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Ryan Seacrest
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Ryan Seacrest
Melissa McCarthy fully commits by even rolling the otters with the Elf Glow Reviver Lip Oil. It's very funny.
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Matt Rogers
this is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
Bowen Yang
This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
Matt Rogers
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Matt Rogers
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Bowen Yang
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Bowen Yang
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Matt Rogers
Xfinity. Imagine that.
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Chad Colchan
Now we are here to help you keep going further.
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Chad Colchan
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Ryan Seacrest
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Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Well, as you know, we are now full fledged experts on traitors and Dancing with the Stars. But we can still acknowledge that a little outside help will only strengthen our ability to dissect and break down the intricacies of these shows. A little.
Chad Colchan
It'll help a little.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
It'll help a little.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
We're kind of experts.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
And so for traders, we've called in a fellow Reality TV expert, the co host of the Game of Roses podcast, and the author of how to Win the Bachelor, which, to its credit, has resulted in a winner of the Bachelor. You've also constantly seen him on your social media feeds as host of the Necessary Conversation, a podcast where he and his fellow liberal sister sit with their MAGA loving parents to talk about the current political climate change. A firecracker show that has become an Internet sensation. But since his own experiences in Hollywood as a writer give him a little behind the scenes, leg up on analyzing reality tv. We wanted to dig deep into his feelings on this season of the Traitors, which we know includes some very hot takes. So welcome to POD meets Twirl. Trading Places. Unscripted TV expert Chad Colchan.
Chad Colchan
Hello. Hello, Hello.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Oh, are we interrupting reading time?
Chad Colchan
I just am. I'm engrossed in this book.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I would love it. If it's your own book, please tell us it's your own. Oh, is that a magic. Magic card? Is that a magic the Gathering card?
Chad Colchan
This is.
Bowen Yang
Yes.
Chad Colchan
Yes. Do you guys play? Of course, yes, we play. Allow me to move three feet to the left and show you my collection. Wall of collector's box.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Oh, my God.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Nice.
Matt Rogers
Yes.
Chad Colchan
I've been collecting magic the Gathering cards way too goddamn long at this point. But, yeah, I've almost got a full beta set.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Ryder taught me how to play the gathering in the mid-90s in the exhibit of a hash bar in Amsterdam.
Chad Colchan
Yep.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
And we. And we've been playing ever since, so.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
And do you still have some of your. Those were unlimited cards. Do you still have some of those? Will you do? Right.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I still have my original deck.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
That's.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I still have my original shiv and dragon, my original Sarah angel, all my original instants and everything. Yeah. I've still got.
Ryan Seacrest
That's awesome.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Little literal original white and red deck.
Chad Colchan
Yeah.
Ryan Seacrest
Yeah.
Chad Colchan
This is just a little bird token that I use as a. Or at least in this book. It's my bookmark.
Matt Rogers
Nice.
Chad Colchan
I love it.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I love it. Well, we're instantly friends.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah, we're in.
Chad Colchan
Magic is the thing that bonds. All right.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
And you're drinking.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
And you're drinking a Trader Joe's Purple Zesty drink.
Chad Colchan
I am. This one is a black cherry vanilla.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Black cherry vanilla.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Oh, please.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I've a fridge full of them, my friend.
Chad Colchan
Wow. Well, we're the same people now that we've got that out of the way.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
All right, so you've made a very interesting career out of this sort of this reality tv. But you actually, you started As a writer, am I right?
Chad Colchan
Yeah. And still primarily, that's how I make my living. The. The reality TV thing has been like, a bizarre side project.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Well, have you ever thought about being on reality tv? Has that ever been?
Chad Colchan
Yeah. I applied for the Civilian Traders and heard nothing back but my. I think my application, like, I. I chose a direction, and it was basically like, I'm an expert at this, and I've been kind of controlling the Bachelor franchise from outside of it, unbeknownst to the producers by, like, sending in players that I'm training. Secret.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Oh, my God.
Chad Colchan
And I think they didn't like that. I think they don't want somebody who, like, kind of knows the game that. That cold.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Do you have a B? I just see this weird Bachelor training camp where they're like, they're weighted roses. So it's like you're working your arm out as you're trying to, like, it's like you're doing 50 of those with the Rocky theme song playing in the background. Like that kind of thing.
Chad Colchan
I wish. No, it's. It's much less interesting than that. It basically is just like, helping people fill out their applications. I'll, you know, cut their application videos if they want me to. And then once they get into the show, we have about, usually two or three weeks to just do a crash course in, like, mathematically, what are you most likely to encounter? How do you avoid a villain edit? What do you do if you get embroiled in a rivalry? You know, what do you want out of this game? Do you want a million Instagram followers? Do you actually want to get married? Do you want both, etc. Etc.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
So I, again, knowing nothing whatsoever about the Bachelor.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah, I've never seen it either.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Do most people go in wanting to get married, or are they going in full on just playing? They're playing a game.
Ryan Seacrest
That's all it is.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
They're just playing.
Chad Colchan
I would say that is the vast majority, even players that I've coached that are what we call 100% for TRR or for the right reasons, still understand the immense opportunity that platform offers to. To make a million Instagram followers, or at least a couple hundred thousand. And then while you have some relevance when you've just come off of that, whatever season you might be in, you know you're going to get spawn con deals. And if your numbers are high enough, that can certainly be your job for the next year or two. Wait, what?
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
What, What?
Bowen Yang
What deals?
Chad Colchan
Spawn con. Sponsored content. Sorry.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Chad Colchan
Deals.
Matt Rogers
Jeez.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
So here's what I'm confused by, because, like, I definitely think of, like, winning the Bachelor is getting married. Right?
Chad Colchan
Yeah.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
So when you're.
Chad Colchan
How.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
How you do you get more followers? By being better on the Bachelor.
Chad Colchan
You mean by being better in what way? This. You're really about to get the dissertation now. Okay.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah, please, please.
Chad Colchan
Because I don't.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah, because I'm. I mean, I'm assuming that you're strategizing, that you're giving them is like, how to be good at the. The game that they're in, but it's also how to just be a good reality show personality.
Chad Colchan
Yes, some of that is accurate. I mean, the Bachelor, basically. How to even put this. There is kind of a broader meta game in all of reality television that I am now playing, like, a video game across all different reality shows. The Bachelor's where I started, and that is, like, where I kind of learned some of the mechanics and came up with various, you know, game things like ptc, Personal Tragedy card. That. How do you even begin this?
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
How many. How many mana do you have to tap to get your personal tragedy card?
Chad Colchan
I'm just curious.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
How many swamps? Because it's black.
Chad Colchan
I'm telling you, it's definitely a black spell. I black spell. You get to draw three cards. How many. How many swaps do you have to. To play your ptc? The PTC is. I'll say it like this, I guess I really think reality TV right now is about where baseball was in the 1910s and 19 teens, where sports writers from all the major cities were looking at baseball, scrutinizing it statistically in a way that had never been done. And it was sports writers who came up with terms like RBI and ERA that got absorbed into the game itself and changed how teams were made and contracts and all that. I think reality TV is kind of there now. Our podcast, Game of Roses, is doing a little bit of this work. Other podcasts are, too, where we're identifying these repeating patterns in the reality shows and seeing the game mechanics of them taking the statistics. My podcast host on Game of Roses, Lizzie Pace, and I wrote a book called how to Win the Bachelor. It's kind of like the money ball of the Bachelor. Multiple players have been caught reading it in the Mansion.
