No Big Brother preseason would be complete without the biting Houseguest analysis we’ve come to expect from BB12’s Matt Hoffman and with the Big Brother 18 cast in his hands again this season I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. Please welcome the Kathy-Slayer back to BBN and enjoy his take on this year’s newbies. – Matthew Boyer
Welcome loyal Big Brother fans to the most shameful three months of the year! What new depths will we sink to on BB18?…I can’t wait to see! By the time you read this, it’s likely that 30% of the cast’s mug shots will have already been leaked on the internet, and another 20% will have been fired from their jobs due to badgering, hateful fans.
In recent years my fellow alumni have been taking quite the stand against talking disparagingly about houseguests before we actually “know” them. All of this political correctness sure puts a damper in my yearly fun with Big Brother Network…but don’t worry, Hoffmanics – I’ve decided to be here again for those of you who get the joke. So kick back, briefly take the sticks out of your collective asses, and let’s get to the [bum-bum-bummmmm!] 4TH ANNUAL MATT HOFFMAN BIG BROTHER NETWORK CAST ASSESSMENT!!!
(all I had to go off of this time were the CBS.com bios and Jeff Schroeder’s brief interview videos on CBS Live, so cut me some slack when I’m wrong like always)
Bronte D’Acquisto
Make sure the “mute” button on your remote control is in full working order, because you’re going to need it all season long with this one. Just watch 10 seconds of Bronte’s video, and no further explanation is required. Bronte lists some of her favorite activities as solving math problems and looking at adoptable dogs (NOTE: adoptable dogs…don’t try showing Bronte your dog if it isn’t available for rescue, because that will really piss her off). When she tells Jeff she is a mathematician, Jeff challenges her with the doctorate-level problem, “what is 9×9”, to which she responds, “89” (if you have a calculator or a 2nd-grade education, you’ll follow the humor in this).
Bronte thinks she has the whole summer figured out with a “numbers-game” based strategy coupled with lies and psychological manipulation, but she is most certainly over-thinking this and making it all seem too easy. This will ultimately lead to the destruction of her game. How do I know?…because she’s playing it exactly like some other loser who already tried it.
Paulie Calafiore
And it begins…the siblings. Dammit. Why, CBS, why?! Paulie is the “big brother” (HAHAHAHA…no) of Season 16’s heartthrob Cody Calafiore. Paulie is also a DJ by trade, landing him a secure hold on the title “Least Successful Reality TV DJ Named ‘Paulie’”. When asked if he is going to come clean about who his brother is, he says he isn’t sure. Oh, I should also mention that he looks like Cody, talks like Cody, and has a “Calafiore” tattoo on his ribs, so keeping hush-hush about his family bond should be a rock-solid strategy if he chooses to impose it.
Will Paulie have the good looks, mundane personality, and home-wrecking tendencies to rocket him into the finals like his brother? We shall see!
Zakiyah Everette
Zakiyah tugged at my super-fan heartstrings right away by saying she has been a fan since Season 3…but after that it was all a blur of boredom. I feel there is some crazy in this one waiting to emerge, but the interview brought nothing out of her. She did say that she teaches three year olds, which will likely put her in familiar mental company once locked inside the house with her new roommates.
Zakiyah’s life motto is “You only live once!”, which is an ideology that could cost her America’s Favorite votes from all the Hindu, Buddhist, and Hare Krishna Big Brother fans.
Natalie Negrotti
Natalie’s interview was entertaining, but I absolutely lost several brain cells upon completion and am much, much dumber now (fair warning, for those of you who haven’t checked it out yet). The first 60 seconds were dedicated to glitter and the color pink, if that is at all telling. I got a bit of a Rachel Reilly vibe from this one, and I say that in the most positive and “reality TV trainwreck-ish” of ways, so she should be fun to watch.
Natalie tells Jeff that her strategy out of the gate is to create an “all girl’s allowance”…not a typo. She cites her favorite activities as “shopping, and online shopping” and “looking at puppy videos on Instagram, and online”. Once the live feeds launch, Natalie can add “embarrassing myself, and embarrassing myself online” to her list of interests.
Victor Arroyo
Okay, this guy is the worst. I’m calling it here and now. If the last name “Arroyo” didn’t give you casting chills, check out his life motto: “Get my money, develop my body, and get women.” I can’t make this stuff up.
I should probably just stop trying to be funny with this dude right now, because he’s killing it all on his own. Oh, and in case you couldn’t have guessed, he works in a gym. Oddly enough, there’s a big part of me that sees Victor going pretty far in this game.
Glenn Garcia
Meet Glenn – here to fill our token “old person who can’t win” role. Glenn has a fiancé, but still plans to use flirting as a strategy tactic if need be…great play for this 50 year-old, balding, prime physical specimen with a Bronx accent that would make any woman melt like butter. This interview was difficult to pay attention to due to the unsettling nature of Glenn and Jeff wearing the exact same pink button-down shirt.
Adding to the creep-factor was Glenn’s never-shifting eye contact with Jeff, all the while having his arm around him in the seat they were sharing. I shouldn’t be so hard on Glenn…he’s just practicing that flirt game we’ll be undoubtedly be watching all summer.
Bridgette Dunning
Poor, sweet Bridgette doesn’t have any clue what she is getting herself into. By her own admission, she doesn’t lie, doesn’t have a mean side, and thinks she will be loved by America. When Bridgette gets out of the house, she’s probably going to learn about this thing called “the internet” where no one is loved by America.
