What has happened to humanity?
Having recently subjected myself to watching Love Island and truthfully not hated the overall experience, I’ve decided to take things one shaky step further. Today, I will be delving deeper into the decline of humanity by watching Big Brother.Â
Now in its 18th season, things have gotten a bit predictable. I’m not expecting much in the way of personal enlightenment, but what I am anticipating is for this to be a learning curve. Humanity is evolving at an alarming rate and I simply want to be able to keep up.
Today, I’m watching series 18, episode 14, broadcast Sunday 18th June 2017.
The housemates’ morning banter levels can only be described as Chernobyl
Just to be clear, there’s absolutely nothing funny about Chernobyl.
Within the first two minutes of programming, I am legitimately weeping as one of the housemates (Kieran) stops another housemate (Deborah) from making her way to I’m assuming the bathroom for a shower since she was holding a towel. He asks her ‘Have you not heard?’, to which she logically, since they’ve all just woken up and nothing could have possibly happened in the past 3 minutes, replies with a disinterested ‘What?’. What happens next is a lot to take in. Kieran begins to sing and dance along to Bird Is The Word.Â
Deborah deserves an Academy Award for her convincing lip stiffening that was perceived as a smile of encouragement, although it spoke volumes, all of which suggested that Kieran is an attention seeking man child who needs to secure camera time immediately after he wakes up, otherwise he will evaporate into a shimmering dust that would ironically get significantly more engagement from his fellow housemates. I fucking hate this show already.
HANG ON A SECOND ARE THEY LIVING IN A FUCKING CAKE SHOP
The bedrooms look like absolute dumps, so you can imagine my surprise when we move into the kitchen and are presented with what looks like some kind of cafe you visit in Paris and emerge £75 poorer but full to the brim after gorging yourself on a shot glass sized latte and two macarons.
Upon analysing the colourful display of treats further, it appears that they are extremely fake. I find this to be in bad taste for a number of reasons:
- It’s likely that a drunken housemate in search of munchies will at some stage crack a tooth on a cupcake
- When food rations are low, they’re essentially being teased by all the delicious treats
- The food is distracting so I will not be paying attention to these housemates’ drama when it takes place in the kitchen
- Now I want some cake
- One of these items is going to end up visiting a housemate’s rectum as part of a dare
- The housemates have already become desensitised to the fake cakes and are ignoring their existence which is infuriating me further
- The bright colours are offensive
- I really, really want some cake now
Unless there’s a task on the way in which the housemates have to successfully man a cake cafe, using their strengths as a team to turn it into a profitable business for the rest of their lives thereby making the overall prize a steady job, I do not understand this bizarre aesthetic. There’s too much unnecessary shit taking up space. Big Brother have you finally lost it? Can we please just end this spectacle once and for all?
The housemates can cross ‘A Future Career As Rap Artists’ off their mood boards
It appears to be one of the housemates’ birthdays (Raph), so Tom and Ellie are making him a birthday cake in the kitchen (which is a literal cake shop, full of fake cakes). To get things started, Ellie decides to instigate the baking process with a rap.
“We’re gonna bake a cake,
don’t know how long it’s gonna take”
At this point, to complete the rhyming rap which Ellie has set up, Tom simply needs to come up with a word that rhymes with ‘cake’ and ‘take’. Logically, he could say something along the lines of ‘It will be better than the cakes we’re surrounded by, which are clearly fake’. However, Tom opts for:
“Yes I do.
Read the instructions on the flour.
May take an hour”
Ever the good sport that we’ve come to know and love, Ellie heroically keeps things going. Between them, they continue this music industry transcending rap as follows:
“We’ve got loads of power
Got loads of butter
Gonna make some clutter
We’re a bit of a nutter
Yeah
We’re baking a cake
Oh
Instead of going to the lake
Ok
You think I’m being fake
Oh no I won’t take”
There was more to this, but I just fucking can’t be arsed transcribing it here because life is hard enough without this kind of nonsense. As evidenced by the above monstrosity, budding rap artists are not hiding out in the Big Brother house, but a selection of irritating fame-hungry folks are.
The housemates find out that another housemate has been removed from the house and nobody expresses any emotion whatsoever
Surely the end goal of appearing on Big Brother is for some sort of a reaction to occur in the house when you leave? Whether it’s overwhelming relief or insurmountable sadness, you want it to come across on screen and off that you’ve left the house to some degree of impact.
I don’t know the specifics of what happened to lead to Kayleigh being forced to leave the house, but one of the housemates said she threatened someone, so that’s probably fair enough.
But the biggest punishment of all is the fact that her fellow housemates were informed of her departure and made the exact expressions above and below. Neither saddened nor delighted, they’re entirely indifferent about the whole affair and it’s probably quite sad if you cared about the show at all.
