I’ve already confessed my complicated feelings about The Bachelor franchise.
(I’d be happy to talk about the truly delightful hours of television that were this week’s Season 28 finale, but for the purposes of this post—and my Bachelor-centric Pop Culture Confession—that’s sadly neither here nor there.)
As part of that confession, I shared that I once wrote and published an entire essay about how Nick Viall’s casting as the lead of Season 21 inspired me to stop watching a show to which I had loyally been tuning in since I was in middle school.
To invoke some cool phrasing that wasn’t in my vocabulary when I wrote that essay in 2017 and tried to articulate my feelings about Viall, his journey with the show to that point kind of gave me the ick. Seven years later, the ick more or less persists. If I’m being generous, I can admit that what we know of this man is, of course, largely a reality constructed through editing and social media. If I’m being slightly less generous, I must remind you that Nick has chosen to stay in the public eye for the better part of the last decade, and that the impression we’ve been able to gather of him for the second half of that decade comes mostly from media he’s produced himself.
His podcast—The Viall Files—is a major part of that impression.
It’s also next up for Pop Culture Confessions.
As a reminder, Pop Culture Confessions is a place where I break down the media I love but feel weird (or worse) about. I’ll give myself the space to fangirl while also being transparent about my ambivalence (or worse) and how I might be able to untangle it.
First, a brief history of The Viall Files…
Nick launched The Viall Files in 2018, shortly after his turn on The Bachelor. (For the record, we got into the podcasting game at the same time, so it’s weird that we haven’t amassed the same following—jkjkjkjk.) His proximity to all things Bachelor Nation meant he had a front-row seat to all the on-screen drama and access to big names in the franchise. Almost immediately, it seemed as though Nick’s show was one of the only ones that cast members were given the green light to do after coming off The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, or Bachelor in Paradise.
In the years that followed, Nick’s content expanded beyond the bounds of Bachelor-dom. I noticed stars of other big reality shows making guest appearances, along with other celebrities with varying levels of “clout.” Somewhere along the line, he also appeared to appoint himself as an expert on relationships, largely because—by his own admission—he’d been through so many unsuccessful attempts at love, both on- and off-screen. They integrated “Ask Nick” segments, during which listeners called in for advice, often about love, sex, and relationships. Viall parlayed this content into a book called Don’t Text Your Ex Happy Birthday: And Other Advice on Love, Sex, and Dating. Cute title, not my thing.
As the subject matter of The Viall Files has grown over the last six years, other elements have evolved, too. Like many other podcasts, it now offers video on YouTube and releases several (like, many) times a week. Listeners have grown familiar with the small cast of characters that Nick has deemed “the household”—a handful of producers and his fiance, Natalie—all of whom are regular voices on the show.
Earlier this year, Nick announced the establishment of the Envy Media company. The Viall Files now exists under that banner.
Here’s where I join the party…
At the peak of my Bachelor Nation fandom, I started listening to The Viall Files pretty regularly. In those days, Nick was only dropping new episodes once a week or so, and while he was far from my favorite person in the franchise (again, I wrote a WHOLE ASS ESSAY for Refinery29 about how his season was putting me off the show), I appreciated his takes as someone with intimate knowledge of the inner workings and machinations of reality TV. Weekly recaps of new Bachelor/Bachelorette/BIPs episodes from The Viall Files slotted easily enough into my podcast diet.
Currently Reading: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
With less than 100 pages to go, I’m still loving this book as much as I was when I shared about it in my last post. My only regret is that I can’t read it on a chilly New England beach somewhere.
As a podcaster, Nick started to lose me shortly before the television show that made him famous started to lose me. But I am back as a tentative fan of both The Viall Files and The Bachelor.
At this juncture, I’m probably more secure in my renewed fandom of the latter. (Thanks, Joey, Daisy, and Kelsey!) Let’s break down my complicated feelings about The Viall Files. I’m ready to confess.
I’m back into the podcast because…
The biggest reason is a pretty obvious one. Nick knows people. He has access! He gets great interviews with amazing guests, often before anyone else gets them—if anyone else gets them at all. I feel weird about the fact that he seems to have something of a monopoly on a certain category of reality TV stars who fans like me want to hear from, but apparently it’s Nick’s world and we’re just living in it.
As a person who makes content for a living and who knows firsthand the necessity of reinventing that content and one’s approach to it over time, I can’t help but respect the way Nick and the podcast have evolved over the years. He was one of the first Bachelor Nation people to catch on to podcasting as a ripe career opportunity and he found his niche doing it. That’s cool! There are plenty of former reality stars out there who have been less proactive about securing a new path for themselves. It’s easy to quit on a podcast (or just about anything else, especially when you can make tons of cash with Instagram ads) but Nick didn’t do that! Instead, he’s evolved the show, working in different kinds of interviews and episode formats, leaning into his interest in mental health and relationship advice, and moving away from Bachelor-only content. I don’t have to agree with or like all of those changes to recognize that making them is smart.
While I happen to find some of Nick’s language around mental health and relationship advice grating (more on that later), I applaud him for giving these conversations a platform. At the risk of playing into heteronormative ideas, I’ll remind you that men have historically not been encouraged to talk about their ~feelings~. Whether or not we feel like Nick is the “right” person to lead that charge, he’s trying and I think that’s important.
I kind of love the expanded Viall Files universe. Now that the show features more than Nick himself or Nick and an interviewee, it’s more fun. I like how Natalie and the producers step in to challenge Nick’s takes and to poke fun at him when he’s being annoying (read: annoying me). I also like Nick better as part of this kind of ensemble team! He takes himself less seriously and comes off with a little less condescension. The podcast’s reviews would indicate that some listeners find the producers irritating, but I really appreciate the role they’ve come to fill on the podcast as a whole.
But I don’t think I feel great about it. Here’s why…
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