Capella University Advertiser
Wow.
Chad Colchan
But the basic idea of the PTC Personal Tragedy card is at some point in any of these games, there will come a time when you are going to be. I won't say forced, but you'll be strongly encouraged to reveal the most traumatic incident that has ever occurred in your life. And then if you play it correctly, you can use it to deflect an attack from a rival. You can use it to deflect a for the wrong reasons attack that may be coming from a lead someone like the Bachelor or whatever, but basically use the PTC by playing it which garners you sympathy. If you can do tier play on top of it, it makes it more for the right reasons. Then you go through a series of a short narrative that is, this happened to me. Here's how it affected me, here's what I've learned from it, and here is why that makes me ready for whatever the premise of the show is. You're on Finding Love.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
It's doing the whole show is a role playing game. It's an rpg.
Chad Colchan
Yes. And I would say the ones that are like Bachelor is one that is extremely simple because. And, and this, this is prior to what is happening right now. Right now. Bachelor just had a big changing of the guard. This guy Scott Teddy took over from Summer House. They were. That whole franchise was basically like swirling the toilet. They brought him in to kind of revamp it. And in a couple, in about a month, I guess a little more than a month, we're going to have our first Bachelorette under his new watch, Taylor Frankie Paul, who is by her own right, a giant social media celebrity. She's the star of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. And they've never cast anyone like this before. And I think that season is going to be fascinating.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
How, how can she be a Mormon wife and a Bachelorette?
Chad Colchan
I mean, is Mom Talk going to survive this? You guys don't watch Secret Lives. Like the whole premise of Secret Lives is it is this group of these Mormon moms who started making TikToks together.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right?
Chad Colchan
And what blew it up is Taylor Frankie Paul, the de facto leader of Mom Talk. I can't believe I know all this shit. And yeah, that's so cool. She essentially outed them all as doing what they call soft swinging, that all these wives and husbands were not necessarily having sex, but they were like making out with each other naked in showers and stuff. And so that wow elevated all of them. They got millions of tick tock followers off this. Then they got a show on Hulu about them that's kind of a housewivesian style show.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
We saw that because our friend was on Dancing with the Stars with.
Chad Colchan
With one of them, Whitney. Whitney. With Whitney, who now is the star of a Broadway musical.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Chad Colchan
Selling out every night.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Matt Rogers
But our.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
But if she's a wife, how can she be a bachelorette? Isn't she married?
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
She must have divorced.
Chad Colchan
No, she was, but, yeah, now divorced. She has a couple of different baby daddies and she's a Mormon. She herself has a very checkered path. Sure. Like they live in Utah and they say they're Mormon wives, but it's like, wait a minute, none of you are going to church or doing anything that's remotely Mormon.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I just feel that's a brand. Listening to you talk, I feel like I'm such like a naive, innocent rube in the world.
Chad Colchan
Me too.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
You know, I just don't like. I just, I'm still like. You go on reality shows to make friends and maybe play a fun game.
Chad Colchan
Maybe.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I'll find maybe.
Ryan Seacrest
Exactly.
Chad Colchan
And I think most players are like that. And most producers are counting on it, right? Producers for most of these shows don't call the players players or the people people. They call them subjects. I would say in my kind of tenure doing this weird side project, I have been given access to various documents, we'll put it that way. Some of them include very long discussions by producers as they're producing a show, as they're doing like a season of a show. And so you get to read in these giant, like, you know, thousand page group chats how producers actually think about the players, how they're manipulating them, what they call them behind their back, all of that. And you're just like, okay, I get it. That's the real game. So back to like, what is this game? All reality TV breaks down essentially into what we call the four audiences. And if you are playing in a reality game, you're playing to all four simultaneously. Audience one is the lead or main character of your show. So if it's a Bachelor or Bachelorette, it's the Bachelor or Bachelorette, right? If it's like a Housewives, it's the main housewife. That's the person who's going to keep you in the show or kick you out of the show. They kind of control it. Audience two is the other players. So like on Bachelor or Bachelorette, let's say we all three go in as the dudes dating the Bachelorette. We are each other's second audience. You both have to play against them and with them. Audience three, arguably the most important is the producers. They are the ones trying to cause you to have a nervous breakdown on TV for good tv, right? And then audience four is us at home watching you play. In no other sport is it like this, but in reality TV it is. We decide how Much money you make by putting that number next to your head on tick tock and Instagram.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Wow.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I hate. I hate, I hate it.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
But then, but then, hold on, hold on. I'm gonna throw. I'm gonna throw a fifth crowd or a fifth audience because isn't there the critic audience, like, people like you that you're talking this sort of like fifth
Chad Colchan
estate that's rising effectively at this point? You know, it's not like I think what I'm doing is like, potentially unique in. In terms of, like, infiltrating these games and controlling them from. To some degree. But I think for the most part, with the advent of, like, podcasts that talk about reality TV and all this stuff, there's a lot of us now at this same kind of tier that isn't like Nick val level, but we're also like, you know, we're able to monetize and stuff like that. I think there's a lot of us that are affecting how these shows are made or at least the discourse around them. Like, producers can't get away with as much as they used to be able to. Trader. Season four is an interesting example of that with the casting of Colton Underwood. I don't know if you guys are following that.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah, well, yeah. Talk about it before we do. I just have one. I have one question that is going to make me sad in my soul and want to weep for the world. But I'm curious, what percentage would you say of reality show contestants go on just to get followers?
Chad Colchan
100%.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
It's a hundred percent.
Chad Colchan
Okay. I mean, I think I would say there are definitely a lot of players who are going on only for that. There are a smaller. And it also depends on the game. Like, there's a show right now being cast that Chris Harrison supposedly is going to be hosting and it's basically like trad wives. Like a trad wife bachelor.
Take Five Oil Change Advertiser
Oh, God.
Chad Colchan
And. And there's a lot of people, like, outraged by and all this stuff. I'm trying to coach some players to go in and basically destroy the show. Should be interesting. But that is something different. Like, I think you're going to get people applying for that show who really are for the right reasons and want to get married. And their secondary goal is, like, if I become an influencer, great. But generally speaking, especially if you're looking at like a love island, right. Or even really love is blind, primarily players are going into these giant platform shows where you have tens of millions of viewers, high level social media engagement. They are going into those Shows to come out with millions of Instagram followers and get like, Leah Kateb from season six, USA Love island is getting deals with Google. You know, it's like, this is not a small thing. This is. Yeah, it's like being a pro athlete. It really is at this point.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
So, I mean, is there eventually just going to be a reality show where the winning prize is you win 10 million followers?
Chad Colchan
If I have my way with it, yes. I think, like, the. The idea of how these shows are presented still, to me, is kind of archaic. And I think a lot of reality producers come from that early 2000s era. Yeah, they're like, people who watch this show is. Or stupid reality TVs.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Trash TV.
