The Labor of Love

Midway through Colton Underwood's season of The Bachelor, with just seven women left in the competition, the tenuous friendships forged between contestants have begun to fracture. On a picturesque group date in the Colorado Rockies, frontrunner Cassie Randolph — a confident, ambitious speech pathology student — has instigated the jealous ire of her fellow contestants to the point of no return. As the date draws to a close, they begin to pelt her with the severest of all allegations: she is "here for the wrong reasons." The 23-year-old is unwilling to accept a proposal from Colton, her competitors claim — and worse, she has bragged off-camera that she only ever auditioned for the franchise to gain social media followers and attract brand partnerships. Apparently, instead of seeking marriage, Cassie openly sought to spin her stint on the show into a lucrative stream of career opportunities. Her fellow contenders remind her that on The Bachelor, to sully the pursuit of romantic love with the pursuit of monetary gain is simply not done — at least, not out loud. Even after eventually "winning" the season, Randolph was broadly castigated for ignoring the guiding tenet of the franchise: the course of true love never did run into material concerns. 

Nearly four years after Cassie appeared on Colton's season, however, the speech pathologist from Huntington Beach has become an unlikely fan favorite in Bachelor Nation, due in large part to the very same "entrepreneurial" spirit that made her a villain on the show. In addition to running her recently launched sustainable denim company, Randolph posts frequent brand partnerships and #workfromhome vlogs to her Instagram, broadcasting the minutiae of her busy life to her 1.2 million followers. "You are such an inspiration for all that you do," one fan commented on a post of Randolph performing a series of quotidian tasks, from cleaning and checking emails to preparing brand sponsorships and taking speech clients online. "Being productive is an awesome feeling," another follower agreed. Beyond The Bachelor, Randolph's commitment to staying "productive," working around the clock, and turning a hefty profit in the process is no longer contemptible but aspirational.

A contestant on a more recent season anonymously shared her sense that "the idea to be [sic] on the show for anything other than love is very taboo and I don't know if that will change."1 However, the sheer number of Bachelor alumni who have unabashedly leveraged the show to amass fanbases and advance their social media careers suggests that this taboo is beginning to lift. For Randolph and her fellow "productivity influencers," turning reality-TV-begotten fame into an empire has become not a sign of greed but a badge of honor — evidence of scrappiness, grit, and business acumen. Despite gaining their following from a show that recoils at the mere mention of labor, scores of contestants-turned-influencers have adopted the lexicon of productivity to craft post-franchise images as humble, "relatable," and working-class-adjacent — and in the process, have been able to keep their fans invested for years beyond the final rose. 

Across The Bachelor franchise, wealth is so ubiquitous that viewers practically cease to register its existence. The show drips with signifiers of affluence: champagne, designer gowns, lavish international vacations, gourmet dinners and concerts and parties that appear seemingly out of nowhere. In the manicured world of The Bachelor, labor is rendered invisible and material concerns are made irrelevant to participants, who are tasked only with swooning and seducing and reveling in The Bachelor's carefully constructed bourgeois fantasy realm. As Amy Kaufman observes, viewers are meant to assume thatmen on The Bachelor are independently wealthy, and that women — if notalso independently wealthy — will become wealthy by marriage.2 Money is thus never a consideration in their couplings, and nothing toward which to draw viewerly attention. "Taboo" topics like family dynamics, mental health histories, and religious commitments have been broached on the show, but conversations about wealth, work, and class seldom make it to the screen.

Since the show's inception two decades ago, its cast has been largely class-homogenous, as The Bachelor's contestant selection process has always implicitly excluded low-income participants. To vie for the lead's hand in marriage over the course of weeks or months, hopefuls must quit their jobs or secure indefinite leave, which generally requires some sort of financial safety net. Competitors are not paid for their appearance on the show but still must purchase their own high-end clothing and necessities throughout the competition — costs that can climb into the thousands. Unsurprisingly to those familiar with the show's framework of gilded mansions and private jets, the entire enterprise rests on the unspoken assumption of independent wealth. 

For years, this evasion of class consciousness never posed a problem for fans of the escapist reality romance. The franchise's viewership has long been relatively affluent — in 2016, The Bachelor was the nation's most-watched reality series among young adults making over $100,000 annually; the prior year, Nielsen ratings gave it the top spot in a chart called "What the Young and Rich Watch." As media consultant Brad Adgate put it, however, "The population has become much more diverse, so networks realize that and have targeted specific groups with shows they think they'll watch."3 Over the past several years, the Bachelor franchise has begun to diversify its contestant pool accordingly — an attempt, at least in part, to expand its viewership. But despite cultivating (slightly) more diverse casts with relation to race, age, and sexuality, openly working-class Bachelor contestants have remained overwhelmingly absent.

