So Long, Season 15

Season 15 is now in the books.  Andy won handily.  He killed Gina Marie in the Q and A.  He had great answers.  I didn't so much like his constant pandering (I love you guys!), but beyond that his answers were clear, concise, and didn't shy away from his backstabbing, which seems to be what everyone had a problem with.  He owned it.  Am I a little sad that Spencer didn't win?  Sure.  But in the end Andy did play the better game, so kudos.  And judging by his Twitter, he has been having a grand ol' drunken time back at home.  Good for you.  You earned it.

Some big news at the tail end of the season was the imminent departure of Executive Producer Allison Grodner.  Many people are probably happy about this.  It seems that whenever there is a bad twist, a returning player, a batch of house guests that people don't like, AG usually takes all the heat.  I'm not going to bash AG.  I honestly have no idea who is responsible for every decision made on the show.  Not only that, despite the fact that I hate bad twists and returning house guests, I still love Big Brother.  And despite the casting of Elissa this season, and allowing America to decide anything, let alone who goes up on the block or has secret power, this was a great season.  We had a lot of house guests who were playing and strategizing their little hearts out.  In fact, I don't recall a season where so many people were trying to stay two steps ahead of each other.  It made for messy viewing and way too many alliances (and stupid alliance names), but I still enjoyed it.

People are hoping that since AG is leaving, that there will be changes galore upcoming.  No more twists!  No more returning house guests!  No more casting only young, beautiful people! Honestly I don't see many changes coming down the pipeline.  And why would they want to re-invent the game or change too many things?  The show gets great summer ratings.

Twists.  I hate them.  Never have liked them.  And I don't mean additions to the game, like when they introduced HOH in season 1, or when they introduced the Veto.  I mean having twins play as one person.  I mean having an ex or family member in the house.  I mean past house guest pairs. I mean coaches.  I can do away with all that.  It's nothing more than a distraction, or in the case of the coaches, a way to bring back former players for like a third or fourth time.  Seriously, please stop putting Mike Boogie on my TV.  But as much as I hate them , I doubt they will stop coming up with them.

A quick aside: I do have to give kudos to the producers this season for not having a Coup De' Tat, a Diamond Veto, and a Pandora's Box.  For that I just have to say THANK YOU!!!

Where was I?  Oh yeah.  Twists will not go away.  I'm sure they feel they have to have some new twist to keep it fresh and keep bringing people in.  I don't agree with that thinking, but I also don't have a job in Hollywood.  But look at The Amazing Race.  That show has had the same formula season in and season out, with the rare addition of a Speed Bump or what have you.  They don't start every season telling the people racing "Oh, hey!  Guess what?  This season you have all switch teammates!" or something as silly as that.  Unfortunately I doubt Big Brother will ever just cut the twists.

Returning house guests.  I don't see this ever changing.  I think this last season is as close as we will get to a completely fresh cast of new players.  Even beyond the All Stars seasons, they will probably always now have some sort of returning player in some capacity.  Hell, it works for Survivor.  I don't even watch that show anymore, but I know that they keep bringing back the same people.  Come on, Rupert.  Give up the dream already!  But people love returning players.  They like the familiarity.

I hate returning players.  They always have this been-there-done-that attitude about the game. Listening to them talk on the feeds is like listening to insider baseball, when you don't even watch baseball.  They all think they know how to do everything and how to play the game, even though most of them haven't even won the game.  Some of them just look like they are tired of even being there.

I like a batch of fresh players who are new to the game and excited to play it.  I don't want former players even mixed in with them for the new players to latch onto.  Not only that, they feed the former players ego by geeking out over them.  Most former players have a hard time letting go and moving on with their lives. This doesn't help.

Once again, I am not working in Hollywood.  And after all the controversy from last season, they will probably have former house guests in there if for no other reason but to keep the newbies in line.

Holy cow, I have been rambling on!  A total stream of thought mess, too, so I apologize if that was hard to read.  I want to talk more about cast diversity and why you will have house guests sexing up the joint from here on out, but I'll save that for a later post.

Hopefully I won't wait another month for the next one.