Chad Colchan
And it's like, no, we have a reality TV show host as the president. Like, it. It influences our entire culture now in a way no other media does.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Capella University Advertiser
Wow.
Chad Colchan
Yeah. For me, I think the presentation of social media numbers should be a part of reality shows. When you see, like, a. An It. Well, they call it in Bachelor and ITM in the moment, that's like the confessional footage where they're talking direct to camera. I want to see on the bottom of the screen, like, a little NFL motion video of the person with their Instagram and TikTok followers, pop numbers popping up. You know, that's how I think it should be presented. But.
Bowen Yang
Wow.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Well, I mean, you know, it's one of the things that we've talked about because we're going through traders right now. Season four, which I had never seen, Will was convinced that he could win it. So that's kind of the conceit of our podcast right now. And, you know, one of the things that we've talked about is how ridiculous it is that they even offer money, because it doesn't seem like anybody cares.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
And we're like.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
To your point, exactly. We're like, it's like a $3,000. They're like, you made another 7,000. We're like, no one cares. None of these people want. Are here for that money. Which is exactly to your point. They're there for. Yeah, that.
Chad Colchan
That's been a thing that has come out as a result of this season. Carolyn Weiger, who was on season three, she was a Survivor player and really popped off in season three, she came out and basically said, like, to Housewives, $250,000 is meaningless. They're making millions of dollars per season. But to somebody who came in, like, third place on Big Brother or something, that's money that can get you through the next year or Two.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Chad Colchan
So the disparity of kind of like how much the money means to people is gigantic. And I think the money will obviously mean more in the civilian version. But like, Traders has so many pieces of the game. It's still a very young show. And none of these shows solidify their formats in the first four seasons. Right. Bachelor notoriously took season four to 12. That's like the experimental E era where they were creating group date roses. One on one date roses, first impression rose. None of those game mechanics were in the game until they were invented in those seasons. So I think Traders is kind of going through those growing pains right now. Eventually, I think the challenges will have nothing to do with money. I think it'll be like you're saying a kind of overall million dollar prize to the winning team. Traders are faithful and I think the challenges are going to have to start skewing more towards Survivor esque challenges. Exactly. Individual people going against each other. The winner gets immunity from some kind of banishment.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Well, we also talked about. The other thing we talked about was the idea that one of the things you win is a clue to find out who the traitor is.
Chad Colchan
Yeah, exactly. Something that affects the game inside, right? Yeah, 100%. They have to start doing that.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Another. Another conversation Ryder and I have had over and over and over again. And we both go back and forth on it, frankly. And I'm so curious what you think. Do you think being a reality show Contestant takes talent?
Chad Colchan
100%. Really? Oh, my God. Yeah. After like coaching people through the casting processes of all these different shows, I feel like I'm as good as any casting producer at this point in seeing almost immediately if a person can be on reality TV or not, because they. All of these shows cast archetypes. You have to be the nerd, the professional, the athlete, the weirdo, the whatever.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Chad Colchan
You don't fit one of those things you are never getting on reality television, period. And there's a bunch of them now like those, those kind of archetypes have definitely evolved over the past 20 years, but you have to fit one of them or potentially a couple of them have elements of a couple of them. And then even above that, the really good reality players just have that thing. It's like. It's like what LeBron to talk about. Yeah, yeah. It's like game sense. And when I talk about game sense, it's really like how to interact with a camera, how to do things that will guarantee a good edit, like affect your own edit while you're in front of the camera. That is like a skill.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
That is what Mark Ballas does not have, for instance.
Chad Colchan
Correct.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Because yes, our friend was, you know, our friend Danielle was on Dancing with the Stars with him, loved him and said, he's a great guy, he's so smart, he's so cool. We were like excited to see him on the season and he's just been the worst player ever. And I clearly cut out and it's like, oh, he doesn't have that thing that you're talking about. He clearly doesn't have like the sound bite factor or the confrontation factor or whatever it is that seems to get more of the screen time and make you a successful player. Although he's lasted a long time because he's the patsy.
Chad Colchan
That's what it becomes. Like Traders. This is one of the big problems with Traders. And, and by the way, as I'm saying all of this, please understand, Traders is literally my favorite show that's ever been made across all genre, scripted, unscripted, whatever. Really love it. Yeah, really. But I think it has massive problems, massive areas for improvement. One of them is, what is this show? Is it an objective game that we are watching these players play or is it a. An entertaining reality show about wacky characters? They never know what it is. And so when you see somebody like Mark Ballas, I've watched a bunch of his TikToks where he has like, here's all the notes I took when I was in my hotel room and I was involved in this play and that play and they never show it. That is the, I think, detrimentally so the part of Traders that is like, we're trying to make an entertaining reality show.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah.
Chad Colchan
So if somebody is playing the game too good or they express too much of an acumen for being able to detect deceit or whatever, they get cut out of the show. And, and that's just because the producers think they know what makes a good show. The truth is, the real version of Traders, in my opinion, the best version of it would be like a Big Brother type thing where the players actually do live in that castle, not in a hotel at the airport.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Chad Colchan
And we get to watch them 24 hours a day on online and you cut an hour long show out of that every week, just like they do in Big Brother. But for people who really want to see how the game is being played, it's all right there. And I don't know if they'd ever do that because there's so much. Traders just has a lot of stuff that's not real. Like the clocks on the challenges and stuff, you know? Right. Those are fake. So it's like.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Wait, what do you mean? The clocks on the challenges, they give
Chad Colchan
them like a time limit to do the challenges. Yeah, that is not real.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Wait, so there's no time?
Chad Colchan
Why? They always finish the challenge with like three seconds left. It's incredible. Yeah, we've, I've interviewed some people on our, our Game of Roses show and that has been corroborated.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Chad, you're taking, you're taking all the mystique away. Ah, I'm kidding.
Chad Colchan
You're not at all.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
The idea that the reality TV show
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
is not great, it's not real. Oh my God.
Chad Colchan
None that of, of them are though, of course, just at a very base level. You are looking at one hour of edited content and every shot in it, every music choice, everything you're seeing and hearing is put in there for a very specific reason. Either to conceal the truth or reveal the truth or entertain you or make you afraid or sad or whatever the the case may be. But you're never seeing everything. And so it can never actually be real.
Bowen Yang
Right.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Has there ever in the history of television been a real reality show?
Chad Colchan
Big Brother, I think, is the closest because those feeds are available. You can literally watch all their camera feeds in that house 24 hours a day if you want, online. Right, right. The, the program they present or the document they present is obviously like a drastically edited down version to fit network TV hour time slot. But I would say Big Brother is like. But, but I don't know. I mean, you look at it like you. Are we going back in history here? Reality TV technically started in 1945, I believe, with Candid Camera. Yeah. You go up through the 70s and you're looking at this American family on PBS. Yep. I mean, that, that was kind of a first of its kind, certainly. And it was doing very innovative things. Was it real though? I don't know. Did the people who edited that show have some kind of agenda? Were they trying to make loud look better or the dad look better or whatever, you know?
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah, inevitably.
