Hi Steve,
I have been a reader for over 10 years, but I haven’t emailed before. I first want to say that it’s been really great to see your own personal growth over the past 10 years and how your coverage of the show has changed to include an openness about your own education, learning and un-learning, and anti-racism work, as well as pointing out racist issues within the franchise! I personally have stopped watching and don’t know if I will continue. It just feels wrong to support and spend my time on it when they seem to have so little regard for making any of the desperately needed changes. I will still look for ways to support you and other Bachelor Nation voices that I think uplift the franchise, while doing my small part to unfollow and remove support from voices who are remaining silent.
My other thought that’s just been going around and around my head is I guess a question for you. It may be rhetorical and there could be no “right” answer. What does accountability in the case Taylor Nolan’s racist tweets look like? One thing that is awful about it is many who have been wanting to defend the franchise are using her tweets somehow to justify the racist actions of Chris, Rachael K, Garrett, Hannah B, and whoever else as if BOTH things can’t be wrong and racist. As if one somehow cancels out the other. Now asking people to be logical on the internet is a losing battle, but Taylor’s tweets do not somehow mean she has to “apologize to Chris Harrison because everyone makes mistakes and everyone says things they shouldn’t” which are comments I’ve seen repeatedly. If anything, it’s directly disproving the also often used comment “stop making everything about race.” It shows that probably almost everyone HAS held racial bias and said racially insensitive/racist things at some point in their lives, which is proving many people’s point that racism is deeply entrenched in our society and anti-racist work is required in order to improve! It doesn’t excuse Taylor or anyone else, to me this is much more evident that obviously our society does have a race problem that cannot be ignored. Back to accountability.. Chris Harrison “taking a step back” makes sense because he is the public face of the franchise and went out to speak for the franchise and perpetuated racism and was overwhelming condescending and dismissive to Rachel Lindsay. That is accountability that makes sense to me. It boils down to, “he did really badly at his job, so he loses it.” (For now). For Taylor, I just don’t know what to think about the accountability. She apologized but should her voice about race issues forever be discounted? Should she lose her platform? Should she lose her job? Has the work she has done in the past few years shown that she DID do the work since the tweets? But just as she has said, it doesn’t matter when it was or how old you are, it’s still racist! It will be telling to see what the consequences are compared to Rachael K and Hannah B for instance, whose “consequences” were essentially that they had to apologize and commit to learning more about anti-racism, which is what everyone should be doing anyway and their follower count continues to grow. I’m not bashing them, it will just be interesting to see what happens and the double standard that may exist for Taylor. Thoughts?
Whew, that was long! Thanks for all you do!
Comment: I don’t think there’s a universal answer to holding her accountable. Some people are so offended, they don’t even care to hold her accountable. They’re done with her. Which, I guess technically, is holding her accountable. If you feel the need to unfollow her, never buy anything she sells, not listen to her podcast anymore, etc., then that’s your way of holding her accountable. Which is perfectly fine. A lot of people are going to do that. In fact, probably a majority. Whether she keeps her license isn’t up to us. If she loses it, she can’t say it was unfair. She’s aware that’s on the table. But if she does lose it, I just don’t see the need to cheer or applaud it. Or rub it in her face, which a lot of people are doing. That’s matching hate with hate. If you hated what she did, do all the things I mentioned above, and be done with it. That’s all people need to do.
_____________________
So bored watching the Women Tell All and I’m looking through some of the top girls and who they follow on Instagram and it looks like Michelle and Bri don’t follow anyone (or any of the front runners) from the season – even Abigail who seemed pretty noncontroversial.
Any thoughts on why or have you heard anything that none of these girls liked each other/wanted to distance from the show?
I know you say a lot of the Instagram activity is fake but usually contestants are at least following each other!
What a messy season.
Comment: Yeah this season has been odd because of that, because so many have stayed away from commenting or following other women this season. Although after WTA I did see a lot more yesterday.
_____________________
Hi Steve
This is the stupidest tell all episode I’ve ever seen. Only lagit person on here is Anna…. And Brittany. Katie with her tears. I LOVE her but that bachelorette audition was pretty transparent. These girls have learned nothing. What am I even watching?!?!
And Taylor…. I can’t even. My head is spinning with this franchise. Looking forward to your live with Ashley, I don’t think an hour will be enough time to dissect all the madness!
Comment: And it wasn’t! We had to go 90 minutes over 2 videos, which are on page 1. IG is so wonky sometimes. We’ve been doing these lives about 9 months now. For the start, IG gave me a 2 minute countdown at the hour mark. Then it seemed like 5-6 months is a row, there was never a time limit. Now for the last few weeks, it’s limited us to 60 minutes again before the 2:00 warning clock comes on and we have to decide to keep going or stop. Dammit Instagram, you’re drunk. Make up your mind.
