FOLLOW-UP The Kwasi Beast Gets Singled Out
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So far on The Challenge: Double Agents, the rookie field has made plenty of buzz as has those who are not yet to the level that most consider veteran status of having done three seasons or more. We saw a Survivor champion make noise in the season's first elimination that left everyone shocked before she set foot in the Crater, a singer and former motocross rider go out swinging at a ginger man, and the facial expressions of the first-ever male Challenger of Asian origin. And yet, we haven't really gotten to know each and every one of them, even though they've been holding the upper hand through one month.
One of this winter's field of first-time Challengers is Amber Martinez, who this past week began to make some noise in Iceland as she aims to follow in the footsteps of those like Tori, Devin and others who've made their way to Challenge Nation from MTV's biggest entry into romantic reality TV. We first met her on the 2019 edition of Are You The One?, where if there's an argument for which of the eight seasons of the love experiment is the most memorable, there's no doubt hers is the most meaningful in which those who are classified as sexually fluid had a chance to find love as only MTV knows how.
That brings us to this story, which involves a fellow member of Amber's Season 8 cast who would then return to MTV to get another chance at love. This, in fact, is a follow-up on a similar story we did after the AYTO season that proceeded Amber's, but just as it was for two members of Season 7, this one came not necessarily on the linear cable channel itself or even on its expanded slate of digital platforms. For this case, you have to look back at the biggest bust in the short but progressive history of the new kid on the block of over-the-top streaming television.
Heading into 2020, an anticipated event in the TV world was the launch of a new app that aimed to be different. The man who headed Walt Disney Pictures' renaissance and then joined with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen to create DreamWorks, Jeffrey Katzenberg, teamed with California gubernatorial candidate and company CEO Meg Whitman to create a new kind of streaming platform that took its name from the words "Quick Bites."
Quibi received over $1 billion in funding from banks, tech & telecom companies, and every major film & TV studio in Hollywood as it joined an increasing field in the OTT field. Its target audience was the short-attention-spanned younger demographic, with content lasting no longer than ten minutes, and where all of its shows were formatted to fit mobile screens both portrait and landscape. And it had already sold out its advertising inventory for its first year well before its launch last April, which quickly shot to #3 on the App Store with nearly 2 million downloading the app during premiere week.
But that rapid start for Quibi then turned into a nightmare: users having issues with its lack of availability on connected TV's and devices, problems with staffing that coincided with the start of the pandemic and other matters saw the company in a precarious position for the rest of the year. And by December, Quibi shut down after not living up to financial expectations, but last week an established force in the streaming field, Roku, purchased the company's entire programming assets to offer to everyone for free on its market-leading platform.
The other series was one which we covered twice after the last matchup ceremony on AYTO Season 7: Singled Out proceeded AYTO and A Shot at Love in MTV's offerings of romantic television when it aired for several years in the mid-90's. It launched the careers of its hosts Jenny McCarthy, Carmen Electra and Chris Hardwick, as they helped those in love dwindle the dating pool from 50 singles to one, who would win themselves a date with the winning party.
In the case of the cast that introduced us to Vinny's Double Shot at Love crush Maria Elizondo (who we'll be featuring in another DCBLOG post coming up later), AYTO Season 7 in 2018 was also where two other fellow singles made their way from being in that game of high stakes to a more lighthearted one for fun. Ghana native Kwasi Opoku was the single looking for love on the first season of the YouTube relaunch of Singled Out after his season ended, then followed by Ukrainian born Daniel Vilk who was in the dating pool for its digital relaunch on MTV's YouTube channel.
For Quibi's Singled Out, the hostess of last year's all-virtual Video Music Awards, Keke Palmer, took over the hosting gig of helping guide the bachelor and bachelorettes find their match, while stand-up comedian & fellow Chicagoan Joel Kim Booster helped with the process of eliminating the sorry suitors. The premise of the show remains the same, where the worthy singles were chosen from the social-verse, and where gay and lesbian singles are also on the show in looking to find love... and that includes the person of our focus.
Someone who was among the sixteen singles chosen for this historic Are You The One? season was a lady who was different in an otherwise conservative and tradition-minded religion. Nour Fraji came to Hawaii from the outskirts of the Big Apple in Kenilworth, NJ, who was inspired to go onto this show after watching the legendary Season 6 of two years ago. But as our bio on her wrote back then, "Nour is of Middle Eastern descent growing up in a Muslim household of Jordanian descent, but when she saw herself as bi early and got married... only for that to collapse. Nour has regained the wheel since she got divorced, and will she slow down and score the one?"
During that summer of love, Nour found herself having feelings for the aforementioned Amber, and even cheating on her with Kylie which turned their relationship into a complicated one in paradise. That was further compounded when the house got burned by a money-losing blackout in one matchup, where Nour then proceeded to get close to Kai (the other MTV'er aside from Challenger Nicole who was featured in last summer's quarantine season of True Life) and other single Jasmine.
And just as Kwasi and Daniel did before her, not long after the house lights came up following a successful last matchup Nour made her way to the Singled Out stage in search for love. As it was previously, her quest for love is conducted over three stages and with thirty singles wanting to score that date: round 1 of Deal Breakers sees those whose answers to any questions about Nour's preferences in her ideal mate that don't match get sent off, the second phase sees those who are more serious about her get into their what they would say to her when they meet her for the first time virtually, and the last hurdle was getting physical.
We would be willing to embed her episode of her second time on MTV looking for love, but since Nour's Instagram (@NourFraij_) is private we can't feature the video of her episode below, so we're left with having to just recap that on here... her deal breakers include wanting to see her family & friends every day instead of just during the holidays, and she would rather spending time in a Vegas suite having the time of her life than just calming down in a yoga retreat.
The second phase saw Nour have to sort out pickup lines and Instagram photos among the three remaining contestants -- two girls and a guy, and she had to pick which instance of them slipping into her DM's was the worst of the trio to toss away. The one whose line was, "You can take a dip into my pool everyday," was deemed to not score any points with this fiery Jersey girl and Gabby - IG nickname Whirlpool -- was sent into the showers after round two.
For the last stage, it was left to the two remaining contestants to impress this bartender by making their most ideal cocktail with all of the essential ingredients to a nice drink on a weekend night out at the club. After taking sips of both concoctions, the cup that had spice to it was IG user "UK All Day" was deemed the better of the two, and along with his preference of wanting to travel the world once this panic is finally over and done with, Nour chose the guy over the girl, Victoria, who she was pushy at her... and that lucky man was fellow bartender Will, who's known her for a few years on the scene.
But now, Nour calls Las Vegas her home and is dating another guy in a town that may not be as lively right now as the pandemic continues to rear its head, but no doubt it will be rocking again when things get back to normal. And she now has something in common with those two other alums of the love experiment: they looked for love in the boom boom room and in that swirling chair of Singled Out.
- I AM DC
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