Chad Colchan
Yeah, I think there's always that question for me is always like primary whenever I'm watching anything. Why are they putting this in the show? Yeah, because they can choose not to put whatever you were looking at. They can choose to not put that in the show just as easily as they put it in. Right.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
So do you curiously, do you watch any of the 24 hour footage of Big Brother? And if you do, is any of it entertaining or Is there a reason it doesn't make the cut.
Chad Colchan
Make like cut downs of it and stuff on websites so that you don't have to. And that's what the show is to too. It's like, here's the best. Here's who wins the challenges and whatever. It's like, who has time for that? Unless you're just a massive super fan. Like, at this point, everything I watch is on two times speed minimum, just to intake as much as possible. Wow.
Matt Rogers
Wow.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Dude. Okay. I. All right. We have to get back to the Colton thing because you. You threw that out there. But before we do.
Chad Colchan
Yeah, yeah.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
This question occurred to me. What would be your archetype if you were going for traders? How would you get on the show? What would your.
Chad Colchan
Your. Well, I applied and it didn't work. To be kind of like a game expert.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Chad Colchan
I don't know. Maybe I could go with like intellectual power weirdo. I could do that.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I think that's just an IPW chad. You got to use the. You got to use the acronym
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
ipw.
Chad Colchan
I love intellectual power weirdo.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
What would be like, okay, so, like, what. Because, like, I look at what Eric is going through right now as like the bad trader who's just such a horrible lia there. I feel like that would be me. So could I apply with that sort of like character type where I would just be like the innocent nice guy who would never lie to you.
Chad Colchan
You are like a tried and true faithful and they need those players on the show. Right. I think what most people don't understand, though, is like, not everybody goes into that show saying, I want to be a trader for sure. But faithful is actually a way harder game to play statistically. And in the mechanics of it, you think, oh, yeah, dude, really?
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
But you don't have to. You don't have to worry about what you're saying. You don't have to.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Most of you are going to get banished. Right.
Chad Colchan
Double about what you're saying, Traders only have to say to everyone, I'm a faithful. That's they have one lie to do and that's it. Faithful have to identify the traders. If you want to play the game in a way that will win the game for you, you have to identify the traders. Then I. And be certain about that. That alone is an impossible task. Right. You then have to be able to get a group of faithful together that you can trust and tell your ideas to and hope that that doesn't isolate you from them and they banish you also hope that a traitor is not in that group is like, he's on to us and they murder you.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Chad Colchan
You have to lie to faithful sometimes about not thinking this person's a traitor or thinking they're okay. You have to lie to traitors sometimes. I mean, it's just the permutations mathematically of how you have to navigate that web are infinite. Traders are very like straight line. It's basically like, don't fight with the other traders and don't do anything weird and you'll win the game. That's basically a trader strategy. And occasionally you have a trader that's like Siri, you know, in season one who's just like a da Vinci of playing these games. I just have never seen anyone like her.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
We haven't seen season one yet, so we literally started. I started three and he started four. So no, it's out there. I mean, by this point, season one is wild.
Chad Colchan
Season one to me is like they invited somebody who is maybe one of the greatest game players in reality television in the history of the genre and said, here's season one of a show that nobody knows anything about. And she was just like, got it. Let me run the table. It was unreal. That season is so good. Wow.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
So you said you can you see if people have the kind of what it takes to be on a reality television show. Ryder and I have been talking about trying to get on either Traders or Amazing Race. Do you see the possibility of us being able to do that?
Chad Colchan
Oh, 100% traders for sure. The celebrity one for sure.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Okay.
Chad Colchan
You should 100% apply. And I mean, whatever. I know you shouldn't even apply. You should be reaching out to whoever you know at NBC and, you know, getting on the show. There's no real application for the celebrity one, but of course. And if you do, let me know.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Well, you've also. Yeah, well, you've also mentioned this a number of times now. I'm so curious, what does an application for a reality show look like?
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
You just have to do a video, right?
Chad Colchan
Yeah. For traders, like for the civilian one, it's essentially one question. It's like name, address, blah, blah, blah, job. But then it's one question, do you want to be a trader or faithful and why? And then you have to put a picture, full body length picture, headshot and a little video and that's it.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Wow.
Chad Colchan
So I mean, and that's another. And you put your social media handles and stuff too. That's kind of like a. A very common thing that I coach most people to do is like Go through your Instagram and archive everything except what makes the producers understand what you will look like in their show. So if you're going into Bachelor, it's like, I want to see some pictures of you in cocktail dresses. I want to see some pictures of you in, like, athletic wear because you'll invariably be on a. A group date that's like a sporting event.
Bowen Yang
Wow.
Chad Colchan
Pictures of you in like a hoodie. What you'll wear in the morning for those shots after they wake up from night one. It's basically like, just look at what is in the show, recreate it in some pictures and make that all that's on your Instagram when you apply for the show, because the producers will look at your Instagram. Same thing for Traders. If you want to be on Traders, you know, have a couple of shots of you and the athletic stuff that you're going to be wearing for the challenges. Have a couple of shots and what you're going to wear to a round table, get some dark lighting, some mood lighting, couple of candles, glass of wine,
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
over the top, breakfast gear.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah.
Chad Colchan
Salmon.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
So what, what, what happens if you're like me and you have no social media? Will you ever be cast?
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
You have a podcast.
Chad Colchan
That would be hard. Yeah. I mean, a podcast is social media, but you, I think for the celebrity one, you do need some kind of a public profile.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Okay, so interesting, because I have no Instagram, no Twitter or whatever the hell it's called now.
Chad Colchan
I literally have no public profile whatsoever. I mean, maybe they would, though. Look, I don't know. I think as a result of the Colton Underwood thing, I think what you're going to see in the next few seasons of the Celebrity Traders, and this is bearing out in the people that are getting calls right now for the next season, in my opinion. I just think it's going to be squeaky clean. There's not going to be anybody with a straining, a restraining order cast like Michael Rapaport. There's not going to be anybody who stalked their co star on another reality show like Colton Underwood. And so maybe having no social media footprint at all is actually a good thing in that regard. You know what I mean?
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
So how did they get cast if they have these backgrounds rounds?
Chad Colchan
This is the question, and this is what I was talking about this season of. Of Traders, in my opinion, is when it's like, oh, full corporate greed machine. It's like every other reality show. Now, Bachelor has had so many scandals like this where like a picture will come out of somebody in high school, in Blackface, Right? Who wins the ring? And then they don't even discuss it at the reunion. And the show is basically saying, it ain't on us. We didn't know. And you're just like, how did you not know? So in this case, it's even more egregious because all that shit's all over the Internet. Those casting producers 100% knew this, and we're just like, well, whatever. Some other people put him on reality shows, so we can, too. But it's like, this stage is so big. The scrutiny is way worse than it's ever been. And it blew up in their face. They have issued no statement about it other than putting out an Instagram post saying, like, these are people, too.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah.
Chad Colchan
Don't bully them.
Capella University Advertiser
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Chad Colchan
Yeah. And it's like, but you cast this guy in your show. What is going on? And I think they have heard loud and clear the backlash. I just don't think they're going to address it. And there's now news coming out about the reunion that Colton supposedly storms off the set. He is there all this wild. But then I'm also looking at that, and I'm like, okay, but is that like a real storm off the set, or is that like a Housewives 90 Day Fiance? Every reunion has one person storm off the set. That's scripted, you know, I don't know. Oh, man.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Wow.