Catch Up

I started this blog because I was so frustrated with feedsters spewing hatred at houseguests.  The feedsters forget that these aren't just zoo monkeys for their entertainment. These are real people with real lives and families outside the house.  The shit that feedsters write will be on the internet for a long time, after the feedsters have been released from the house.  The feedster will forget about the houseguest, yet the houseguests will have to live with the shit the feedsters say about them online, be it racist, bigot, pedophile, bitch, fat bitch, whore, whatever it may be.

The ironic thing about this is most feedsters pick on who they think of as the villain for talking shit about other houseguests, yet the amount of hate being spewed by feedsters is way worse than anything the houseuests have said.  And the feedsters wont have to sit through an interview with Julie for the shit they said.

So basically feedsters are crazy. On every site I had been to, feedsters were spewing the worst shit.

Because of that, I created this blog to vent about it and just give useless commentary about Big Brother.

Since then, actually right about the same time, I found a couple of sited that are doing what I am doing, but way better than I ever could.  That's why I haven't written anything for a while.  SO I give props to the best Big Brother coverage sites I have found.

The first is Dingo's Hamsterwatch . This site is awesome with great rankings.  The weird thing is I used to visit this site regularly, but for some reason had stopped and forgot about it.  It was probably in my gap in watching the show.  But Dingo is amazing.

The other site is Big Brother Gossip.  First of all, The first thing I do every morning is read Ash's The Night Owl overnight coverage.I work an 8-5 job, so I don't get to watch all the action overnight, when most of the good stuff happens.  Ash's coverage is the best I have found.  Great stuff.  Also they have a great weekly podcast that is very entertaining.

The best thing about these sites, and the people running them (follow all of them on Twitter) is how RATIONAL they are about the game.  They know the houseguests are real people.  They know when someone tells a bad joke it is a joke.  They don't get over the top in their hatred. They don't go off on wild conspiracy theories.  They don't condone getting involved with these people real lives.  They have caught lots of flak from people about the things they say, but it mostly from idiots.

These people are all golden.  They do what I set out to do, just better.  They make following Big Brother fun again.

Amanda, You in Trouble, Girl!

Full disclosure.  I like Amanda.  Does she grate on my nerves?  Sure.  Does she do things that just confuse the hell out of me?  Quite often.  But she has had a control over the house.  Even if it was an illusion, even an illusion can be real if enough people believe it, and that is the case with Amanda.  Look how long it took to convince someone to finally get rid of Howard.  She tried and tried for weeks and no one would listen to her.  They were like, "Uh, sure, Amanda", and then they would do something completely different.  But once Howard finally left, Amanda believed, as did the rest of the house guests for some reason, that Amanda was controlling everything.

I'm rambling.  This is not a "In Defense Of..." for Amanda.  Not yet.  but I could be writing one very, very soon.

So last night, after a wet t-shirt contest, a crazy red-wig baseball type fan ("Lets do some shots!"), some conspiracies and hanging on to objects, Elissa was victorious in the HOH comp.  Oh, and Judd is back in the house.

I am not an Elissa fan.  At all.  One of the things about this blog and why I started it is because I hate how viewers shit all over the house guests for stupid shit.  I hate it.  I mean I don't mind some good ol' fashion shit talking, but nothing serious.  In the end these are real people.  They have no idea what is going on out here.  They will eventually come out of the house to their real lives and deal with the shit that has been piled upon them.  They will have to live with that for a long time, where as the viewer will just forget about them and move on to the next season of Survivor.  Some people say "well, it serves them right for being on TV and saying racist stuff blah blah blah."  Fuck off.  Really.

Uh-oh, I'm ranting again.

What I was trying to say is that I am not an Elissa fan.  Not at all.  To the level of I don't think of her as a real person, unlike the other house guests.  Her "morals" are just as fake as her face and boobs.  She is an annoying enigma that just baffles me.  As much as I don't like her, this will be an interesting week to watch.

I'm kind of split about watching.  I don't think I could handle high and mighty Elissa.  Well, higher and mightier Elissa.  But there will be tons of scrambling this week.  People complaining about this season being too predictable and boring (like they do EVERY YEAR), well look out.  This week looks to be nuts.

