“NOT AVAILABLE” was the phrase that appeared repeatedly in the data Amazon’s Kindle app had collected on me. It was my responsibility to turn the group’s .csv files into graphs,…
Contemporaries Essays
Young Adult Readers and the Genres of Online Book Reviewing
If you are a reader who uses any of the social media platforms where books are promoted, discussed, and displayed, you will have seen certain book cover images repeatedly, similar…
Reading through Wattpad’s Classification and Discoverability Algorithms
Classification systems are fundamental to how readers discover books and stories, both on and offline. Traditional knowledge organisation systems, such as the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system and Library of…
Introduction: Reading with Algorithms
On March 31, 2023, Twitter (now X) released its recommendation algorithm for public viewing and annotation. The unprecedented move towards transparency included . . . no surprises. Instead, it confirmed…
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…
Will You Accept This Job? Labor, Love, and Bachelor Nation
Limo entrances are a steadfast ritual in every first episode of The Bachelor. Each time a contestant pops her meticulously coiffed head out of the limo, the faithful chyron tells…
Feasts and Famine: Consumption on “The Bachelor”
In the Bachelor mansion, the kitchen stays empty. There are no gourmet chefs; no kind mothers work in the kitchen. No phones to order UberEats, no Instacart; no internet, even…
Behind the Camera: The Crucial Role of Parents on The Bachelor and The Bachelorette
The Bachelor and Bachelorette accelerate not just dating, but other romantic milestones such as falling in love, achieving physical intimacy, and — though rarely discussed — meeting a potential partner’s…
The Bachelor as Novel of Manners
Why do smart, critical viewers who are actively harmed by the systems of domination that The Bachelor upholds continue to watch the show? The most common answer served to any…