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Are you kidding me?
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Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
All right, so what would you have done differently? Producing this season of traders?
Chad Colchan
No, Colton, first of all, that. That to me is just like the biggest, brightest one.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
He is he.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I'm sorry, is he?
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah. What we can you tell us the whole kind of thing? And also, is he worse than Michael Rapaport? Because we've heard a lot of really bad things about Michael Rapaport too. So, I mean, it's like, I think
Chad Colchan
it's in my mind they're both bad choices, for sure. Rapaport had a restraining order in the 90s. In my opinion, anytime you're making a group psychosocial dynamic game, that disqualifies you from being able to be in those games.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Chad Colchan
I mean, it's just like the liability of it is insane. Right?
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Learn boundaries, right?
Chad Colchan
Yeah, but he's got like, you know, whatever, millions Instagram followers and shit, and they're just kind of looking at it like that. This season two was the first season that they had six players that I called non reality celebrities. That was the other than Housewives. They both had six players, those two groups. And I find that kind of weird. I would have liked them more to be reality celebrities, but whatever.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Wait, you're talking about who are. Who are non reality celebrities?
Chad Colchan
Like, you mean like this season it was Eric Nam, it was Rapaport, Ron Funches. Who am I missing?
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
And you think those. Those as a category they make worse?
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
No. Mark Ballas would count as a reality star, wouldn't he?
Chad Colchan
Yeah, yeah. Mark Ballast is reality.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
So is. So is Kristen. Is reality.
Chad Colchan
Is definitely reality. I know there were three others. I remember Stephen Coletti.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Stephen Coletti.
Chad Colchan
He'd be one Coletti. I put Stephen Coletti in. In the housewives group because he came from one of those early reality kind of dating Laguna.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Laguna Hills or whatever, too. Right.
Chad Colchan
So I thought he would kind of have that place there style. But at any rate. Oh, Taylor Swift's suit.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Oh, right, yeah, the. Yeah, I forget her name. Always Mrs. Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift, yes.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Kelce.
Chad Colchan
Donna Kelce was one of them, and there were two others that I now cannot remember for the life of me, but.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
And you think it just made for a boring. A more boring season or less dynamic?
Chad Colchan
I. I mean, no, I. I don't mind it. I guess I just like, for me, the Traitors is really like the mixed martial arts of reality television, where you get to see, like, Housewives, discipline versus Survivor, discipline versus Bachelor. And I'm like, I want to see which of those games trains players to do this weird thing together better. And I think Bachelor does like. Bachelor basically is just a game of detecting deception. That's the whole thing. And so I think when Bachelor players come in there, they're like, people are like, oh, they just try to find love on reality tv and they way underestimate them. And it's like, no pilot Peter Weber has the things those producers put him through has hardened that mother, and he is going to run this game. I just love that. But wow. In Colton Underwood's case. So do you guys know the story of what happened on his season?
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I do. I, I, I kind of vaguely know that at the end, it got very bad with him and, and whoever he picked or.
Chad Colchan
Yes. I can give you. In my head, I'm like, I can give you a quick breakdown of it. And I'm like, this is going to take 20 minutes.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Okay.
Chad Colchan
This is the basic breakdown of Colton Underwood. He is a top three finisher on his season of the Bachelorette. His Bachelorette was this woman named Becca Kufrin.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Oh, I'm sorry. So he wasn't the star. It wasn't the Bachelor after that.
Chad Colchan
But how he got the job as the Bachelor was. It was up to him. And the, the guys who finished. Or he was top four. Sorry. And the guys. Two other guys who finished in the top three with him were both, like, super viable candidates to be the Bachelor. Supposedly the story is per his own telling. He walked into Mike Fleiss, the creator of the Bachelor's office, and said, I know you're talking these other two guys, but I'll do anything you want. I'll give you the best TV you can imagine. And they gave him the job, kind of. The rumor is many of the producers knew that he was likely a closeted gay man and they were hoping to induce a nervous breakdown on camera.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Oh, God.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Shit.
Chad Colchan
Which they did do in his season. He performed an act. This was also an executive producer, Alon Gale's last season on that show. He was kind of the mastermind of the whole franchise for a while. He created Bachelor in Paradise. He got Colton Underwood basically so flustered at one point that he runs into the night and jumps over this fence. And that moment is collectively known as the fence jump amongst all of us in the fourth audience. And Chris Harrison is then sent out into the night. Colton Colton, like, yelling for him and shit. And it was wild, right? So that season ends. He has this ring winner named Cassie Randolph. It kind of ends in, like a muddy. Are we together? He dumps two of his other candidates. So there's like no final rose ceremony. Exactly. It was kind of like a mess of an end of a season structurally. But after they rotate out of the show, that relationship starts to fall apart. He begins stalking her. He Puts a tracking device on her car. He creates a fake identity from which online identity from which he is messaging Cassie Randolph, her brother, I believe, and himself acting like he, too, is getting stalked.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Oh, my God.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
So it's, like, diabolical.
Chad Colchan
Yes, exactly. Exactly. And all that goes down, and then the news of that comes out, and he also, relatively, around the same time, comes out and says, I'm gay. And that's. He never like, directly said, that's why this is happening. But it did seem to kind of like, let's forget about this. Sweep that out of the carpet. And this is the new thing now. Netflix gives him a show called Coming Out. Colton. It was a show literally all about him coming out and going around West Hollywood and dating and stuff. He gets married. I believe they've adopted a child to him and his husband. And as all that's going on, he's trying to rehab his reality TV career. He gets on masked singer. He hosts, co hosts this show called Are youe My First With Caitlin.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Reality show. He hasn't done the hell.
Chad Colchan
Yeah.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Did he start as, like, a football player? Like, what? Yes.
Chad Colchan
He made a practice team for the Seattle Seahawks and was. Was on that for, like, two or three months. Kind of like almost NFL players are. That's kind of a trope almost in Bachelor Nation.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Wow.
Chad Colchan
But, yeah. And then, you know, for whatever reason, he. He winds up on Traders. He clearly is, like, hungry for fame and wants to be in reality tv. Yeah. And he's just like, if you watch that show. Are you my first. He's a co host of it. It's. I would encourage you to watch it. I'll leave it at that. It's like, it's so hard to watch. He's. He's not good at that job. But, you know, I think this is probably going to be his last shot on reality TV for a long time. And then you also have to ask yourself, like, why he doesn't bring enough to the table to warrant an exception for this type of behavior. It's not like, you know, some actors are rumored to be, like, just monsters on set, but if they're in your movie, it opens to $100 million. So a studio's like, well, we kind of don't care. He's in the movie, you know. Right. Colton Underwood. Ain't that in reality tv?
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right. He's not bringing it. So who. Who is playing a good game this season, in your opinion?
Chad Colchan
Rob Roush.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
How great is Rob doing?
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Pretty amazing, right? Like, unreal.
Chad Colchan
Did you guys watch him on Love's blind season.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
No, we don't know any of these people.