Amanda is back on the Judd hate train.  Andy looks to be jumping the 4AM ship (but you never know with that guy).  Spencer looks to be safe for the first time on like a month and a half (yay!).  and it looks like McCray may be going up on the block for the first time all season.  The plan looks to be Elissa putting up Aaryn and McCray, with Aaryn being the target.

Amanda is scrambling.  She is trying to cash in those friend chips she thought the was earning with Elissa last week when Helen was leaving.  Elissa is not as pliable as Aaryn was when Aaryn wanted to get rid of Elissa, though.  When Aaryn won her second HOH, she was dead set on removing Elissa, but before the night was over Amanda got in her ear and convinced her to get rid of Howard instead.  Amanda is trying the same thing with Elissa, but I don't think it's working.  Her hatred of Aaryn is the stuff of legend.

According to Elissa, she wants McCray on the block so he can fight hard for Veto to make sure Aaryn doesn't get it.  Is Elissa sincere with this, or is she going by a plan the Helen gave her to backdoor Amanda?  That's the think about Elissa.  I don't think she is focused enough to carry out a plan.  I think she would just drop it and do her own thing, convinced that production wouldn't let her go anyways.  So why not just take out who she hates?

Here is the deal, though.  Everyone else is ready to get rid of Amanda.  So there are only one of two scenarios that could happen to make sure Amanda stays.  The first, Amanda has to win Veto.  Amanda can't win anything, though, so what's next?  Elissa has to put someone other than Amanda up as a pawn if Veto is used.  If Elissa is true about getting Aaryn out, she would have to put up GM as a replacement, someone who wouldn't give Aaryn a vote.

If Amanda goes on the block, though, there is no way to stop the house guests from giving her the boot, regardless of what Elissa wants.  It will be interesting to see how this week pays out.  Who talks in who's ear.  Who tried to convince Elissa to put up Amanda (my guess would be Judd, Spencer, and GM).  Will McCray see which way the wind is blowing and try to form an alliance with Spencer and Judd while not fighting too hard to keep Amanda in the game? The only thing you can be sure of is Amanda scrambling like crazy all week, just like Helen last week.

Someone is Coming Back

Oy!  I hate it when they do this.  I don't care if someone I loved has the potential to get back in the house (in this case, no), I just don't like it.

So tonight, after (presumably) Helen gets the boot, there will be a competition between Candice, Judd, Jessie, and Helen to come back in the house.  I'm not a huge fan just because I think it's lame that a loser gets a second chance.  That whole week it took to get that house guest out is pretty much null and void.  It counts for shit, really.

I know some people don't think it's fair.  I don't think it's fair.  But it's Big Brother.  When has BB ever been fair?  Don't get me wrong,  I'm not one of those tin foil hat types that think the game is rigged for Amanda to win because she is best buds with AG.  I don't buy that shit for a second. However, I do buy that the MVP was there to insure Elissa got to stay in the house for a couple of weeks.  It was basically a life vest for Elissa's BB game.  How ironic.

But I digress.

Honestly, I just don't like the fact that these people (with the exception of Helen) got to chill out for at least a week with no worries or stress.

I'm annoying myself now crying about it, so I'll stop.

What I think will be interesting to see is if Helen wins and comes right back in, how much she sticks to the promise everyone made to make sure to vote the returning house guest right out the door.  I so hope that they don't give the person returning a free week.  Make them play for HOH and earn not being shuttles right back out.

If the returning HG doesn't have a free week and doesn't win HOH,  unless Elissa wins the HOH Candice, Jessie, and Helen will probably march right back out the door.  I know earlier today Helen almost turned the house.  I don't believe it would work if she came back.  She lost.

Judd, on the other hand, I have no idea.  I think if Judd came back then they may go ahead and go after Elissa this week.  I know many people want Judd back in because he's entertaining.  I won't deny that he is.  I guess my dream scenario would be Judd to return.  Spencer or Judd win HOH and put up Elissa and Aaryn, with the target being Elissa.  While Elissa and Aaryn are campaigning (does Elissa even really campaign?) Judd, Spencer, and McCray make a final three deal that actually makes it to final three.

Really, I just want whatever gives Spencer the ability to win the game.

So yeah, I'm a hypocrite.  I hate the returning house guest gimmick, but I also want to utilize it for the guys to win.  I am fully aware of that.