This girl whom I believe was threatened by Kayleigh exhibits approximately zero traces of relief at her removal from the house.
The girl on the right looks like she’s checking the validity that ‘Taco Cat’ spelled backwards is ‘Taco Cat’, meanwhile the guy on the left looks vacant of any thoughts whatsoever, but let’s pretend he’s thinking about why farts always smell so much worse in the shower for no apparent reason.
This guy appears to be deeply shocked by the news, but I’ve come to learn that that’s just his default facial expression.
Goodbye Kayleigh. May you find solace in the real world x
ONE GIRL INVITED ANOTHER GIRL TO COME OVER AND SMELL HER FART
“Oh my God I’ve just trumped, come over here and smell this”. And with that, I was back to being interested in Big Brother. Conveniently, this outburst happened at exactly 4.20pm on the show and I am extremely here for it.
Chanelle (the farter), invites Deborah (the fartee) for a whiff of her bowel expulsion, an offer which Deborah rightfully declines. Chanelle insists that she should smell it because they’re friends, but Deborah remains adamant that she will not be voluntarily inhaling the flatulence of a woman she has known for 14 days.
This is the Big Brother I remember. This is the type of television we’ve come to expect from the show, but far too often failed to receive. This is the fucking stuff, Britain.
If I was in that situation, I would’ve smelled her fart. I would’ve exaggerated the smell to embarrass her on the television, then immediately flocked to the diary room so I could cry about what I’ve just been subjected to. I’d make sure every housemate knew what that rancid girl had put me through, then I’d quietly gather my belongings and leave. Forevermore, I would be known as The Girl That Left Big Brother Because She Smelled A Housemate’s Fart So Severe That She Needed To Leave Immediately. I’d be a fucking hero, immortalised by lies and anus wind.
The housemates’ names appear every time they’re on screen because Big Brother knows we haven’t a fucking clue who they are, even 14 days in
Mad respect to Big Brother for this, which I fully believe is a very subtle but very sick burn.
Considering this is episode 14 of the series, you’d expect the viewer to have some sort of familiarity with the contestants’ names, but BB doesn’t assume anything. After all, we’ve just seen a girl invite her fellow housemate to smell her fart, so who in their right mind would use up brain space remembering these loutish folks’ names?
Even when the voiceover announces the housemates’ names in the intro to each segment, they’ll still pop the contestants’ names on screen to clear up any potential confusion for such moronic viewers as myself.
Why stop there? I firmly believe that all TV programmes should further fuel humanity’s descent into stupidity by captioning each frame with the actors’ name, along with a brief list of their most notable previous appearances elsewhere to eradicate the most irritating question facing the human race today: ‘What else was he in?’
HANG ON A SECOND THERE’S A JAR OF BABY HEADS IN THE KITCHEN
Big Brother, what in the fucking fuck?
I’m all for a jazzy thought-provoking aesthetic, but this is downright lunacy. Unless this is part of a competition at the end of the show, wherein viewers must guess the amount of baby heads in the jar for the chance to win a Ford Cortina that a member of the Sugababes once farted in, this is grossly unnecessary.
I’ve seen a fair share of baby heads in my time, and while these appear to be anatomically correct, they still don’t sit right with me. What is Big Brother going to do with them when the show is over? Will they dispose of them in the correct recycling bin or keep them on hand for future usage? Will each contestant receive one as a congratulatory ‘Thanks For Participating’ trophy? Will they remain in place akin to the remnants of some sort of trauma museum?
Folks, because I am most definitely not a journalist, I have emailed Big Brother and asked that I may know what will happen to the jar of baby heads when filming commences. I shall impart my knowledge whence I receive it.
One girl put her foot in a guy’s face and was shocked when it didn’t result in immediate boning
Ellie was, as my Mum would say, bothering with Lotan in a group situation for an uncomfortable amount of time and getting zero rise out of him. He is very clearly not interested, gal.
Frustrated with her lack of any fruitful outcome, Ellie goes for a powerful last-ditch attempt by shoving her right foot into his face, which he shockingly finds quite irritating. Honestly, pound for pound, the insight into human interactions you get from Big Brother is second to none and I am truly grateful for this show, regardless of how disturbingly dumb it makes me feel when I watch it.
Ellie then tells Lotan that she’s going to bed anyway, kisses his cheek and then continues to sit there to allow him to carry out any pre-bedtime advances he’d been planning. Surprisingly, he doesn’t take advantage of this once in a lifetime offer, and continues to ignore her.
Several minutes later, she passes out on the couch and finally achieves her lifelong (14 days) dream of being (platonically) brought to bed by a muscly gent, proving that if you dare to dream, truly, you can achieve. Genuinely what the fuck has this once revolutionary television show come to?
In conclusion, in what I deem as the most sincerest act of friendship, we should all invite our friends to smell our farts.
All images via Channel 5
