have also taken to creating numerous social media accounts to keep up with the drama, and former contestants of the show have even gone on to make dozens of different podcasts interviewing fellow cast members or discussing the juicy drama of the latest episode. The success of the different Bachelor nation shows has also inspired the creation of many other reality TV dating shows, including Love Island, Love is Blind, and Too Hot to Handle. Programs don’t run for this long and expand the way the Bachelor franchise has for no reason; they continue to get picked up because we want them to.

Who knows why we like this show so much? Maybe it’s because it provides us with a sort of comfort, or because it’s a great show to unwind with at the end of a stressful day Maybe it’s because it gives us a little something to look forward to and gives us a reason to get together with loved ones on a Monday night, No matter which reason you nodded your head to, these are all reasons people watch reality television. Sometimes it’s nice to take a break and just mindlessly fall into someone else’s world. What’s the shame in that?