HOH-itis – A Piece, of the Sky

Alex/Adam

I’m still your cuddle toy.
– Alex/Adam

Sammie immediately reads that Alex/Adam’s profile pic looks like it’s straight out of an ad, or a commercial. You have two Adams, with the addition of Bill – so, there’s definitely a fake, or a catfish. Real Adam vs. Catfish Adam. People are on to Alex. Something’s off. He immediately comes up on the catfish radar.

Like I described, last week, you want an unprofessional pic, an unfiltered profile pic – not a glamour shot. ‘Glam glam’ is not approachable. You want a photo that hasn’t been touched up and nothing that seems fake. Too hot is too threatening and intimidating. You want to be unassuming and approachable. No fake positive messages, on your profile page. No tons of hot photos, on the beach. Anyone who says “ladies,” twice in a single message, reads as sleazy and super fake.

Alex/Adam is already taking too long to come up with things to say, as a supposedly hot surfer dude. Being a catfish isn’t really paying off for him, so far. As noted earlier, every time Alex/Adam speaks, he says something ridiculous. Who actually says “romp,” in an actual conversation? “I’ve been told,” is the default sentence prefix for a lie. Mr. Opera is out of his depth. It’s like he’s trying to pretend he’s an old soul, so he sounds forced. Just try incepting the word “romp,” into a chat. Try it.

Artist Alex/Adam’s game is pure wish fulfillment, complete fantasy role playing. On the other hand, an author, or another type of creative person, would be very good at catfishing. It’s about creating a realistic character and the world-building, of a good online RPG, or a high fantasy novel (Lord of the Rings). He should be good at the world-building, of a personality: releasing a little bit of the character, bit, by bit – show, not tell – but, he’s not.

On his own, Alex is dressing more like Adam. But with Shubby, real Alex is coming out, more and more. When role-playing as a catfish, don’t emotionally wall your real self off (re. Alex/Adam). It’s ok for your insecurities to seep through, a little bit, so long as the feeling is genuine. A genuine energy builds a genuine connection. It’s better for a catfish to allow the person underneath to come through, because your real self is obviously more genuine.

Alex/Adam is a strange but fascinating psychic entity, at the center of the real and the signified. Virtual, manufactured entities are both the signified and the signifier. Alex is experiencing his similar characters blending together. The character and the original are inhabiting the same headspace. It’s a metaphysical adventure, out of a philosophical, cyberpunk adventure, like the biggest cultural example, The Matrix – and, of course, Ghost in the Shell.

A side note: when you don’t know how long they’ve been in there, the family visit/video doesn’t connect as much. You have Alex/Adam’s wife, Gina, having to explain who she is, in the video. It’s like Alex/Adam needs a tattoo, just to remember, who he is – just like in the movie Memento.

Shubby

It’s shark season and we’re hunting.
– Sharky Shabomb (Shubby)

Influencer culture is wild: Shubby (Shubham) has HOH-itis. Why is Shubby taking the whole Influencer thing at face value? Doesn’t he think social media is fake? It’s the heel-faced turn of the uninitiated. Shubby doesn’t know he gives off a nerdy vibe – but he’s a virtual media engineer, who doesn’t do social media. Earnest Shubby is the only one who actually does the 50 push-ups. Shubby is not street smart.

How did Shubby get the Liberty Bell answer wrong? Rocky? Shubby is still on this ‘I don’t like social media’ vibe. He doesn’t want to allow himself to like it. How does pool table equal frat? A pool table, in your friend’s basement, doesn’t read as professional. Shubby is so sheltered. Worse, Shubby is so good, he is a threat, that no one can see in the Finals. Shubby gets upset about someone being political, on The Circle – when he’s the youngest person, in the U.S., to run for governor, in California.

But that’s the extent of my criticism: Shubby is likable and non-threatening. He is a two-time influencer and is very trustworthy. Being the one unfiltered person, in a sea of filtered profile pics, is a plus, on The Circle. Be unassuming. Also, cutthroat Shubby is here. Sharks hunt catfish now, apparently. It’s Calculating Shubby; the claws are coming out.