_____________________
Hi Steve,
This season on the Women Tell All we got short clips from dates that never aired. Has there been a season prior to Matt’s where entire dates were eliminated from airing?
Comment: I can’t remember one time that’s ever happened.
_____________________
Hi Steve,
Not Bachelor related, but I started watching Cobra Kai last week and I’m already on season 2, and it’s every bit as good as you’ve said It is. Right now I really like Robby and how Daniel is helping him. I still can’t really get past what Johnny is doing here. Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I definitely feel like he’s just turning them into who he was. My question is, who is your favorite character in the show? And are you “team Johnny” or “team Daniel”?
Thank you!!
Comment: Really? Most people that watch Cobra Kail (SPOILER ALERT) think that Daniel has assumed the role of the villain and Johnny has become the sympathetic figure. There’s still some stuff to play out, but, the Johnny character is the best thing about that show. He’s written really well on the show.
_____________________
Good morning,
Faithful follower and reader here for many years but have never reached out over email before. I follow your Instagram lives with Ashley and like many others have been listening to your conversations about racism within the franchise. My input and opinion doesn’t hold much weight as a white woman, but I do love how you are facing this, talking about it, working through it and challenging the whiteness in this franchise.
I was very curious to see how you would talk about and address the Taylor Nolan tweets knowing that you two are friends. I have to say I was really impressed with what you wrote today. Maybe it was hard to find the right words given your friendship (or maybe it wasn’t) but it was one of the best things I’ve seen you write. Once again my opinion does not hold much weight since I was not a demographic her tweets were directed towards, but I 100% agree they need to be deleted and taken down immediately. I link it to the confederate flag conversation. There are many people that say that flag holds their truth, their past, their heritage. It doesn’t matter what truth it holds, it’s offensive and racist and stands for something we should no longer see. The tweets are so disgusting and hurt so many. They need to go. Yes, the screenshots will always live on but the originals need to go.
Not much more to say other than I just wanted to reach out and send a compliment on your post today….
So well done…
Comment: Thanks. I appreciate it. Yes, because she’s a friend, absolutely it’s tougher to talk about. But what she did was not acceptable, it was hateful, and embarrassing – among other things. So all I did was point out what I disagreed with – her apology and not deleting the tweets – and what to expect going forward. No need to just pile on and call her names like others are doing. I don’t see what that accomplishes. It’s not a hot take to say that her tweets were racist, ignorant, and every other adjective you could think of. It’s “where do we go from here” and there’s no universal answer. Everyone will deal with her differently. If you eliminate her from your life, go ahead. You have every reason to. She wasn’t someone you spoke to personally often, so yeah, it’s very easy to just be like “I’m done.” And you won’t listen to her podcast, or donate to her, or do anything that supports her, which you have every right to. Me? It’s a little tougher, but I’m guessing I’ll speak to her less and won’t bend her ear on things as much anymore. And she won’t be a podcast guest anytime in the near future.
_____________________
Hey Steve,
The Taylor stuff was some of the most awful stuff that I’ve seen and I didn’t even read a lot of it. But how do we reconcile that with the fact that this was crowdsourced from a space where people’s main goal was to shut Taylor up from talking about the franchise like they did Rachel L? It’s a weird place because a) Taylor said disgusting things that she should be held accountable for but b) this was clearly brought to light to try to discredit her work.
Comment: A) absolutely B) I guess I don’t think it matters where it came from. It was still her work that was public knowledge. Someone just decided Sunday morning to do a Twitter Advanced Search and there it all was. At any point in the last 8-10 years, anybody could’ve found those. So yeah, someone who clearly wasn’t a fan of Taylor is probably the one behind it. But it shouldn’t matter. And that was one part of her apology I didn’t like at all. It’s like she was mad at that person for bringing it public, even though it already was, just kinda hidden.
But yes, there is a faction out there, who’ve now created a couple IG accounts, that are strictly out to attack people who have spoken out against the franchise. Brought Ashley to tears on the live last night. There are some toxic f***ing people out there. But anyone with 300 disgusting tweets out there can’t complain. If these people start reaching and are just posting shit just to post, that’s where they’ll be a bigger issue.
_____________________
Hi Steve
I had the same reaction to last night’s WTA episode. I totally blanked out and thought last night was the overnight dates and boy was I disappointed when I saw that it was WTA. Basically a recap of what we hated watching all season! Typically you can tell who TPTB are grooming for the Bach-ette role on the WTA. It seems to be the woman who gets a makeover, and last night I thought that they jazzed up Serena P’s appearance. She’s a very pretty “girl” but on the show she looked more like the girl next door, whereas last night she had a bit more makeup on and looked more “glamorous.” They did the same with Kaitlyn and some others. I thought Serena P looked absolutely gorgeous last night. And besides her looks, she might be the most normal, well-adjusted woman that’s appeared on any of the shows. You yourself patted her on the back when, on her 1st one-on-one date with Matt, she said in her ITM that she really “liked” Matt and not gushing that she was already falling in love with him. And her exit was very classy too, very much akin to Sharleen’s exit. They did the mature thing and left because they weren’t feeling 100% into the lead. That is SO damn refreshing! I know you’re going to argue that she’s only 22, but she’s way more mature than many of the woman on this season. I think she’d make a super Bach-ette. I like both Michelle and Bri, but don’t think either have enough pizazz in their personality to pull it off. Serena P is fun and perky. Just my two cents!