There are a few exceptions: Katie Thurston, who said little about her class background during her stint as Bachelorette, recently asked on her Instagram whether anyone else grew up doing "poor people things" like eating dry Top Ramen straight from the package. Now, the former bank marketing manager is a full-time influencer and has been transparent about her six-figure earnings, which she says provide her with "more than necessary based on what my needs and wants are." Former Bachelor Sean Lowe attempted a similarly "relatable" joke about being unable to afford Chick-Fil-A (and was quickly castigated for it by fans who pointed out that his net worth currently tops $500,000). On a weightier note, as a contestant on Peter Weber's season, Victoria Paul spoke candidly about experiencing homelessness as a child after she lost her father and her mother fell into addiction. However, instead of fully addressing the class implications of her upbringing, the production team spun Victoria's hardships into an uplifting testament to overcoming obstacles and learning to accept the love you deserve. Peter, grateful for Victoria's vulnerability, tells her that her story "shows what kind of person" she is — and then never mentions it again. If they even manage to make it onscreen, the very few Bachelor contestants from poor and working-class backgrounds are expected to leverage their "empowering narratives" to manufacture intimacy with the lead and stand out from their upper-class competitors — but not, under any circumstances, to discuss class issues in any meaningful way.

As class divisions in America become ever starker, however, discourses around labor and class have finally begun to surface in Bachelor Nation. Participants have found it increasingly difficult to sublimate their material interests, or to pretend to their working-class viewers that labor and wealth don't matter. How can a well-off Bachelor alum flaunt their lifestyle while remaining sympathetic to weary, cynical Bachelor fans who are more turned off than ever by out-of-touch displays of unearned wealth? Enter "productivity content."

In addition to familiar influencer fare — snapshots of beach getaways, five-star hotels, designer clothes and red-carpet premieres — the Instagram feeds of Bachelor alumni have become increasingly populated by the mundane details of their work lives. Over the past decade, Bachelor alumni have published dozens of books, produced at least as many podcasts, launched myriad businesses, and promoted innumerable products to their collective millions of social media followers. Accordingly, in their post-show lives, many former contestants have branded themselves not as typical rich hedonists, but as streamlined, organized, productivity machines who are worthy of their charmed lives. Their transparency around work diverges from the familiar social media trend toward "real" and "relatable" content — bedhead, cellulite, messy living rooms, disheveled toddlers, confessional captions — which itself has developed a sheen of artifice. Rather than pretending not to be wealthy and put-together (a resentment-inducing approach that seldom pans out), productivity influencers take great pride in their financial and personal success, creating the impression — or, better yet, the illusion, cultivated through motivational quotes and workday vlogs and entrepreneurship posts — that every bit of it has been earned. 

Among the many Bachelor alumni-turned-influencers who have adopted the lexicon of productivity are Madison Prewett, who hosts Instagram giveaways for "small business owners" and "entrepreneurs" and recently signed her second two-book deal; Jason Tartick, who hosts a business podcast and recently published a guide designed to "rewire and reset your career;" and Matt James, who has frequently broadcasted his packed morning routine, attendance at career planning expos, and intensive fitness routine to nearly a million followers. Like Cassie and her bespoke denim company, several former contestants have launched companies of their own (and produced accompanying social media content showcasing their busy #entrepreneurlives): among others, former Bachelorette Becca Kufrin regularly promotes her bespoke brand of wines, and Kaitlyn Bristowe runs an Amazon Handmade storefront, sells products at Target, and has a wine company of her own. Even Hannah Godwin, who sticks primarily to good-old-fashioned social media influencing and doesn't run any major business ventures on the side, bills herself not as a micro-celebrity but as a "content creator." Across their post-Bachelor output, instead of avoiding work talk as the show has long encouraged them to do, alumni actively speak the language of work, labor, and productivity to appeal to their increasingly class-diverse follower base.

Among the most visibly "productive" of all past Bachelor contestants is Rachel Lindsay Abasolo. Rachel, a fan favorite on Nick Viall's season, became the first Black Bachelorette in 2017 and has been a Bachelor Nation mainstay ever since. After leaving the show engaged to her future husband, she took a hiatus from her career as an attorney and leveraged her post-show momentum to launch a weekly podcast, Bachelor Happy Hour, in which she discussed the franchise with a co-host. Both on and off the podcast, Rachel was outspoken about the racist backlash she faced throughout her own season, and has advocated for increased diversity and commitments to anti-racism on The Bachelor in the following years. In 2021, she interviewed longtime Bachelor host Chris Harrison about his defense of a white contestant being criticized for attending an antebellum-themed frat party when she was in college. The public backlash to Harrison's comments — decrying the attacks of "the woke police" on "this poor girl" — prompted his resignation.

