By Melissa Gould
SoWhat? Media Moments as Teachable Moments
23 August 2018

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After waiting seven months for the return of Celebrity Big Brother UK the night had finally arrived. I had anxiously waited through weeks of speculation over which “celebrities” were set to become the next ensemble of hopeful/hopeless Big Brother inmates. As the countdown to Launch Night neared its end, rumoured celebrities were replaced with confirmed bookings.

CBBUK’s Season 21: Eye of the Storm was ready to make the comeback it so desperately needed after being rattled by Love Island earlier this year.

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THE INMATES, I MEAN HOUSEMATES!
Celebrities who had experienced their own media storm were the selection criteria for this year’s housemates. Anyone who has seen the show will know that the use the term ‘celebrity’ loosely. Equally the idea of a ‘storm’ was flexible and ranged from a sun-shower to a tornado.

Kristie Alley, 90s acting legend, Scientologist, and Trump supporter, was confirmed as one of the season’s biggest bookings.

Rodrigo Alves, more commonly known as the ‘Human Ken Doll’ after allegedly spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on plastic surgery, was also a confirmed booking.

Then there was the usual suspects of reality stars (Love Island’s Gabby, TOWIE’S Dan, and MAFS’s Ben), TV actors (Coronation Street’s Ryan, Emmerdale’s Roxy, Bad Girls Club’s Natalie), a sports star (footballer Jermaine), a comedian (Hardeep), a celebrity physic (Sally), a model (Chloe), and the old-guy-with-a-story-to-tell, former “Most Wanted Man”, Nick Lesson.

To lead the troops into the eye of the storm was Stormy Daniels, the American porn star and alleged ex-mistress of US President Donald Trump. Daniels was a confirmed booking and set to be the highest ever paid housemate with a rumoured fee of 750,000 pounds. Her storm was the most topical of all of the housemates and her name appears in the season’s theme, Stormy Daniels was going to be perfect housemate that everyone was waiting to watch.

So I waited.

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LAUNCH NIGHT
The neon lights distracted the home audience from the struggling crowd size. Emma Willis graced the stage with beautifully wind-swept hair that was capable of creating it a media storm of its own.

I knew the wait for Stormy was nearly over, so I waited, anxiously.

Kirstie Alley was first into the house and was followed shortly after by Corrie Street’s Ryan Thomas. It was clear he was going to be “the normal one”. And by “normal” I mean, the one who landed an acting gig at the age of 16 on one of Britain’s biggest television series, earned more money than he could handle, filed bankruptcy, then had to rebuild his career. Oh, and who is also good looking, comes from a well-known family, and who is already being labelled as “the bookies favourite” to win by Rylan Clark-Neal on CBB’s sideshow Celebrity Big Brother’s Bit On The Side. Then yip, he’s the “normal one”.

I pretended to care about the celebrities I hadn’t heard of before, and I had a “WTF” moment when Bad Girl Natalie walked onto the stage to the late Aretha Franklin’s song R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

I overlooked it, and reminded myself of the purpose of the night, to see Stormy Daniels enter the house. So, I kept waiting.

The more celebrities I watched walk into the house the closer I was to seeing Stormy Daniels.

I was enough of a Big Brother fan to know that Stormy would be the last housemate to enter. The other big draw card, Kirstie Alley, was already in the house, so Stormy had to be last.

So, I waited.

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I waited while Roxy dramatically entered the house, going through a mild panic as she tried to figure out how to open the door. Her entrance can best be described as reminiscent of the iconic antics of Big Brother legend Nikki Grahame. But don’t worry, the fans were already on to her, trolling her online with the worst word in the Big Brother game, the dreaded F word: FAKE.

I waited as Ben bounced into the house like a modern day Pete Bennett.
And then, I waited some more.

But then the storm arrived!

Big Brother shut the door of the Big Brother house one last time, and turned the lock.

But there was no Stormy Daniels.

Inside the house, Big Brother had declared Kirstie Alley the President of the Big Brother house, and the red cloth that Emma Willis had teased us with during the house tour revealed a White House set which would become the luxury residence of President Kirstie Alley and her Vice President Ryan Thomas.

The whole show appeared custom built to be Stormy’s show. The tasks, the set design, and even the show’s theme all worked together to lure Stormy Daniels into talking about her media storm.

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I had a glimmer of hope.

Was Stormy going to walk through the White House set door, revealing herself in some flashy number, fueling her media storm as images of her leaving the “White House” were plastered over newspapers the next day. Stormy’s entrance into the Big Brother house could have become an iconic Big Brother moment, and the perfect finish to the launch night I had waited seven months to see.

Nope.

Emma said Goodnight, and the credits began to roll.

After seven months of waiting, I was like a love-struck teenager in the 90s, sitting by the phone, waiting for it to call.

And that’s when the reality of the reality phenomenon set in.

It’s not the 90s, and times have changed.

I’m a stay at home mum, in my 30s, drinking bourbon by myself on a Friday night, and I just got stood up by a porn star.

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THIS ARTICLE IS AN ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION

Author: Melissa Gould, Ph.D (AUT), MCS, BCS (Hons), BCS.

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