Seaburn/Rebecca

Are you ready to sip on your tea, this morning?
– Seaburn/Rebecca

Spill the tea, get the juice. It’s the morning Kiki, where we spill all the tea. Seaburn/Rebecca isn’t working. ‘Rebecca’ is a caricature, a poorly written female character. Seaburn is also running out of material. Seaburn/Rebecca is Ms. Doutbtfire, but not in a clever way. Of course, there will be many references to Ms. Doubtfire, on a show about catfish. Does Seaburn know anything about his girlfriend?

Then, Seaburn/Rebecca goes on a romantic dinner – between two catfish. This is like a big role-playing game – that’s how the two catfish dating comes across. It’s all very stilted, like a text-based video game. Shubby also thinks Rebecca is so true; Rebecca is a catfish. Imagine if Rebecca/Seaburn came clean, instead of Sean.

Rebecca is so dull, Seaburn can get away with being a catfish. Seaburn is inhabiting his character and exploring his gender identity, as a female catfish. Even by himself, Seaburn is reacting like Rebecca, and not like himself. In this way, he is a successful catfish. Shubby and Rebecca have a good friendship, but Rebecca is a man. However, Rebecca is the only original person, in the alliance, of the original people, who is just an afterthought. She’s the (cat)fish at the bottom of the barrel.

Sean

Sean’s story is about the revelation that builds trustworthiness. ‘I’m truthful about a lie, so I must be trustworthy,’ – like Dr. Will’s big reveal, in Big Brother. When the catfish gives up, on being a catfish – the reveal, to the audience, doesn’t work, because we don’t know Sean’s catfish persona very well, or at all.

Sean’s big reveal would have been more effective, if Sean had come in first, and not later. Her big display, of vulnerability, feels rushed and inauthentic, because Sean just got here. Was the event a predetermined big reveal, or could she just not keep lying anymore?

The real message of The Circle is that no, you can’t be whoever you want, online. It’s actually way harder than you think. Maybe we haven’t had hot model Sean for very long, because she planned to reveal hot plus-sized model Sean, all along. That production would let her add another picture, means that she was planning this reveal, from the get-go.

Why would anyone ever post a bunch of pictures highlighting how hot they are? The quintessential insta model set of photos equals fake, or a catfish/bot. However, the group not wanting to let go of a person that they have experienced such an emotional event with, may lead to them not blocking the reformed, unmasked catfish.

Can Sean break into the Final 5? Will the original people get rid of unmasked catfish Sean? Wouldn’t it have been interesting if Sean was a catfish, of a catfish? In a future season, it might be cool to see a scenario where the supposed real self is just yet another catfish.

In the Loop

Loyalty.
– Boston Rob

Game talk: Double eviction/blocking soon. With the new people versus the original people, it’s like the two original tribes, post merge, acting as a merged tribe, on Survivor. I like adding fresh players. There are no purple (invisible) edits since they are only 8 or 9 people, in the house, at any one time. There are stakes to every elimination and no throwaway characters. However, when the new people don’t read very well, when they don’t click, it may be just too many people added, too quickly. There are too many interesting storylines already. We just can’t spend a lot of time, with the new people.

Bill, a likable person, who you want to have a beer with, just doesn’t pop, halfway through the game. Sometimes being likable isn’t enough. It’s the main cast versus the B cast. You can tell why some people were sent in later, as opposed to being sent in first. Like I said, they were added too late and too fast. The barriers to entry, for caring about the new people, are too high.

The natural instinct is to support the original tribe and keep the original tribe’s numbers strong. It’s hard to fight the natural instinct to keep the original people. Loyalty dog whistles and hidden messages are being disseminated, as the Final 5, original people secret group, that everyone is talking around, appears. The originals want to make sure the new people and old people don’t tie up, when it comes to voting people out. The new people are just cannon fodder, red shirts.

Natural ways to expose catfish are good TV, but may not lend to a good social game. It’s a trade-off. Some original people want to use the catfish, as goats, and meat shields. The flip-side is that it’s actually not that easy to drag someone to the end. The players must consider who is going to get taken for granted, when people start voting tactically – to use a term from The Circle UK. Even one person refusing to vote tactically, in the end, can win someone else the entire game. What are the winner possibilities, if everyone is voting tactically? What is the probability or likelihood of a certain person voting tactically? The winner will be announced on insta.