I really hope they show some of Elissa's meltdown tonight, but I doubt it.  If they are cutting to fish whenever they start talking shit about Elissa, they are probably protecting her from a bad image.  Blah.
I also hope to see a meltdown when they announce an HG coming back, but you know how they are.  They will probably all have dropped jaws and smile and look all cheery about it.

Regardless, it should be a good show.

In Defense Of...Helen

So it looks like American Mom is going home tomorrow, so I should try to start with her. The key word being "try", because she makes it oh so hard.  She has this cheerleader/we're doing this for America that has become so obnoxious and grating. I can't believe that it hasn't driven the house guests insane yet, like it does viewers, and they haven't seen through the whole sham long ago.

But enough of that. Let's take a note from the Helen playbook and talk about what makes Helen so grrrrrrrrreat!

To be honest, I didn't think Helen would last more than three weeks, and it was quickly looking like that might be the case. I figured the oldest one in the house she would have a hard time relating to the kids in the house.  When I first turned on the feeds she was being bitched at by Amanda for talking to Elissa, who they wanted to go home that week. She was telling Helen that she was fucking up her own game, and Helen just stood there and took it.

Now look at her. She had become a force in this game. There are all kinds of personalities in the house, but there have been only three that have the gravitational pull of a planet, the kind of pull that makes people follow them. Jeremy, Amanda, and Helen. People in that house love her. Granted, they don't see EVERY time she pulls the cheerleader act out. She makes those house guests believe that she thinks they are as awesome as she says they are. To be fair, those people in the house are probably craving for any kind of positive feedback, and Amanda is willing to drown them in it.

I'm sure a lot of that has to do with her political background. She has probably read tons of business success and management self help books. She probably has Tony Robbins on speed-dial. But you have to give it to her, she is playing this game unlike most people do. She is killing with kindness. Sure, we have seen many people turn on the waterworks, and Helen has lied to people like any other player. But she is playing this weird, positive high road game unlike any I have seen before. And it worked for her. Any other season it probably would have gotten her further, but unfortunately she is playing against Amanda, who is playing an amazing game so far.

Finally, Helen wasn't afraid to make a big move when she won HOH. She took out the big gun Jeremy. You could have said that anyone would have done the same.  Really? In this season of people  afraid to get blood on their hands (ugh)? Helen was like "Fuck it.  He's out of here." Not only was she not afraid to do it, she bragged about it. Blowback? Blood on her hands? Who gives a fuck? Big players are the ones who make big moves.

Her undoing was going against Amanda, and not making the big move to get her out earlier in the game when Amanda was on the block. She just got beat to the punch. And I loved watching those two go up against each other. They really were two sides of the same coin.

I think she had so many viewers on her side after that week. But just as quickly viewers jumped ship in droves. Why?  Was it her hubris?  Was it the fact she teamed up with Elissa? Was it her over-positive attitude towards the other house guests? Was it that it was obvious to the viewers that she was trolling for jury votes before the season was even halfway over? For me it was all of those things, along with the annoying "America wants us good guys to win". Assuming what America was wanting or who we were considering good guys drove me insane. She has gotten so annoying that a popular meme and hash tag is #stfuhelen.

But wait. What am I doing? Stay positive. Hooray Helen! America loves you!

So that is my first "In Defense Of", and the funny thing is she may well be right back in the house tomorrow night. She may be so pissed and fired up that she competes like a beast. It is yet to be seen if she will be safe for the week if she does re-enter, though. But even if she doesn't make it back into the house tomorrow night, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see her pop up on All Stars.

In conclusion......

Pros:
Overcame early underdog status.
Made a big HOH move.
Pulled followers in with her personality.
House guests loved her.

Cons:
Overconfidence.
Believed she was one of the "good guys".
Teamed up with the unpredictable Elissa.
Hesitated in taking out Amanda

The Name

So the name.  Big Brother Rat. Where did it come from?  Well, back towards the beginning of the season, when shit started getting crazy with Aaryn and GM and the things they were saying and the jobs they were losing, the Big Brother crazies were having a field day.