Most of Bridgette’s interview was her giggling while Jeff asked hard-hitting strategic questions like, “What do you think of people who jog in place at stop lights?” I wish I was kidding. Unlike nearly every other contestant who quoted their “life motto” from a stupid motivational poster with a picture of an eagle or a sunset on it, Bridgette (likely unknowingly) gained some extra points by taking inspiration from Napoleon Dynamite.
Jozea Flores
The first thing I noticed in Jozea’s interview was his positioning on the couch in relation to Jeff. He was seated in a way that almost said, “I don’t really want to be talking to you right now”. I think Jeff took that as Jozea playing hard-to-get, because he started kind of hitting on Jozea – telling him how fantastic he looked and saying how cool it would be if they had the exact same outfit on. Polite laughter ensued from Jozea, and although this was one of the worst interviews content-wise, the dynamic was intriguing.
Glenn from the Bronx is going to be so jealous when he sees how much more Jeff was into Jozea than him. Jozea is also the fourth Latin American cast member this season, so props to CBS on their diversity efforts…and my apologies on the network’s behalf to Donald Trump who had to cancel the Big Brother series recording that he had set on his DVR for the summer.
Tiffany Rousso
The second of two siblings cast this season, Tiffany is the sister of Season 17’s third place finisher Vanessa Rousso. While I’m sure the Vanessa connection helped get Tiffany’s foot in the door, I did appreciate the fact that she was a long-time fan of Big Brother.
She definitely shares both the voice and mannerisms of Vanessa, and I can’t imagine this one won’t get called out pretty quickly…but she also has the conversational skills of a pineapple, so maybe she just won’t talk enough to get busted. It took Jeff literally 90 seconds of very obvious prying to get Tiffany to explain who her sister was in relation to the game. I love myself a good, sloppy, catastrophic, mess of a player, and Tiffany’s lack of charisma seems like a dull watch and a setup for a pre-jury boot.
Corey Brooks
Corey is a baseball coach whose favorite activities include “taking bro pics” and who says he wants to be a good influence to the 13/14 year olds that make up his team…and what better way to cast yourself in the most positive light than to go on a show whose most newsworthy headlines in recent years were for racism, homophobia, and misogyny! As seems to be typical of his male interviews, Jeff (who definitely is not overcompensating for past homophobic criticisms) once again jumps right in by complimenting the good looks of the man he is interviewing.
Speaking of Jeff’s interviews, this is maybe the oddest one of them all. If you want to hear about Corey’s game strategy or his favorite past players or what he’ll do if he wins the half-million, you’ve come to the wrong place. But don’t go anywhere if you want to know how many days it takes Corey to grow tired of his favorite songs and if Corey can solve one of Jeff’s riddles about a carton of eggs.
Like a less-refined James Lipton of Inside the Actors Studio, Jeff has his own final question that he asks of each of the houseguests before they depart: “Would you rather win the game and be hated by America, or lose and be loved by America”. Corey, however, is the only contestant interviewed that said he’d rather lose and be loved. At first I thought, “awwww, what a good guy”…but then he went on to explain that it was because he thought he could make a lot more money once he got off the show. Ha! Sorry to burst your bubble, Corey, but that award-winning smile and gentlemanly charm isn’t going to get you any more money Periscoping to your social media fan base. You should’ve stuck with the “I’d rather be a rich a-hole” answer that everyone else gave.
Michelle Meyer
Michelle kind of won me over early on for two reasons…(1) She’s got live-feed watching super-fan status and (2) she snorts when she laughs. She describes herself as “quirky”, and whenever a girl does that it’s almost always a clear indicator that they are anything but. In this case, though, it may not be a far-off assessment. Here’s a direct transcription of probably my favorite segment of her interview… when Jeff asked her what her strategy would be, her response was:
“So, my strategy is actually, ya know, is this, is usually like super-fans are very, like, ummm, serious and not…ver,y like, awkward, I would say, and I’m not awkward, I don’t think”
Nope – not awkward at all, Michelle. Not one bit.
Paul Abrahamian
I know these write-ups of mine are full of fun and sarcasm here, but no joke (I went back and cross-referenced this), Paul is wearing more jewelry than all the rest of the interviewees combined. Let’s not get too hung up on that, though, because this is just one of a myriad of reasons to be irritated with him. Paul is the love-child of Adam Poch, Evel Dick, and every first-evicted houseguest ever.
He plugs his clothing company in the first sentence that comes out of his mouth. He can’t spell the word “eyes” (which we learn from another one of Jeff’s Pulitzer Prize winning questions that have nothing to do with the game). And in case you still weren’t convinced that Paul will be joining the “First Boot Club”, he tells us that he doesn’t care if he wins or loses because he just wants to “cause chaos and have fun”. Oh, you’ll be having plenty of fun, Paul…along with the rest of us, watching the season play out on your TV at home.
And there you have it. Another crop of soon-to-be Z-listers on the road to tens of thousands of Twitter/Instagram followers who will forget about them 18 months from now, unless they’re called back by a Big Brother website to write articles poking fun at future soon-to-be Z-listers. As any super-fan knows, 12 houseguests don’t fill a season, so I would also expect to see some familiar faces returning to the mix as well.
Thanks once again to Big Brother Network for the opportunity to extend my relevancy and hear from the adoring fans how I don’t know anything. If I did somehow win you over with my witty, sarcastic musings, please take a minute to follow me on Twitter @HeadOfHOFFhold for more fun throughout the season!