Chad Colchan
Or. Yeah, he was on season six. Okay, so how to explain it? Season six of Love Island USA was transformative for the franchise. It was the most watched season of that show of all time by a giant magnitude.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
For the US Version or for all of them?
Chad Colchan
I believe for all of them, Definitely for the US Version. Prior to that, the US Version had kind of floundered, but they got a new host in, Ariana Maddox, who comes from Vanderpump Rules. She's like, a super fan of the show. Fantastic at that job. She's almost like a. An Alan Cumming type like character at times in the show. It's really fascinating. But the. The talent they had on that season, including Rob Roush, was just, like, elevated to a level you'd never really seen. And Rob Roush turned in that show also is like Big Brother. They live in this compound.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I've seen that one.
Ryan Seacrest
I've seen.
Chad Colchan
But not.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Not the US version.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
We.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
We watch UK and Australia, and by episode 62, it's like, I can't do this anymore. Like, there's so many episodes.
Chad Colchan
I love it. To me, it's like the baseball or basketball season where you got games every night, baby, I love so much to watch. Yeah. It's fantastic, though. But Rob Roush turned in this performance that was like, what is going on here? Is he doing performance art? What the. Is this?
Ryan Seacrest
He.
Chad Colchan
He did a thing where he was sitting in a daybed talking to this woman about. Invariably on that show, the conversations will get as deep as, like, what's your favorite type of candy?
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Chad Colchan
He was having a conversation like that, and just a spider is, like, crawling across his face, and he's not. He's like, I don't even know it's there. I was like, what's going on? What is that guy doing? And I was just mesmerized by him. His weird outfit choices, his turns of phrases. And when he got on Traders, I was like, I can't wait to see this. This is going to be very weird. And it turns out he's the greatest player of all time.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
He's a. He's. We were talking about this. He's so smart. And the second I saw him sit down and play chess and I was watching his hands move, I was like, oh, he knows what he's doing. Like, he actually. He's thinking several moves ahead.
Chad Colchan
Yeah.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
And then it turns out he's a secret genius, this guy.
Chad Colchan
Yes.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Unbelievable.
Chad Colchan
And then you watch his Tiktoks and he's like stomping around the swamps of Florida picking up snakes that are like biting him in the face and shit. And he's like, oh, that one got me in the lip. Anyway, this is my favorite snake. Da da da da da. And you're like, how is this the same guy who's like, gaming one of the most complex reality shows ever?
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
So it's ste. It's Steve Irwin meets, you know, a James Bond villain kind of all wrapped
Chad Colchan
in together, meets like a Tyler Cameron. He gives off like kind of a. A standard himbo kind of player style. But, like, he's not that.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
No, no.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Well, do you think he would be as good if he were a faithful?
Chad Colchan
It's hard to say because faithfuls aren't like, they're just not given the opportunity to play in the same way. Like, if you look at. In. Was it the most recent episode with the jack in the boxes?
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chad Colchan
Where he makes those two choices. Where Eric crawls out of the box is like, what do we do? We put down Tara Lipinski's name every time on the.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Every time.
Chad Colchan
We don't put ourselves on the. The short list. Both of those choices are, like, statistically exactly correct. We, on our Patreon, we watch the show and I always pause anytime somebody has to make a choice and I say, like, here's exactly what you do. And he did both of the things exactly as I said. And I was like, oh, this guy's going to dominate the game. But, like, faithful don't get those. Those same kind of choices to affect the game. They're kind of just there, floating around. And the. This is like kind of, I think, the flaw in the game, the real game of a faithful, if you are actually trying to win, like, the game of Traders is not eliminating traitors. You actually don't ever want to do that until the very final phase. You want to identify them, keep them there, and essentially hamstring them. Like Lisa Rinna this season.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Wow.
Chad Colchan
There was a moment where basically everybody knew she was a traitor, right? And they vote her out. Yeah, that's wrong. You want her there till the end so you can take her to the final fire pit and be like, okay, you're a traitor by Faithful win. You know, you don't ever want to get Traders out until the final round.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
That makes so much sense.
Bowen Yang
That's what.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
That's what I didn't understand because I didn't know the rules of the game. I was like, wait, they can't ever Vote all the traders out because they're just going to keep recruiting. So you actually, you just inevitably. Because what's weird is to me is like so often they seem to just vote out people they don't like or they don't get along with. But actually that based on like, that actually makes sense kind of in a way based on what you're saying. Like you just get rid of the faithful you don't trust and don't like or don't want to be around and stick with the faithfuls. Yeah, that's so interesting.
Chad Colchan
In terms of game theory, this is how I would play it if I could. But I think even saying these things like in the context of being in the show would probably get you eliminated from one side or the other.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Chad Colchan
But basically what you want to set up, in my opinion, is a system that completely neuters traders ability to do anything if you're faithful. That would include two things, in my opinion, which would be like on day one, before anyone is selected as a trader and you have what is called reality, where they let the players go into the castle and meander around, talk to each other. I would get everybody together and I would say, look, here's the deal. Right now we're all faithful. So these are two things I want to institute as a faithful that we can all agree on as faithfuls. One, we're gonna have a buddy system right now. Randomly, we're going to select pairs of two, that buddy can never be let out of your sight. Statistically, it's almost impossible that two traders will be picked from two people who are randomly buddied.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Chad Colchan
So that will make it impossible for them to go sneak off and get the tarot cards or have private conversations or whatever.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
It's.
Chad Colchan
So do we all agree to this or not?
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I said this exact same thing because there was one episode where someone asked somebody to talk alone, Candace, like kick somebody out. And I was like, why would you ever walk away from that person? Just say, nope, I am never leaving your side.
Bowen Yang
Yeah, exactly.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Because you should never leave anybody alone if you can help it.
Chad Colchan
Absolutely.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Oh my God, that makes so much sense.
Chad Colchan
I think that's a way to kind of like, you know, invalidate a lot of what traders are trying to do. There's also murder in plain sight. You know, roughly. Now, I, I don't know what the statistics would bear out, but either in round three or four, you're going to have a murder in plain sight. If you ex suspect that's happening, you could institute. And again, this would have to be laid out on day one to, like, teach everybody, basically. But you can institute what I would call statute protocol. Everyone just sits in a chair, completely silent and still looking forward, not moving.
Ryan Seacrest
That's it.
Chad Colchan
Good luck with your murder in plain sight. Terrible reality television. The producers will hate you, but it breaks that element of the game. It completely invalidates it. And there's a lot of stuff in traders like that that I think you could do as a faithful.
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Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
They really don't want you. Yeah. They really don't want you on this show.
Chad Colchan
But, like, that's, you know, I. I come up with these strategies because, like, the game needs to be honed still.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Chad Colchan
And there are these gaping holes in it that could be exploited in any way you want, really.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Chad Colchan
And one of them is that it's the traitors thing. It's like they don't. Sandra was just on a podcast talking to Carolyn Weiger. Sandra from season two, she's a big survivor champion. She won two survivor seasons back to back, which I think still has never been done again. She basically was saying, like, the producers don't like what they call trader angel strategy, which is a faithful kind of teams up with a traitor. And they both agree we're going to take each other to the end game because the real game being played is how long can you last in the show? How much screen time can you get? Can you get famous enough or be remembered enough from the season to be invited back to another season or an all star season or another reality show or whatever? And so that's really what you're doing. You. You want to basically be aligned. If you're a faithful, you want to be aligned with the trader. If you're a traitor, you want to be aligned with the faithful. And that's the game they've designed. They don't want that to be the game they've designed, but that is what it is.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
So that moment with Colton and Lisa Rinna was actually the moment that could have broken the game if they had. Because. Because couldn't. I know you hate him, but couldn't he have said he did the. He kind of did the right thing by saying, like, I know you're a traitor. If she had said to him, okay, I'm with you. They could have run the game from that point on. Right.