Then all the hatred started to turn on Amanda. People were calling her a bully.  Bullshit. She's not a bully. She's a type-A personality. So people were just waiting with baited breath for her to do or say something they didn't approve of.

Then one day, lo and behold, Amanda called Candice's hair greasy and nappy.  It was like the crazies dream had come true.  All of a sudden everyone was calling Amanda a racist. Now people had a reason to justify acting like a bunch of third graders, like they heard someone say 'fuck' in the playground and go running to tell the teacher.

I wanted to start this blog way back then and call it The Rational Big Brother Fan. It was a combination of laziness and finding some sites with other rational fans that kept me from doing it. But the more I visit some sites and try to be polite, the more I get angry, feeling like I'm speaking in a hurricane.

So 'Rat' was just a shortened version of 'Rational', but probably also a little more appropriate, since I'm done being polite. Fuck it. That's not to say I'm a total asshole, but I don't care if you think that I am.

You want to know how annoyed Big Brother nutjobs made me? I am now hoping Spencer wins because he's going to have to deal with a bunch of stupid shit when he gets out of the house because of asshole fans. People are STILL saying Spencer likes child porn. I don't think those people still saying that ever even watched the feeds, and if they did then they are just fucking morons that have no hope.  I hope he wins the money and laughs at you fuckers trying to get him fired.

Yeah, I am now rooting for a floater with no game other than to promise a vote to those in power (hey, wasn't that Dr. Will's game play) to win.

Fuck you, "fans".

It's A Start...

Hello, welcome to my blog.  Let us begin.

Big Brother fans are the fucking worst.

Maybe I should start off by saying that I love Big Brother.  I consider myself a fan.  I wouldn't call myself a "Superfan", considering that I skipped a few seasons.  That's something I'm sure I'll mention in a future post.  I do love Big Brother, though.  I love the strategy, game play, lying, politicking, and backstabbing.  These are all the things that make Big Brother so enjoyable for me to watch.

Another thing I love is the players.  Some have bigger personalities than others.  Some are more villainous than others.  But every season is loaded with people I love watching play the game.  And really, what would Big Brother be without the players.

You may be wondering why the Hell I would start writing a blog three quarters of the way through the season.  Well, I just feel I have a lot of shit to get off my chest.  So many weeks I have read various blogs and BB sites, and holy shit I can't believe some of the fans out there.  Seriously, some people are literally crazy.  There is this weird hive mind mentality that has been pervasive many seasons that just makes the social interaction aspect of Big Brother so unbearable.  Don't get me wrong, there are some great BB sites out there that have been doing some hard work for years, and I give them all the kudos in the world.  But there are some sites who's message boards are like the Mos Eisley Cantina of the Internet.

So this blog is just for me to vent about the crazy Big Brother hive mind I come across every day.

What you will find here:

Me bitching about Big Brother fans.

Me talking about events in the house and my opinions.

Hopefully a better background and better look (I literally set this up in like ten minutes).

What you won't find here:

Live feed updates (There are a ton of sites out there that already do this, and do it better than I ever could).

Screencaps.

A message board or comments.

Why no comments section?  Because unless you want to have a discussion with me (which I have found many Big Brother crazies have no interest in doing), I don't give a shit what you think.  You want to call me a racist just because I may say Aaryn and Amanda are great players?  Fine.  Email me and I can promptly delete it, because like I said, I don't care.  I just have no interest in having one nut job who happened to stumble upon this blog flooding it with nonsense.

Oh, and another thing you won't find here are your morals.  I will be talking a lot of shit, I'm sure.  If you think you will be offended by it, you may as well just leave now.  There are a million Big Brother sites out there and I have no interest in anyone on their weird internet quest to rid the world of whatever the fuck Spencer did that pissed them off that week.

In closing, I do not believe Aaryn or Amanda are truly racist.  Ignorant yes.  Truly racist?  No.

I don't think Spencer is a child molester.  He's just a fucking dude who made a joke in bad taste (which I found to be funny, by the way).

If those comments sent you into a rage, you may as well just click the back button on your browser.  If you are still reading and thinking "Hrm.  Poorly written, but I can get behind that" then welcome aboard.

What cracks me up is that I just wrote all this assuming someone other than me would read this.

Ha!