“Reader Emails,” Ratings, Tik Tok-Gate, & How Does a Pick Up Truck End Up On The Show?

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Hey Steve,

I never comment or write in, but am I the only one who found it hard to watch Zac who was open about sobriety and recovery hold a flute of “champagne” and toast through out the filming??! I get it’s the show and how it’s always done, but man that is the worst temptation. And amazing for Zac to be able to participate and a show to true control of urge! I wish production would have been more respectful of his recovery process and just have a glass of water, even if he consented to the appearance of alcohol. It’s a slippery slope even for the appearance to others that may be in recovery. I don’t know just my thoughts!

Thanks!

Comment: Apparently he didn’t have a problem with it, so it’s all good. I mean, we know alcohol is served on this show. He knows it’s served on the show. And I guess he felt comfortable enough to still do it.
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Hello Steve! I’ve read your site for years and finally feel like I have a question worth asking!

You quote and reference Sharleen a lot, so I’m sure you’re aware that she has recently added a crowd funding feature to her Pretty Pandas blog. I try to donate when I can because she does fantastic work and deserves to be paid for it. But it got me thinking: I assume the bulk of your income from the site is ad driven. Is there anything that I as a reader can do to ensure you get the maximum compensation for my visits? Do you get paid per visit to the site? Or do I need to actually click on one of the ads in order for you to see any revenue from my visits? I absolutely don’t mind reloading your page a few times or intentionally clicking on some ads if it benefits you. Because, like Sharleen, you do fantastic work and deserve to be paid for it.

Comment: Well thank you, but no need to do anything on your end. Traffic is what drives my site and one person refreshing or whatever isn’t going to make any difference. It has to do with overall volume. And my readers have been loyal for the last 17 years. But thanks anyway.
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You’re absolutely right on target with Reddit. I joined for the discussion, and to pick up on things I might have missed, and left with my eyes bleeding. These people are a mob with nowhere to go. It’s the worse case of group think/ cancel culture I’ve ever seen. They’re all in the same boat, with one oar, thinking that they’re getting somewhere

Comment: The Echo Chamber of Negativity.
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Hi Steve:

You were right about the final 2. You can trust your sources. This more of a comment than a question.

This was a difficult season but I felt that the producers did the best with what they had. The men were great. This may have been the best cast of men ever and that proposal, that proposal – this is what this show was supposed to be about. There was drama but Zac was in none of it. He was always steady and determined. This season was so different from past ones from the COVID of course , to no traveling, to the meaningful & real conversations the contestants had (BLM, addiction, suicide) – real sh*t, not “champagne gate”. This is what I like. To have 2 men in the finals who had real issues that they overcame ( still overcoming) was a good change for the franchise I think.

Even seeing Ivan’s family – they never had someone that went through what Ivan’s brother went through on the show and talk about it a little bit.

Both final couples are interracial couples with each finalist being interracial. It’s what the real world is like. I’m African American and I’m still waiting for my Black & Black love story in this franchise but love is love and I accept it all. I really hope Zac and Tayshia stay together forever. I really like them as a couple.

Comment: You bring up something that, while seemingly quite obvious on the outside, might be getting overlooked. And that’s that both women leads this season picked men of a different races. I think that was great for a show that has had so little BIPOC representation for 40 seasons. Are Zac and Tayshia going to stay together forever? Clare and Dale? We can’t possibly know that now. They’ve both been together less than 6 months. They’re in the honeymoon phase. , But just going off this show’s track record, being a realist, just know that it’s unlikely. A lot of factors involved. All you can do is wish for the best for each of them. Take the average couple and know how difficult it is to be in a relationship in general. Then I’d say multiply that by at least 10-20x being a couple in the public eye. Maybe more. It’s not easy.
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Hey Steve,

Thanks for entertaining us yet again, especially during COVID. First a thought, then a question:

Seem’s like you’ve gotten a lot of heat for the “You’re drunk” comment. As someone who’s been sober over 13 years now, I wasn’t offended. BUT, it did seem like a poor choice of words considering the person Tayshia chose has battled addiction. Looking at it that way, “You’re drunk” might seem a little less than kind. I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way—just some food for thought. I see where someone could see it that way, but I’ve used that phrase for years, and it’s definitely a phrase used a lot on Twitter in a joking manner. Kinda like “Hold my beer.” Which I could’ve used in it’s place and I would’ve been going for the same effect. So I meant absolutely nothing about it in regards to Zac. Wasn’t even on my mind when I wrote that. But I see where people are making the correlation.

Here’s my question: Have you heard if they’re going to ramp up these dates to make the next few quarantine seasons more interesting?? There’s so much more they could do. Build some structures and have a Ninja Warrior date. Have a hologram concert. Use special effects to create a different place each night. I don’t know—something. It just doesn’t seem like they’re putting much effort into it. What are your thoughts?

Thanks again and Happy New Year!

Comment: Well I think just looking at the promo for Matt’s season, it’s not even gonna be close to what they did at La Quinta. Zip lining, sky diving, horseback riding, to name a few. This season will definitely put La Quinta to shame in terms of dates.
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Great listen today! As a bachelor fan, fan of your site, and Pfizer phase 3 participant, I thought I’d share my experience on side effects. This is copied from a public Facebook post I made to help alleviate fears.

