The big brother experience is one of those things that is so difficult to explain; you are required to go through it to get a sense of it. An enigma. I am now certain that all those idiotz (housemates) that I had the pleasure of interviewing were not exaggerating when they stated they could not explain the experience. You really can’t put it into words… But with 24-hours experience, let me attempt to summarise what those that have spent 91 days feel and hear…
My overnight-bagWe arrived at the Mnet offices at 9.00 am sharp… looking all wide-eyed and shy. There were a couple of the Journos that knew each other and courteously exchanged greetings. Everybody kinda minded their own business, some slept (or were making attempts to), some were chatting, some were sending “last” tweets about their freedom, some were quiet as mice. As the shuttle took off to the biggie house, we made minor introductions, discovered that we were all virgins at this experience and made small talk about past biggie shows.
At that point, I realized that I am a chatty
Jet-Li… a tough spot to be in. #smh
The Jet Li’s
This is a whole different kind of watcher – they wish they were in the house and believe they would have provided better entertainment value to “the watchers”. They are often judgmental of the personalities of the chosen and feel that they would have done things way differently than the IDZIOTS. Some may have even tried to sign up for the show and didn’t get past the seventh set of interviews to be chosen. Some would never even sign up as they prefer to be “armchair critics”
Everyone in that shuttle had not watched, nor understood the whole show…but some had recollection of clips of the Maneta and Roki fight… and I labelled them as
Pretenders… Tltltltltltltl
The pretender
The pretend they hate the show; will deny watching or even knowing anything about the show... BUT when the admitted talk about the show, you end up listening to the pretender giving full blow-by-blow analysis of the IDZIOTS, their biographys and their personalities and who should leave at the next eviction show...
When we reached the biggie house, we found 2 more mediamates who were coming into the house for the annual visit… The virgins decided to call them Oracles… kwaaaaa! They had been in the house on a few other occasions, even when it was still a weekend lockdown and not 24 hours. So you can imagine how the virgins had a mini-press conference for the Oracles about their previous experiences to get any insight on what not to do in the house. Valuable possessions and cellphones were then taken away from us by the producers as we were expected to be treated as housemates from this point.
Producers briefing roomWe were given a brief rundown about what was expected of us from the producers; assist with testing the house to ensure the show has very minimal niggles – use the shower and whatever else and report to big brother. We were then given microphones, advised of how to care for them whilst in the house and escorted into the house in pairs.
After we were all in the house, we kinda congregated at the kitchen – not sure what was next and then decided to go check out the bedrooms. What was very evident was the décor inspiration had a lot to do with cows… there were a lot of cow paintings and desert type décor all over the house. The house has 2 bedrooms, kitchen, living room and dining room, store room, diary room, toilet, a shower and bath tub.
There are 2 bedrooms (7 beds in each room) however 9 women and 4 men in the house. Whoah! Blond moment hit us as we counted 9 beds in the one room and claims of “my bed” rang out. Thank goodness there was an oracle around who firmly said “choose a bed and sleep!”. #dead
Biggie then called us to the living room to welcome us to the house and advise that there will be a task shortly. When he finished, we kinda sat there uncertain of what was expected next. Oracle then suggested making lunch or supper… everyone then moved to the kitchen to get busy. From this point, everyone kinda started engaging each other in some talk or other.
I realized that I was not myself; the real me outside the house. I felt very self-conscious and aware of everyone. I became quieter than I am in real life; I felt everyone was loud and boisterous. Some mediamates seemed bossy, some seemed OTT, some seemed worried, some seemed bored.
Biggie then called the Oracle to the diary room and he reappeared with a task sheet. Poor man was teased for being innocently called by biggie for this. The task was a Head of house challenge. Nothing hectic but just grab a piece of paper and face the mirrors in the garden. We did the task and biggie assigned the HOH title to someone that wasn’t in the house. Seems like we had a missing mediamate but anyways that was resolved and we now had a HOH. I was super-happy I was not HOH, biggie called our HOH so many times I felt sorry for her at some point.
We were given a painting task for the day and some mediamates had diary sessions. Super cool!! We also were fortunate to have an arena challenge therefore we got some time away from the house. We were blindfolded right through the travel to and from the arena. We were given hiccup on our return – so little booze! Like really big brother!? You clearly do not know the rumours /urban legends about journos and alcohol. That booze was done in such a short amount of time!
Nothing out of the ordinary happened except an Oracle had arranged to leave the house early and biggie refused to acknowledge/respond to our calls for him to open the diary room to let her go Even when I got injured and hoped biggie would open the diary door so she can at least get to speak to him, there was no response. . She ended spending the night with us in the house and being allowed to leave in the morning.
In the morning, the alarm kinda freaked us out. I attempted to shower with a cosi (swimming costume) but still felt dirty. Only the Oracle took a proper shower, in his glorious hot naked body as we oogled the frosted glass. Huuuuu wiiiii! We teased him as he came out, asking about the experience and how was it… Tltltltltlttlltl
the morning afterWhen we all left, we had formed such a lovely camaraderie that we exchanged numbers and vowed to keep in touch. The messages we have shared so far are about how efffed up the biggie hangover is, we miss each other and the cameras! Yes, we all wish we had been allowed to stay longer than 24 hours. All the other mediamates are now what
Uhdikts refer to as
The Converted... all in good time, they will be uhdikts...
The Converted:
They hated Big-E becoz they never understood how watching 12 people live with each other could be fun. Angithi they've never really seen any Big Brother. Then they watch a few episodes, probably because their friends/partner conversation is always about Big-E. Next thing you know they call you asking you what time nominations are, and are the one who sulk/ or tell you "NO!!"... when you change channels to check the weather.. Uhdikts (The addicts)
This breed of “watchers” will miss work, going out, meeting with friends; basically all “normal” life stands still as they shuffle everybody and everything around to just be sitting in front of TV watching the IDZIOTS. They simply cannot afford to miss out on anything. The channel doesn’t (and no-one is allowed to) change even when Big-E decides to show a big dude clad in a brown-choco-wiggled designed jersey sleeping on the couch wearing sunglasses for a good 45 minutes. The have to see it. From this experience, we all agree that we would defs do this again!