The Bachelor has become a popular show to watch as a past time. Some people really delve into watching the show by having huge watch parties and logging data from the show, while others simply watch for pleasure.
No matter where Augie students are in the world, they still make plans to watch The Bachelor. Currently in Australia for a study abroad, Senior Fiona Bowers, talked about her experience watching the show with other students over the phone.
“We’ve made a plan to watch it once a week as a group. There’s about 20 girls and 3 guys and it’s a lot of fun! We love to react to all the crazy unexpected and uncomfortable moments. We all laugh and just have a lot of fun. Although we can’t watch it at the actual premiere of each episode because of the time difference, we are still loving getting together,” Bowers said.
There are many other reasons why people watch the show other than just for entertainment. Senior Kaitlyn MacDonald watches in support of her cousin, Colton Underwood, the current Bachelor.
“We grew up in Washington (IL) and we’re all super close. He was a little older in a sense that he was in high school before me, but his football career got really big. But we did spend holidays and do stuff together as a family. A big one we celebrate is the Fourth of July, but as you get older everyone gets busier, so it’s not like we hung out 24/7 or anything, but we’re still close.”
MacDonald said most of her friends by now know that she is cousins with Colton, however, there are a few people that just found out.
“It’s kind of funny because one of my friends didn’t know the other day about Colton and we were watching the show and I brought up his birthday and said ‘Oh that’s coming up’ on the 26 and he said, ‘How do you know that, like that’s really creepy’ and I was like, ‘No, we celebrate it because it’s four days before mine.’ So like random people don’t, but most people do.”
MacDonald also talked about what her cousin is like as a person.
“He is genuinely one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and I’ve always thought that and been a big fan of him as a person whether or not he was my cousin. Which is really cool because he’s this big guy that plays football,” MacDonald said. “He does a ton of stuff with charity because one of our cousins, Harper, has Cystic Fibrosis, so he’s done galas, fundraisers, and he used to do a football camp every year and had NFL players come and I always helped with that. He just has a really big heart, which is cool.”
Even though MacDonald is close with Colton, she doesn’t know the results of the show yet.
“Most of my family know the results and every time they start talking about it I leave the room because I want to figure out who he chooses and be surprised because I feel like I know his personality well enough that I’m hoping I’ll be able to sense who he’s gonna pick and see if I can figure it out without anyone else. So I actually don’t know, but the rest of my family does.”
“He can’t bring her home because they can’t be out in public but they’ve face-timed and stuff and they’ve said he’s the happiest he’s ever been which is super cool.”
MacDonald’s goal is to guess who Colton chooses, without the help of anyone.
“People do the fantasy league so my goal is to win that and go to meet him. And they’ll expect this 20-something year old to freak out and I’ll be like, ‘Hey how’s it going?’ So that’s my goal to beat everyone that thinks they know on there,” MacDonald said.
While MacDonald watches the show to support her cousin, she also watches the show for her own pleasure.
“I was actually home when The Bachelorette premiered and Colton had opened a restaurant that now some other cousins own, but they had a big premiere party there and this year for The Bachelor, but I was already back at school. So my family had a premiere party and watched, but with my friend,s they’ve all taken a little more interest in it, they kind of know him through me because we get together and watch.”