The Bachelor’s Most Recent Triumphs and Missteps
With the recent ending of season twenty-eight of The Bachelor, the franchise experienced a tremendous boom in popularity due to countless reasons. The Bachelor had a large following and drew in a big crowd along with some fan favorites from the season. The franchise has a VERY dedicated fan base which has continued growing year after year. After the season twenty-eight finale, The Bachelor’s social media discourse reached more than 640 million people. That is double the amount of people in the United States, which is pretty unbelievable!
Figure 1: stats about bachelor discussions during the 24 hours before and after its finale this year
Being that the show is US-based, it is not surprising that the country with the highest number of mentions is the United States. Although, when looking at the second, third, and fourth countries with the next highest mentions (India, Germany, and Canada) the list gets a little surprising. When looking specifically at India, it can be hard to say what the reason for this may be, though several factors could be at play. It is likely that, due to the franchise’s constant growth (on social media in particular), younger audiences around the globe are tuning in more and more.
Figure 2: 8 countries with the most Bachelor-related social media discussion
What about states within America? Which state has the most bachelor fans and why? When looking at it from a logical standpoint, the top four states being New York, California, Texas, and Florida may simply be the states with the highest populations.
Figure 3: Bar chart distribution of states that talked about The Bachelor the most
When looking more into the crucial moments of from this season of The Bachelor, there are two pivotal ones from the last episode which had viewers on the edge of their seats. The first pivotal moment was when Kelsey and Daisy, the final two girls, were riding together in the same car to the proposal. This had never been done in the franchise’s history, making the finale more intense than ever. The next pivotal moment was when Daisy stood in front of Joey and stated she knew he was not going to choose her, and he responded by saying he had a more special/stronger connection with Kelsey. She went on to do what was best for her, ended it, and walked away alone with her head held high. The way Daisy handled the whole situation led to the Bachelor Nation falling in love with her even more than they already had throughout the entire season. The bravery she displayed, and how strong she was while getting her heart shattered on national television, was truly remarkable and every single person felt for her during this moment.
Figure 4: Tweet about key moment in finale
Keeping a show alive and popular is not always the easiest, but after Joey came along the franchise was essentially brought back on the map. Joey, who was on the previous season of The Bachelorette and then went on to be The Bachelor in season twenty-eight, ended up being the most loved bachelor of all time. People absolutely adore Joey and how charismatic he was throughout the entire season. To be able to say you basically broke up with over twenty women and not one of them hates you speaks volumes about his character.
Figure 5: sample tweet praising this season’s bachelor, Joey
Following the last episode, everyone was finally seen in real time, including fan favorite Daisy and the newly engaged couple, Joey and Kelsey. There had been (what seemed to be) a foreshadowing of Daisy as potentially being the next bachelorette (which would have delighted everyone). During the finale, they had changed out all the roses on every table to Daisy’s when she came out to talk to Jesse, which seemed to have sealed the deal in all of Bachelor Nation’s eyes. Although, when former bachelorette, Charity, came out to announce the next bachelorette and she said Jenn…well, the tweet below sums up what everyone’s reaction was. With the tease of small comments made throughout the finale hinting at Daisy being the next possible bachelorette, and the literal, physical daisies on the table, people were more disappointed than anything. Because of this, the momentum seemed to disappear after what had been such an amazing season, and it left everyone wanting to continue looking back on last season rather than looking forward to the next one.