PS: I’m so wishing this season over….doesn’t seem much pin to watching any more. Last two episodes I skimmed and deleted my DVR recording immediately and didn’t watch till the end.
Comment: We gotta be getting the “Bachelorette” announcement soon since it starts filming at the end of the month. But no one knows who the front runner is right now.
_____________________
Hi Steve,
I am sure you’re being inundated with emails regarding Taylor Nolan so I apologize in advance for adding to the pile on!
We have all been young and dumb in some capacity. I certainly would not want to be held to account for some of my words or actions from when I was 18 years old.
But what I can’t get past is the fact she never deleted those tweets. She has been in the public eye for several years now and has witnessed other Bachelor contestants as well as reality TV figures from other franchises suffer repercussions for similar past social media content. It seems dumb at worst, naive at best to leave those up. But more troubling to me is the fact that she has used her Bachelor platform as a voice for the marginalized but yet those tweets remained findable. If she has truly “done the work” and is all in on everything she teaches why in the world would she leave those up? Those tweets are so deeply hurtful and damaging to the very communities she advocates for. Forget the trolls who want to have their gotcha moment and dig up the tweets to damage Taylor. Out there are likely young girls in their early teens who are insecure about their weight/orientation/ethnicity and who are fans of all things Bachelor nation and looked up to Taylor and would be potentially hurt by the tweets. As it is not outside the realm of possibility that some young fan who idolizes Taylor would have delved deep into her Twitter archives. I certainly online stalked my idols at that age! So it leaves me feeling like Taylor’s advocacy was performative, a way to get attention, build a brand and not heartfelt and genuine. I really want to be wrong, I don’t want to cancel Taylor. I don’t want to dismantle the work she has done. But she has been a part of the Bachelor franchise for several years at this point, it is really difficult for me to reconcile her having left those tweets up for as long as she has.
Is there any possibility of you having her back on you podcast to explain herself further?
Comment: No. Not anytime soon. There’s no need. She’ll release her own podcast or talk about it at some point I think. But your sentiment is echoed by many. She has her answer, I don’t agree with it at all, and there’s not much else to say. Those tweets should be deleted.
_____________________
Hi Steve,
Writing back in to share that I very much enjoy your coverage of the show, and you have been able to change my mind on some things. I also enjoy the podcasts that I don’t necessarily agree with.
I’m probably preaching to the choir here (and I can imagine you’ve gotten a lot of similar emails), but I wanted to share some thoughts on the Taylor fiasco. I don’t know Taylor and I’m disappointed/shocked, I can’t even begin to imagine how you feel being friends with her. I’m sorry that you have to deal with this as well. I appreciate you not holding a double standard.
I’m not BIPOC, but I have personally experienced some of the other -isms she had displayed in her tweets. I agree she has done a lot of positive work since then, but my understanding is that it has really centered around the BIPOC community and being sex positive. I could be wrong, but I haven’t seen her address many of the other forms of hatred that have come out in her tweets (anti-Semetic, anti-immigrant, etc). I’d actually love to be proved wrong. It makes sense given that BIPOC impacts her personally, while the others don’t.
So, when her initial apology/reaction was explicitly made to the BIPOC community, it was extra hurtful. I was also incredibly troubled knowing she’s a mental health professional, yet tweeted inappropriate things about her clients and urged suicide for mental illness while being in school for that profession.
I obviously can’t speak to how the BIPOC community is feeling about all of this, but I can speak for myself as being impacted. For me personally, I’d want to see her do work for the other communities she impacted, and honestly, that’s almost everyone. I don’t have any sense that she feels differently now than she did at the time of the tweets for non-BIPOC/sex positive issues. Her reaction on Sunday only reiterated that point more. I think her point about the tweets being old given what she’s done recently would have held some water, if it were not for how she reacted to getting caught.
Maybe as a takeaway we can all stop expecting/demanding immediate statements when someone screws up. Give everyone some time to breathe, process, reflect, and get their words figured out. Because after Sunday’s reaction, what she’s putting out now just feels hollow/disingenuous. I feel like she followed almost every point she has made about what not to do when caught being racist.
Thanks for doing what you do. Hopefully the outside the show drama dies down soon.
Comment: Again, can’t disagree with pretty much anything you said.
