Here for All the Reasons: Why We Watch the Bachelor

The Bachelor franchise has been around for over two decades and amassed an army of fans across its four shows. While contestants battle to prove they’re here for the right reasons, Bachelor Nation is confronting their own question—Why are we here and why can’t we stop watching?

Devout franchise fans Ilana Masad and Stevie Seibert Desjarlais pose the big questions to Bachelor Nation: Who are we? What does the franchise mean to us? And seriously, why on earth can we not stop watching?

For years, fans of the Bachelor franchise have laughed with and at contestants; cried along with their heartbreaks; tuned in again and again each season despite feeling betrayed by producer and contestant decisions alike; and celebrated, alone and together, the love (or loveless) lives of perfect strangers on our television screens. And we wonder, really, why? With reality TV broadly characterized as “trash TV,” why are so many intelligent, funny, and critical people watching and discussing it?

Here For All the Reasons seeks to answer this question, diving into the complex negotiations of gender, racial, and class politics that arise within the fandom. This anthology is a polyvocal exploration of Bachelor Nation for Bachelor Nation. So, will you accept our rose and join the chat?

Contributors include: Iftin Abshir • AN • Joy Alicia • Samantha Allen • Stevie Seibert Desjarlais • Claire Fallon • Ness Ilene Garza • Sarah Gerard • Emma Gray • Carolyn Huynh • Alana Hope Levinson • Jeanna Kadlec • Erin Kayata • Shir Kehila • Ilana Masad • Jessica Masterson • Tamara MC, PhD • Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez • Julia Moser • Milo R. Muise • Zainab Omaki • Renée Reizman • Emma Rohloff • Samantha Paige Rosen • Adriane Stoner • Courtney Tenz • Chrissy Tolley • Alisa Ungar-Sargon • Sophie Vershbow • Serena Zets 

Ilana Masad is a writer of fiction, nonfiction, and criticism whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NPR, The Atlantic, and many more. She holds a doctorate from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and is the author of the novels All My Mother’s Lovers and, most recently, Beings.

Stevie K. Seibert Desjarlais is an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Her teaching and research interests include representations of gender, race, and class in US literature, film, and pop culture. Her writing appears in the Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Journal of Popular Film and Television, and Pedagogy. Even though she now lives in Nebraska—with her husband, two dogs, and cat—Stevie is a southern Californian at heart.

Carolyn Huynh loves writing about messy Asian women who never learn from their mistakes. The Fortunes of Jaded Women is her debut novel and was a Good Morning America book club pick and selected as one of the best books of 2022 by NPR. Her sophomore book, The Family Recipe, came out in spring 2025, and her third book is forthcoming fall 2026. After living up and down the west coast, she now resides in Los Angeles with her partner and her demon girl dog. When she's not writing, Carolyn daydreams about having iced coffee on a rooftop in Ho Chi Minh City.

Samantha Allen is the author of Patricia Wants to Cuddle, Roland Rogers Isn’t Dead Yet, and Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States.

Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez was born in Managua, Nicaragua, but calls Nashville, Tennessee, home. She is a feminist, theologian, storyteller, and advocate.

Mojica Rodríguez got her Masters of Divinity from Vanderbilt University’s Divinity school in the Spring of 2015. She is a respected storyteller who has traveled across the USA telling stories to countless college and university students. Mojica Rodríguez merges storytelling with pedagogy to help folks understand the larger forces at play, also known as systemic oppression.

As a first generation student and immigrant, her passion is in naming the experiences of first generation students navigating systems not built for them. As the oldest immigrant daughter, she explores the ways that sexism impedes the development of girls and women. As a graduate from a white-serving institution, she names systemic racism as a roadblock for success, and decolonizes western notions of said success. Prisca also explores the relationship between religious trauma through Christianity and white supremacy within the USA empire, which is where her theological training really shines.

To date she has participated in the Young Adult anthology Nevertheless, We Persisted. Recently Prisca also participated in an anthology edited by Lynda Lopez titled, The Fearless Rise and Powerful Resonance of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

She started the platform Latina Rebels in 2013, and currently it boasts over 300,000 organic followers online. She has been featured in Telemundo, Univision, Mitú, Huffington Post Latino Voices, Guerrilla Feminism, Latina Mag, NBC, MTV, Cosmopolitan, Everyday Feminism, PopSugar, and the list goes on. Because of Prisca’s extensive body of work, she has also worked with the United Methodist Church, National Endowment of the Arts, Smithsonian, NALAC, Planned Parenthood, and was even invited to the Obama White House in 2016.

She is unapologetic, angry, and uncompromising about protecting and upholding the stories of Latinx communities. Que viva la gente!

Currently, she has two full-length books published through Seal Press, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group.