On top of her efforts to reform the Bachelor franchise from within, Rachel has spent the past few years as a media correspondent for Extra TV, released another successful podcast on Black culture and politics, and recently announced her debut novel just 10 months after the publication of her first book. She has nearly 900,000 Instagram followers with whom she shares clips from her podcasts, brand partnerships, and impassioned commitments to "support women in their efforts to achieve economic independence and success" and be "confident, assiduous and strong" in the workplace. Rachel's "brand," as she puts it, is to focus on her myriad projects and stay #BookedAndBusy — and her fanbase adores her for it. As an admirer commented on one of her latest Instagram posts, "Girl. Where do you find the time?!"

The emphasis on work-focused content is not specific to Bachelor Nation, but representative of the COVID-19-era social media zeitgeist. The "productivity influencer" exploded during the early stages of the pandemic as many workers, confined to their homes and stripped of familiar structures, sought ways to better manage their time and optimize their daily routines. Over the past few years, broadcasting productivity online has become a cottage industry: productivity YouTubers, lifestyle vloggers, and entrepreneurial gurus have made millions across social media platforms demonstrating how to partition one's time efficiently and turn every moment of the day into an opportunity for self-edification. YouTuber Anushka Sen racked up over 11 million views on a video about developing "healthy and productive" morning routine habits, which include exercising and annotating self-help books. Another "productive" morning routine video published by the channel Study to Success has earned a cool 3.5 million views encouraging viewers to wake up at sunrise to read, study, exercise, clean, and finish tasks before the work day officially begins. Like their Bachelor Nation counterparts, many of these productivity-focused influencers gloss over the fact that their day jobs are often much more flexible than their average viewer's; it's easier to check tasks off the to-do list when you're not rushing out the door to drop off the kids and clock in on time. These represent just the tip of the iceberg of productivity-based YouTube channels, not to mention the millions of motivational #productive posts on Instagram and TikTok. The primary creators of this content, as well as the bulk of their audience, mirror The Bachelor's prime demographics, per a YouGov poll: women under 45. 

The Bachelor-to-productivity-influencer pipeline extends the impulse toward self-optimization for which Americans — primarily women — have watched The Bachelor in the first place. The franchise illustrates the pursuit of upward mobility, improvement, and advancement in the romantic realm. In the real world, productivity content pushes that desire into the arenas of work, life processes, daily routines, hobbies, and leisure time. Everything from love to health to financial success is attainable to those with discipline and a positive mindset, productivity influencers insist — structural inequality has nothing to do with it.

As Melissa Gregg argues, productivity culture is "a status metric, a demonstration of success in post-secular capitalism."4 Productivity influencers perform labor that appears desirable and seems capable of delivering a "compelling degree of pleasure" to workers.5 For Gregg, performativity is at the crux of "the productive lifestyle," which she describes as "a regimen that is always being performed all the time." She continues, explaining that "the focus on accomplishment without effort — the fast, smooth, intuitive flow of uninhibited work — suggests a certain circularity to success: productive people are capable of being ever more organized, and since their creativity is expressed in the efficient management of tasks, this work of collection, scheduling, and organizing can potentially continue ad infinitum."6 Productive people, that is, strive to appear deserving of their success by virtue of being productive. However, Gregg reminds us, productivity culture on social media valorizes not labor itself, but the calculated illusion of labor. When Bachelor alumni become productivity influencers, their goal is to perform labor "without effort" to an audience of millions; to appear endearing, hardworking, and working-class-adjacent while enjoying the wealth and luxury that is, they insist, rightfully theirs.

Of course, The Bachelor itself still maintains that love is a project best built upon a foundation of limitless riches, acquired magically, sans labor. Onscreen, work and wealth are still seldom mentioned, but once contestants leave the show and launch their near-inevitable careers as social media influencers, they quickly find that "relatable" productivity content attracts the most rapidly growing swath of fans: the aspirational working-class.

The real class and labor politics of The Bachelor have hardly changed over the past two decades, but for would-be influencers, issues of work and wealth have become increasingly impossible to elide. Adopting the lexicon of productivity allows Bachelor alumni to remain as class-exclusive as ever while appearing palatable to working-class fans. Blue-light glasses, grind culture, all-nighters, self-help, boss babes: we're just like you.

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Megan Cole is an English PhD Candidate with a Designated Emphasis in Critical Theory at the University of California, Irvine. Her research interests include ecocriticism and the environmental humanities, but her personal interests include watching The Bachelor and other questionable reality TV. Megan's favorite Bachelor lead is Peter "Pilot Pete" Weber, whom she was lucky enough to spot in-uniform at a New Jersey airport last summer.

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