Chad Colchan
Unfortunately, like, they both were bad players.
Ryan Seacrest
Right.
Chad Colchan
You also have to kind of be good at. At what the game is. You know, to do that. My. My kind of like dream in terms of coaching people to go in this game, which I'm trying to put together currently, I'm. I'm curious if I'll be able to do it or not, but basically, I want to send in a team of multiple people, at least five, who all know they're going into the game. And they have kind of a pre made agreement that says probably one of us, statistically will be a trader. If that's the case, the first breakfast after the traders are selected, one of us will say this code word, pass the bagel, whatever. And if we say that, it means we're the traitor. And we all agree now that whoever that is, we support them as faithfuls, and that trader will protect us in the turret, and we will run the table of this game. There is no way that could be stopped.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
But then who wins at the end?
Chad Colchan
Whoever. I mean, that's what we have to determine. Like, what is win? You know, to me, win is make it to the fire pit, basically, that you've been in the show the whole time.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Well, you also win the pot of 62, $383 that you've.
Chad Colchan
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Season three, I think there were four winners. Right. And I remember Gabby Wendy making posts like, where's my $50,000? Yeah, she makes that in an afternoon with an Instagram reel, you know? Right.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Oh, God.
Matt Rogers
This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
Bowen Yang
This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
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Bowen Yang
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Bowen Yang
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Matt Rogers
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It's so good.
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Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Okay, so who do you think is going to win?
Chad Colchan
What do you think's going to happen?
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
What's the end of traders?
Chad Colchan
God, I don't know. There's a. I mean unfortunately I feel like it's very hard to say because you're only given the Edit. And I do think they're. They're good at that, like, kind of misdirecting you. I want to say Rob Roush wins, but there's just a part of me that's like, come on. Candace voted for him twice. Nobody saw that. Nobody thinks that means anything. I think people know he's a traitor, and I think he's going to make it to the finals. Faithfuls might kick him out, and that'll be that. Maybe Eric wins. I can see that possibly happening. I have no idea.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I kind of would love it if Eric won. Just because I see myself in him so much. I'm just like, I would be such that guy. I just kind of am rooted for him. Like, the fact that he, like, reluctant traitor. He's like, we have to kill someone tonight. Oh, geez. I'm like, that would be so good. I can't do that.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
So then do you see Rob, however he finishes the show, do you see him as the next Bachelor or on Dancing with the Stars or. I mean, is this kind of like, is he the next big thing in reality?
Chad Colchan
I mean, what they're doing in the Bachelor franchise right now, they skipped a Bachelor iteration. So the cycle of that show is generally January as a Bachelor. March is a Bachelorette. Sometime in the summer is Bachelor in Paradise. And then after that is a golden Bachelor iteration, either Golden Bachelor or Bachelorette. That's the cycle of that year long show. They skipped the Bachelor this year. There is no cycle. So the whole thing is now broken. Because the narrative you're watching is generally speaking, a player on Bachelor gets into the top three, gets her heart broken, becomes the Bachelorette, and then all of the players from those two seasons are now in Bachelor in Paradise. And then the golden Bachelor is kind of its own end of the year cycle with its own player pool, although those players are now being put on Paradise 2. Without that kind of like, that break in the narrative cycle is definitely like a reset. I. There's no everybody in this next season with Taylor, Frankie Paul will be completely new. We've never seen them in the franchise before. She obviously is completely new and is a giant reality star in her own right. So I think it's going to kind of revitalize the franchise. If they stick with that idea of casting a super famous person as the lead or a reality star as the lead. And they cast Rob Roush as the Bachelor next January, that will be the biggest dating show ever made. Really? Yeah. He's gigantic, especially in, like, the dating world. And I do believe he is single. But there are like some other shows that are starting to kind of nip at the heels of even the format of the Bachelor. Alex Cooper, who hosts Call Her Daddy that. I don't know if you guys know that podcast.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I know the podcast, sure.
Chad Colchan
She's producing reality shows now. She's doing one for Netflix called who Wants to Marry Harry? I think not the English royal, but Harry Jowsey, the most successful male reality player of all time.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
What's he from? What is.
Chad Colchan
Yeah, from what he was on Too Hot to Handle. He was on Perfect Match. He's big Netflix reality universe.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
What's his name?
Chad Colchan
Harold. What, Harry Jowsey.
Ryan Seacrest
I don't know.
Chad Colchan
He has a big podcast and he has been very explicit about the fact that he created characters and applied to all these shows as different characters multiple times.
Scrubs and LoseWeightNow Advertiser
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Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
All these people look the same.
Chad Colchan
There's a look. They're pro athletes. That's part of it.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
You know, pro reality athletes. I love it.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Okay, so somebody comes to you tomorrow and they say, all right, Chad, here's $100 million. Go create the next big reality show.
Chad Colchan
Yeah.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
What do you make?
Chad Colchan
I'm probably going a date. Oh, shit. I have multiple of these ideas in mind, but with a hundred million dollars, I don't think 100. Well, maybe it would be. This is the show I really want to make. It's a perpetual dating show called the Dating Pool. They are all the players, 20 of the the hottest guys and girls. I would make them all bisexual as well, so that any mathematical combination of romance can happen. Of course, they essentially live in a pool house that is fantastic and nice and they have a butler. There are no bad conditions here. Once you come into the show, you are locked into the show for the rest of your life, barring two ways out. One, you get voted out of the show by the audience, and that vote takes place once every week. And then a new person replaces you. Or two, you get engaged to someone on the show and you leave in love. Those are the only ways out of the show. This is a show that shoots over the course of a week and airs every Friday forever, 52 weeks a year. That's the show I'd want to make.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
That's pretty great. It's sort of like Running man, except there's no death.
Take Five Oil Change Advertiser
There's just.
Chad Colchan
Yeah, exactly.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Marriage.
Chad Colchan
It's basically like. I mean, reality TV shows are basically the modern day soap opera. If you look at like, Love island has like an app for all the fans that you get to Vote on people. Who's your favorite couple?
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Chad Colchan
That app in season seven, which aired last summer, crashed like 10 times because so many people were like, locked into the show. And to me, everybody I've ever pitched this idea to, they're like, well, you can't do that. That production is too crazy. I'm like, love island has a show every day.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
All over the world.
Chad Colchan
Every day.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Nine versions of it. Yeah, all over the world.
Chad Colchan
Yeah. So it's like the production model exists to do something like this. I think it's just a matter of, like, there's still a lot of old guard producers in reality TV who came from those early 2000s that, like, see it. Exactly. They can't have their cell phones. No, no, no, no. That's another thing. I'm like, why let them have their cell phones and make social media and interact with people while they're shooting the show?
