Unwrapping Old-School Love in the Modern Age: From Reality TV to TikTok

Ever imagined a septuagenarian stealing the limelight on reality TV and capturing the hearts of millennials? Hold onto your earbuds, because the whirlwind journey of our favorite widower, Gerry, on the unexpected smash hit 'The Golden Bachelor,' did just that! However, things took an abrupt turn in the finale, leaving viewers questioning the authenticity of the show and the portrayal of older adults in this genre. We tear apart the implications of Gerry's surprising decision, the emotional aftermath, and its broader implications on reality TV. 

Switching the channel from reality TV to social media, we find another septuagenarian making waves—this time on TikTok. "TikTok Bubbie", as she is popularly known, defies the norms by showcasing her love for her husband unabashedly. We unwrap her old-school love story, tracing the cultural shift in gender norms, and explore how her  narrative challenges today's societal constructs. So if you're interested in a discussion that straddles reality TV, social media, and the evolution of societal norms, sit back, tune in, and let's get the conversation going!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Morning bitches and dolls and no one told you they love you today. Then I love you because you are you. Who else are you going to be? I don't know. I'm drinking my coffee today out of my morning bitches cup. Okay, I wanted to talk about the golden bachelor, gary Turner. I always thought it was Jerry, but it's Gary. Okay, gary, every Gary I knew his name was spelled G a r y, not g e r r? Y. Okay, but let's talk about this article that was written by Meredith Blake in the LA Times Kind of gentler golden bachelor with a question mark, a devastating finale and Leslie's pain with the reality and ABC's popular reality show.

Speaker 1: 1:01

When the golden bachelor debuted in September, featuring a 72 year old widow, one named Gary Turner, on its quest to find the next great love of his life, and he promised that a kind of gentler version of reality TV was not only possible but that it could also be a hit, with viewers looking for some uplift. Okay, the show became the breakout show of the strike depleted fall season, drawing the biggest bachelor audience in years, and was, counterintuitively, especially popular with younger viewers. You young people love us old folks right, who seemingly couldn't resist to show about frisky seniors who believe that romance was possible at any age. It is the top show this season with women 18 to 34. It also became a cultural sensation thanks to a ground waking portrayal of people over the age of 60 who are attractive and adventurous, with perspective shaped by profound life. Events turn around. The 22 women trying to win his heart were not exactly representative of the average American eligible for social security. But that was the point.

Speaker 1: 2:23

Hey, you two, cut it out, you two kitty cats. I'm going to go inside and be right back folks, because my cats are pulling around. Oh my God, they really. Hey, what's going on in here? Hey, hey, leave her butt alone. That cat of mine, pd, go on, go. Trouble making cat, you. She's just a fix in my cat. Now you know what goes on in my house. Right, naughty, naughty, naughty, naughty. I got to get back to you. That's my golden bachelor is PD, pd 17. I've been like 84. He's the real goal In the actual I'm sorry everybody A little bit of real life in my family. All right, let's get back to Gary. Okay At all Okay. With a gloriously abundant head of hair, I like a ball man, a passion for pickleball Go have it. And a pretent pre-turnal natural gift for making eye contact.

Speaker 1: 3:36

Turner was framed as a unicorn, a kind of sensitive, emotionally revolving older man who experienced tremendous loss but only has grown from it, and he seemed to contradict every eye-rolling oh K-thuma stereotype. The accomplished, uniformly well-preserved women he dated were arguably the even bigger drawers, particularly as they bonded in the Bachelor mansion by talking about farts and dancing the horror together in the pool. Despite its inherently contrived premise, one man dates nearly two dozen women, two dozen women who were in front of the TV cameras. Okay, the real world is the start of all the reality television. If you watch that on MTV, it was a great show. Okay, despite okay, let's see. Despite its inherently contrived premise, right, the Golden Bachelor felt like affirming and strangely wholesome, a healing bomb for a nature still reckoning with the disability. I wish I could read this this disability's influence of reality. Tell them that he's stabilizing.

Speaker 1: 4:50

Then came Thursday's finale, in which Turner proposed to Theresa Nist, a 70-year-old widow who, just like him, had married her high school sweetheart, and the illusions were shattered like a champagne flu toast against the terracotta tiles of the Costa Rican fantasies week. Okay, it all began when Turner told Lisa Fima, a 64-year-old fitness instructor who had appeared to be his favorite for weeks. I never thought that was his real favorite. I'm just saying that he planned to move forward with Nist, a Scott Stock trader. It was an abrupt turnaround from days earlier when Turner professed his love for Fima and referred to her adorably as my girl, giving every indication that she was going to be his pick for the final rose. And I knew he wasn't going to pick her. You, tiktok buddy, knew, and I'll tell you why later. So everything you told me the other night was a lie, said Fima, who proceeded to launch into one of the most gut-wrenching, bracingly honest reality TV monologues and recent memory.

Speaker 1: 5:59

As Turner tried to console Fima, who opened up to him about the lingering pain of two divorces I'm divorced twice and being cheated on by multiple partners she lashed out honey, when I was married I cheated, so nobody's important. Anyway, okay, no offense, I can think whatever the F I want right now. She said fuck, angry tears streaming down her cheeks. My heart's broken once again, but now I have to do it in front of the world and see once again how broken I am, how no one chooses me. Oh my God, if that isn't victim mentality.

Speaker 1: 6:42

Honey, you're gorgeous. You're 64, you're young and beautiful. Come on, I'm 76. I'm old and beautiful, but I'm just saying the other night you made it sound like you chose me. You said things to me that made me think that was going to be it. You led me down a path and then you took a turn and left me there, and that's how I feel. She said it was mind boggling, said that, reiterated his love in the fantasy suite. Of course, the fantasy suite Come on and change is fine. Less than a day later he got the milk for free. I'm just saying it's terrible thing to say, but that's the generation of men that I've lived with.