Within 2 hours of the first shot, my arm began to hurt, like it would with a flu shot or TDaP. That evening I had minor GI upset, but nothing that really bothered me, and I had developed a red splotch around the injection site. The next day, my arm hurt pretty badly. At this point it was worse than a TDaP – I couldn’t really raise my arm much without wincing. This was the worst part of the first shot. I also developed chills and minor fatigue around 24 hours after the first shot and suspected I had a fever but didn’t have a thermometer on me. A few hours later I confirmed it was 99.5. I took some Advil and it helped relieve the temperature and some of the arm pain. By the day after that, all I felt was some arm pain, but much less than the day before, and even that was resolved in another day with a bit of lingering tenderness.

Overall, the second shot made me feel worse than the first, even if the reaction was shorter. It definitely seemed like my body recognized something and worked to combat it. The arm pain wasn’t nearly as bad, this time more like a flu shot, and faded pretty quickly. I never got any redness on my arm with this one. But the day after the shot, my temperature again went up around the 24 hour mark, this time to 101, with chills again. The fatigue also hit HARD. I had to work while laying on the couch, partially because my neck felt stiff and painful. When I felt my collarbone, I had a swollen lymph node on the same side as the shot, which likely caused the neck pain and stiffness. I avoided taking Advil this time for as long as possible because I wanted to accurately be able to report my reactions in case my temperature got higher, but it didn’t. Pain and temperature responded to Advil when I finally took it, and I felt fine the next day minus a little tenderness in my still slightly swollen lymph node.

Comment: Thanks for loving the Emily interview as much as I did. So much good information. Too bad it probably went in one ear and out the other to a lot of people.

Good to hear about your vaccination. All we can do is try to encourage as many people as possible to get it, because that’s the only way we can establish any sort of herd immunity. Do I have any faith whatsoever in the American public that we can get to 75-80% of the public vaccinated? Not a chance in hell reading what I read and seeing what I see on social media. And that’s disturbing. Just means that everyone who thought when we turned the calendar over to 2021 all the sudden things were gonna change are sorely mistaken. They’re getting worse before they get better unfortunately. Not being a Debbie Downer, I’m being realistic.

You shared your story of what happened to you, and that’s the way it’ll be for probably 95% of the people who do choose to get vaccinated. We know this because this vaccine has gone through numerous trials to get to this point, with very little problems. However, people hear one story (one story out of hundreds of thousands of people who’ve gotten vaccinated) about someone getting worse side effects from it, they spread said story, and you instill fear into people that shouldn’t be there. That’s why it’ll be real tough to get to 75-80%. Unfortunately, we as a country think we’re better than everyone else, people have an elitist attitude when it comes to, well, basically everything, and they’re just gonna do what they’re gonna do, the hell with everyone else. I wish it wasn’t that way, but it clearly is. The country is divided now more than ever, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon unfortunately. Wear a mask, socially distance, wash your hands. We’ve been told that for 9 months and millions of people don’t care and don’t follow it and give reasons and excuses why they don’t need to. Do I really expect those same people to now go make two different appointments to get a shot? Please.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
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Steve,

Longtime Bachelor fan and reader of your site. We are at La Quinta and took a little trip to the suite Taysha stayed in just for fun. Why is it they didn’t ever have a pool party or spend any time in the water given that it was 115 degrees?
Does she not like pools?

Comment: There were plenty of times they were in the pool. We saw Tayshia’s first shot of the season promo coming out of a pool. The first group date was in a pool. She and Ivan went in an ice bath. We saw guys lounging in the pool while others were on group dates. It definitely happened.
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Hi Steve— here’s a question, is Bennett Jordan really a financial consultant? When you search him on FINRA Broker Check, no search results appear for him. Past and former financial advisors/financial planners have to be licensed per FINRA and take exams such as Series 7, Series 63, and Series 65, which are public records. Sounds to me he is more like a paid actor on the show. Thoughts?

Comment: He’s not a paid actor, but I have no idea about what he does. I never looked into it.
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Just wondering your thoughts about whether or not Ali will show up on Cobra Kai when the new season drops Friday!

Comment: (SPOILER ALERT. DON’T READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT A PLOT POINT IN COBRA KAI SEASON 3).

Ha ha, well we got our answer. I mean, there was no way she wasn’t going to show up. The whole teaser at the end of season 2 set up season 3. They weren’t gonna leave that carrot dangling then not bring her on. We can now fully expect Terry Silver and probably Mike Barnes, to be a part of season 4 with the teaser they gave us at the end of this season.
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Hi Steve,

Hope you had a Merry Christmas and wishing you a Happy New Year’s! I’m just wondering if you were able to figure out why there were so many rumors that Tayshia/Zac had broken up, as I had heard a few other sources mention that they were hearing the same. Do you believe that they were going through a rough patch or that they were just spreading false rumors or if it was just bad information?

Thanks!

Comment: I don’t think there were “so many rumors.” I heard it a couple times through people, which is why in my initial spoiler, I said I had no idea what their current relationship was. And then about halfway through the season, I remember on one my lives with Ashley, I said if you put a gun to my head, do I think they were together, I said no. I hadn’t heard anything new that made me say that. I was just hearing the same stuff from the beginning of the season, so I assumed nothing had changed. That obviously turned out to be wrong and I was able to find that out last minute.