OH MY FUCKING GOD.
We get it you hate Ryan - you think he's boring, disingenuous, won by default, added nothing to the viewing experience or whatever. That's great. These are all just your opinions, opinions that I know are shared by the majority of members here - I'm not blind after all - but they weren't shared by the majority of the voting public nor are they proof that this was a bad season. If you want to know why continue reading because I'll go over some of your opinions and how they differ from mine and then I'll go over why both of our opinions on Ryan have absolutely nothing to do with whether this was a bad season or not.
So first up lets talk about whether he was genuine or not. I notice your argument against is grounded in the fact Skye was surprised by his comments in the secrets episode and somehow that translates into him not being genuine. Firstly that's one HM who I might add was still in there and still wanted to win not to mention Skye and Ryan were never BFF's. You claim this as some proof yet you ignore the endless parade of multiple HMs that said he was the most genuine and honest HM in there. When you're looking at evidence you can't just pick and choose that which points to your favoured conclusion - you have to look at all of it - which is that he was genuine. You believe he held back or played nice. But tell me how was he holding back or playing nice when he had his disagreements with Skye, Travis, Priya? I mean for fucks sake we saw him fight with Priya on MONDAY.
Oh and I'm sick to fucking death of everyone going on and fucking on about 'he wasn't even there for the first four weeks'. So fucking what? While I'll give you that this is true for most of us, I know it was for me, I still don't see how it matters. When I'm deciding who I want to vote for I'm not thinking of how I felt about them x number of weeks ago. I'm thinking about how I feel about them in that moment. That's what this show is - watching the HMs grow, change, evolve, etc. What's the point of watching past the launch if we all just decide our opinions of the HMs on the first night and never change them? Nearly everyone hated Tim in the first week or so, does that mean he shouldn't have won? Fuck no! Just like with Ryan. Sure he may have been missing in the first few weeks but when Nine finally decided to show him I liked what I saw. Why shouldn't I reward that with my votes?
As for this bloody highlights package nonsense. I have to ask did any HM appear in each and every weeks highlights? I doubt it. Then again I wasn't checking like you so I could be wrong. Anyway just because Ryan didn't appear in a minute long recap of 168 hours of raw footage doesn't mean he didn't do anything. If anything it points to what BB has become. You said it yourself BB is a show where people are meant to go into a house and live together. What you failed to mention is how Nine's interpretation of what this means has changed from what it meant in Ten's era. It used to be about watching the everyday happenings and relationships that stemmed from the interaction of 12/14/16 strangers. Now it's about *drama* and *storylines* or rather contrived gimmicks, drama, fights and fauxmances that nine can condense into glitzy 30 second promos to be advertised and then never referenced again. If I wanted endless clips of weave pulling, cat fights and hook ups I'd watch any one of the many other trashy reality shows out there. For real, how many times have people on this forum cried out for the days when we could sit down and watch normal everyday people interacting and having conversations and watch them for longer than 30 seconds before we got a recap from the diary room. What I saw and what I think many others saw in Ryan was a return to the type of HM of old. One which wasn't there for celebrity but was there for the experience. One which didn't try to game the system in order to get airtime. One who was simply themselves. We weren't enamoured by his looks either, if it were that simple Dion would have made it further than he did. We made a connection with Ryan. We related to him. He wasn't a contestant and in a season that had deviated so far from what made Big Brother Big Brother I revelled in it. I revelled in the fact we finally had a normal everyday person. And if you don't see that, don't want to see that or just don't think that's something to admire then fine. But I did. Others did.
I'm most likely never going to change your or anyone else's opinions on Ryan and quite frankly I don't want to. I just wanted to shine a light on the other side of the argument. Fact is seasons over. Ryan won. Was this proof that this season was bad? No. Why? Because a season's worth is not dictated by the winner, influenced maybe but not decided by. The seasons scheduling was atrocious. The desperate gimmicks were atrocious. Most of the time the editing was atrocious. That's all proof the season was bad. The ultimate proof of how bad a season it was will be whether it gets renewed.
So in conclusion Ryan's winning was not tied to the failure of the season. His winning was directly tied to the fact people voted for him. The fact that people saw something in him. The fact that they liked what they saw enough to spend their money. Facts you don't wont to acknowledge but facts which exist nonetheless.