Speaker 1: 7:29

How much can a girl take, really? She asked, speaking for every woman who has never found herself unceremoniously jilted. Thema slam Turner as a distinguishing, distinguished player, but more memorably, she reminded you as who were perhaps lulled into a false sense of security by the sweetness of the golden bachelor, of the unavoidable, unavoidable cruelty of a show where people only occasionally find true love. But someone always gets ceremoniously dumped, and it often happens in spectacular fashion, while wearing a lavish gown and expecting to get a romantic proposal. The only good thing now is I don't have to walk in on that $60,000 dress? What the hell? Where do you spy cats knees and pee? Where the hell do you get a $60,000 dress? Honey With the diamond earrings, and get on that platform and be completely embarrassed, said FEMA, who confronted Turner about his awkward demeanor during their final night together, prompting him to confess he'd made up his mind and sparing of the added humiliation of going through the final rose ceremony. It was small mercy but may not be enough for many viewers to forgive Turner, who looked utterly shell, shocked by the entire exchange. What for? We feel entirely excited about his upcoming wedding to NIST, which is scheduled to be broadcast live on ABC on January 4th. Nevermind that FEMA, a former aerobics champion at one, stated prince ooh la la and claims to have inspired his song sexy dancer. I want your body, I want your body. Sexy dancer was objectively too cool for Turner. He lives in tiny Hudson Indiana, population 500,. Has a sing song voice Many people have linked like in to Bonnie. He does have a sing song. Bad voice, a purple dinosaur who was all the rage with preschoolers in the 1990s, and dresses like he's perpetually ready for a night out at the Margaritaville. Okay, well, that Turner, like so many bachelor stars before him turned out to be not quite as perfect as produces. Let us all to be. Is anybody perfect? Nobody's perfect, okay, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:53

A day before the finale aired on ABC, the Hollywood Reporter published a story suggesting that its reality TV portrayal was deceptively positive. I never thought that okay. Rather than mourning his wife and living as a monk since her death in 2017, the report alleged he had dated and lived with another woman for more than a year. You also treated her shabbily, according to the Hollywood Reporter, criticizing her weight and making her split the check in advance on dates. Okay, that's fair, you know, that's fine.

Speaker 1: 10:29

That the bachelor put such a positive spin on Turner should be surprising to no one who even remotely is familiar with the show, which is a long tradition of propping up the handsome of, if unremarkable and occasionally downright awful guys and portraying them as irresistible and possibly perfect dreamboats. Nor is Turner exceptionally cat-ish for telling more than one woman he was in love with them, something that has been increasingly common in recent seasons of the Bachelor. But there's something especially brutal about the Golden Bachelor, and it's the very same thing that made the show so appealing to begin with the fact that the contestants are so much older, have been through so much and have so much more to lose. Having your heart broken on television when you're 25 and own little more than a few house plans and can quickly move on with a few swipes on Tinder is one thing and it's probably worth it, but the social media cloud alone, it's quite another when you have grandchildren, a lifetime of romantic disappointments behind you and are facing the looming reality of your own mortality without a partner by your side. As FEMA's standing alone on the balcony of hotel room put it, time is running out. Time is running out.

Speaker 1: 11:49

In a live segment of the finale, fema sat with Turner for the first time since their breakup in Costa Rica and confronted him about what she saw as his duplicity. She laid out a jammy case against him, saying he had said things behind closed doors that made her 100% certain that I was his girl. When Turner offered a tepid or teepid explanation for his behavior, saying basically he got carried away in the moment, and she said understood but would not accept his apology. Though Graceland Composed being refused to pretend she was okay with being misled, and it was exhilarating to watch her dispense with the humiliating conventions of reality television. Hashtag Team Leslie members are already rooting for her to become the first Golden Bachelorette, and she would no doubt make an appealing lead. She could lead a group date aerobics class. Imagine the possibility. But ABC has yet to actually announce plans for a female-centered spin-off and it's far from clear that the casting directors at the Bachelor are any better at matchmaking than a dating app.

Speaker 1: 13:03

If Turner wasn't so much a unicorn as a perfectly average horse than a convincing disguise, then who needs 22 more imposters? Well, as I said earlier and this is just a quick thing he's from my generation, the men in my generation. Why buy the cow when you could get the milk for free? He wanted to sleep with her. That's the bottom line. That's why he went through the vanity C-suite. I'm just saying that. That's the reality of that show. So he wanted to sleep with her. She couldn't figure that out.

Speaker 1: 13:37

What I used to say is, when I went on our dates with people on the first date I said look, if you're looking to sleep with me, forget it. I'm looking for a long-term relationship. If that's not what you want, then don't let the door hit you on the way out. So that's what I always said when I went out with somebody If they were looking for a quick fuck. It ain't gonna be. It ain't me babe. No, no, no, it ain't me babe, it ain't me. You're looking for a babe. So that's what happened with me. So I just had to say that. So that's it. That's all I got to say about the golden bachelor.

Speaker 1: 14:17

He's a man in his 70s my generation. He's a baby boomer. Let's be real here, you know. So there you go, anyway. Well, I hope I gave you some clarity. If you want any more information, you can always reach me on TikTok bubby, on TikTok or on this, you know, if you want to send anything, any information. But don't be so hard on Gary. He's a man. What do you expect? He's a man, yes, he is, and he is and he loves her. So not really. But though, if nobody told you they love you today, guess what? Your TikTok bubby loves you because you're. You have a great day. Bye.