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Angela was probably tired of Tyler’s nonsense. She wanted OUT. Their relationship seemed like it could have taken place in seventh grade – not between two adults. Puppy love. I’m with Rob on this one: #Tangela is as dull as Velveeta cheese. Unctuous. Corny. Kitsch.

Love is not perfect. A compelling love, like a compelling hero or anti-hero, is flawed. We knew Faleigh would never last, but fans enjoyed watching them snipe and bicker, like a cantankerous old couple. For Tangela, everything is easy – and easy is boring. If Tangela didn’t feel like they had to keep their relationship a secret, the audience would have soured on them, a long time ago.

Angela was just exhausted. She was tired of ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ with Tyler, as the ideal couple. Angela got all the bad results of being a compelling villain and none of the superior results, like her mate, the smaller spider, Tyler. She got blamed for everything, by the jury, but Angela didn’t capitalize on her bloodthirsty reputation, to actually win the game.

Taran, the robot’s, heart melted, by the end of the game. My frozen heart never saw the first rays of spring. This TV love didn’t tickle my heart strings. It was moronic. I was worried Tyler would lose his edge, but Angela basically became a housewife and took the fall, for her man. She was left sitting on the asphalt, outside the BB house, wondering what the heck happened to her. Angela got sideswiped by Tyler’s Maserati, burning his way down the speedway, toward the Final Two. Watch out for road rash.

Sam, the maid, can’t imagine a life without cooking and cleaning for the BB HGs. Angela relied on her alliance to the end. She had no contingency plans, she had no support Final Twos. Tyler, meanwhile, had a Final Two, with everyone and his or her mom. If Angela hadn’t listened to conniving Tyler and cut her original Ride-or-Die, Rachel, she might have had a paddle, in hell. But instead, after Kaycee and Tyler cut her, following JC’s earth-shattering W, Angela was left sailing down the Styx, into the abyss (I love mythology).

What happened to her, man? What’s wrong with Angela? – as Rachel would say. What happened to Angela’s warrior spirit? Why did she throw her killer instinct out the window? Amazonia?!?!

@kaitcoaching was the real winner of #BB20.

It’s too bad that we can’t have a full LGBT Final Two. Both of these two are, sadly, still stuck on Tyler. Gay female Kaycee thinks Tyler is her straight or bisexual male bro. JC is still lost in this tragic gay person crushing on an uninterested straight or bisexual, same-sex person story arc. It’s not good.

Tyler cannot take Kaycee, if he wants to win. But JC could also beat him too, if Tyler decided to take him. Foutte is blaming itself, in the jury house but it won’t be too long before they turn their guns outside of the circle and start firing at Tyler. Rockstar, Bay and Co. would definitely vote for any LGBT person, over Tyler, at this point – even JC.

JC just couldn’t win that second competition. He’s going out, in third place. He played a good social game, manipulated everyone but Tyler, Angela and Kaycee and orchestrated many significant votes, including Kaitlyn’s downfall – but in the end you need to win comps, to enact your will. A “rat, floater game” – as Taran puts it – can only take you so far.

JC could only win one comp, so he had to rely on various hosts – Fessy, Brett, Tyler and even, at one point, Kaycee. Fessy and Brett bit the bullet, for JC, but both Tyler and Kaycee successfully resisted JC’s parasitic influence. Tyler picked Level 6, his showmance with Angela and finally, his Final Two with Kaycee, over JC.

JC’s problem was that he thought Tyler would put him first – over the aforementioned Level 6, Angela and Kaycee. JC would have won the game, if he hadn’t underestimated the extent of Tyler’s duplicity. ‘Never commit to anyone;’ never believe in anyone, without question. Or as Reagan would say, “Trust but verify.” JC got left in the Broken Hearts Club.

Then there’s freedom of choice, or at least, the allusion of choice. Some people can, for the most part, make the right decisions – but the spice of life is all of the people who can’t or won’t make the right decisions. I’ve said it before: in the elements, in Survivor, people’s true selves come out, real quick. Bring back Have-Nots, with a vengeance. Put HGs on slop. Get more people to show their HOH-itis – and you’ll see people’s real selves jump out. Four words: Lord of the Flies.