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Right.
Chad Colchan
You don't think that's the level of engagement that would produce? Would never be topped, in my opinion. Wow.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Well, Chad, can't thank you enough for so much information that we need to come back. Can you please come back? Please come back. We're doing Survivor next.
Chad Colchan
You guys have no idea how cool it is for me. Boy meets world occupies a very specific space in my life.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Oh, my God.
Chad Colchan
Absolute pleasure.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I mean, you are a Machiavellian genius. This is. It's really wonderful. And like, yeah, I need this in my life because I am still, like I said, such a naive reality show person.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
We're neophytes.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah, we're neophytes. And I feel like a rube. And that's really nice to have like, your. Your education. So we're doing Survivor next and we would love to have season 50. Yeah, we're gonna do season 50. So we'd love to have you back and discuss some. Survivor will never seen it or he watched one season years ago and first
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
season with Naked Guy was the only one I saw years ago.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Survivor is the only reality show I watch, so it's the only one I actually know a little bit. So, yeah, we're gonna be start. We're gonna start that next week. So in a couple. In a couple weeks. We'd love to have you back and talk to.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
You are officially now, since you love acronyms, you're the rty.
Chad Colchan
What's the rty?
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
That's reality television. Yoda. Thank you very much. That is official rty.
Take Five Oil Change Advertiser
You are.
Chad Colchan
Oh, yes, that's you.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Any fantasy books behind you on the shelf?
Chad Colchan
What do you think I saw Dune,
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
But I'm trying to see what you.
Chad Colchan
What you read. Where should I begin? Right now I'm reading a bunch of weird about human consciousness. Consciousness. But yes, there's. Oh, Dragon Riders of Per.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
And that.
Take Five Oil Change Advertiser
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Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Oh, that's cool.
Chad Colchan
Wheel of Time is somewhere up here. Okay.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
You Robert Jordan fan.
Chad Colchan
I mean, it meandered in the middle.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
It meandered in the middle.
Chad Colchan
I was. Yeah, exactly. I was. I was a Robert Jordan fan when I was in high school. Yeah.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
You know why it meandered those. Because originally he sold it as six books and it was doing so well, the publishers came to him and said, double it.
Chad Colchan
Yeah. Have you guys watched the Wheel of Time show?
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Halfway through.
Chad Colchan
I couldn't.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't do it anymore.
Chad Colchan
It hurt my soul. My. My biggest pet peeve in these fantasy series is when, like, everybody's dressed in something that just came off the rack. Yeah. That whole show is that I'm like, what is this?
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I also love how they go into the ways and it's nice and bright
Chad Colchan
and I'm like, yeah, exactly.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
There's a darkness.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
What are you doing?
Chad Colchan
Yeah, it's just. It was misguided.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
That's all right. It seemed. I can already tell we're all going to be friends, so we're good.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah.
Chad Colchan
Yeah. The second we saw a magic card, we were like, oh, funny thing. You have no idea. I. I just went out to dinner the other night with an old friend that I hadn't seen in a couple years, and somehow, immediately within the first five minutes, the conversation went to Magic the Gathering. We're like, oh, yeah, no, I'm 100% obsessed again.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah, there you go.
Take Five Oil Change Advertiser
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Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
It's such a time suckage, though. There's so many times where I'm just like, I can't. I'll be building decks for like three days. And then I'm like, what am I doing?
Pizza Hut Advertiser
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Chad Colchan
This?
Matt Rogers
Just all this.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah, I know. It's so fun, though.
Chad Colchan
So much.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
All right, well, Chad. Yes. We'll definitely have you back and thank you, Chad. Are you based in la? Are you in la?
Chad Colchan
Yeah.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Oh, are you guys in la?
Chad Colchan
Yeah.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
So we could. We could conceivably have a magic night.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Get together.
Chad Colchan
Please let me know.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Done and done. All right, good.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
All right. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah.
Chad Colchan
All right, Bye. Bye.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I love that we keep discovering this reality expert world.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Well, you know what it is? We always talk about microworlds.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Yeah.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
And first of all, the idea of looking at reality TV as sports.
Chad Colchan
Yeah.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Is so interesting.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Or it's even more than that. It's more like Game theory. Like, it's more like.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Well, you said Running man, which is kind of true.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
It's like some kind of weird strategy. God, it's so.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
It's.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
It's really the way to look at it. It's really the smartest way to look at it. I just am so, like, I'm just.
Chad Colchan
Yeah.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
I'm not cynical about. I still, like, kind of want to believe that, like, people are good and they're not pretending they're going to find love on the Bachelor. That's what they want.
Chad Colchan
Good for you. You found love.
Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
No, it's not the case. Such a world that when you look at it different, I mean, again, he looks at it from the side, and it's a whole different shape. So.
Take Five Oil Change Advertiser
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Ryder (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Oh, it's so interesting to hear all this stuff.
Matt (Pod Meets Twirled Host)
Well, that's going to do it for this episode of Pod Meets Twirled. Join us next time as we continue our journey through season four of Traitors, a show in which, as Shakespeare said in his Scottish play, fair is foul and foul is fair.
Matt Rogers
This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
Bowen Yang
This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
Matt Rogers
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Bowen Yang
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Bowen Yang
And finally, what if your WI fi was, like, the smartest WI fi?
Matt Rogers
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Bowen Yang
Bottom line, Xfinity is smart and reliable. You deserve the peace of mind of having WI fi that's got your back.
Matt Rogers
Xfinity. Imagine that.
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Date: February 21, 2026
Podcast: Pod Meets World
Host(s): Matt, Ryder (Pod Meets Twirl’d/World)
Guest: Chad Kultgen (Game of Roses podcast co-host, author of "How to Win the Bachelor")
In this special crossover episode titled "Pod Meets Twirl'd: Reality Tactics with Chad Kultgen," the hosts dive deep into the mechanics, psychology, and cultural impact of reality TV with expert guest Chad Kultgen. Drawing on his experiences as a reality TV strategist, author, and podcaster, Chad discusses his strategies for “playing” reality TV, reveals the behind-the-scenes machinations of producers, and examines the evolution and future of the genre. The hosts, self-described reality TV "neophytes," ask pointed questions about authenticity, game theory, and the real goals of modern contestants. The conversation focuses heavily on "The Traitors" (particularly season 4), the broader reality TV landscape, casting, and the notion of reality TV as an evolving competitive sport and media empire.
This episode gives listeners an insider’s perspective on the mechanics, evolution, and hidden strategies of reality TV —especially "The Traitors" and "The Bachelor" franchise. Chad Kultgen’s analysis reveals the genre’s shift towards professionalization, the paramount importance of social media followings, and the behind-the-scenes manipulations by producers and critics. The hosts’ curiosity and willingness to challenge their own assumptions guide a funny, revealing deep-dive into the realities of “reality” TV, ending on an enthusiastic invitation for Chad’s return for their "Survivor" deep-dive.
Next Episode Teaser:
The hosts plan to cover "Survivor" next—with Chad Kultgen ("RTY - Reality Television Yoda") invited back for more game analysis, strategy, and behind-the-scenes storytelling.