Due to the heavy presence of graphics and video, "Who Are These Newbies?" is best experienced on desktops and fast-performing mobile devices. Some videos embedded contain adult language & situations, parental guidance is suggested.
Coming into summer 2000, the reality genre consisted of MTV fare, Cops, America's Funniest Videos and a handful of shows that were here and there. But CBS' successful gamble to put on Survivor and Big Brother during the least-watched portion of the television calendar helped bring a form of programming previously successful in Europe and overseas into something that not only dominates our summer viewing habits, but also during the traditional September-to-May schedule too... and it's now popped up in the new world of streaming. And continuing in a recent MTV Reality show trend, this fact will be reflected in fandoms from all around the dial converging for this social experiment.
As we count down to the premiere, DCBLOG has a longstanding tradition of introducing those who many of us are getting to know for the first time with this thing we call, "Who Are These Newbies?" -- a primer on MTV rookies with background, insight and visuals. This feature has focused on around 200 personalities since we began in 2013... and more will be added to this total both this and next week when over twenty CBS reality alums compete on The Challenge: USA. And after the break, we give these global reality stars their first closeup with the first part of our focus on these All-Star Shore newcomers... starting with a man who comes here from another summer reality tradition.
REALITY LOVE ALUMNI
American reality TV viewers are more than used to having the best of everything: most every big format has been conceived or broadcast in this market, and three of the four shows listed in this first part were originated here. But other than for Love Island (which began in the UK), only one of these shows air on over-the-air network television that is available for all of us to watch with an antenna without paying anything... and that one is the king/queen of the reality dating genre.
BLAKE HORSTMANN
● Bachelor in Paradise - S6
Blake Horstmann came on after Chase, Chad, Daniel, Robby, Dani and Rachel when he flew from the Denver suburb of Bailey, CO to California for Becca Kufrin's second shot at love following the debacle with Arie Luyendyk Jr. on his 2018 Bachelor season. His original bio described the sales rep as, "...a modern romantic who believes that two people need to be independent in order to truly love each other, so he's looking for his equal match." For Challenge scouts seeing him for the first time, he was an athlete in high school and college who excelled at football and hoops, but who loves to swing dance in addition to becoming an in-demand DJ who's been racking up plenty of frequent flier miles.
Four summers ago Blake came riding onto the driveway in an ox, then scored Becca's first solo date where she had to endure a trip into the show's own Shack of Secrets having to endure a look back at her turbulent Bachelor season before Lil' Jon made a cameo... and where Blake revealed to Becca that he was also blindsided by a fellow lover. His relationship with her continued to blossom at Wayne Newton's Vegas estate, a "Beccalection" debate at Virginia's state capitol, another one-on-one date in the company of the Baha Men, the hometown visit to that Denver suburb and the fantasy suite in Thailand. But once they came to Maldives, Becca changed her mind about Blake as she chose Garrett.
Back home, Bachelor Nation knows that Stagecoach is their favorite hookup joint... and at that same 2019 festival where Jules & Robby met at Coachella's country cousins, Blake hooked up with Kristina Schulman on night 1 in the desert, followed by doing the same with Caelynn Miller-Keyes the next day when they were reportedly set up by eventual 2019 lead man Colton Underwood... and he later flew to Alabama for a day with Hannah Godwin before they all made their way to Paradise. But the beach was too much for him to handle and he left the villa about a week before summer ended in Mexico... but not before that tangled hookup web was exposed for everyone to see.
GIANNINA GIBELLI
● Love Is Blind
Two years ago, we feasted our eyes on another of Netflix's other reality offerings in Love Is Blind when Mark Cuevas had a night at the Cleveland club AYTO 5 mom Gianna works at when not babysitting her young kiddo. Another one who went behind the walls for that romantic experiment was Giannina Gibelli, a 28-year-old small business owner and (as she proudly calls herself) social media "soulpreneur" who had only a small drive from her Atlanta apartment to where Season 1 of LIB was filmed there, but whose roots are in her native Venezuela before going to college in Florida and settling in the ATL.
Reality fans best know Giannina for her relationship on the Netflix show with Damien Powers which began when she fell in love with him... but that road to love actually had more twists and turns than a ride on a powerboat through a Georgia lake: while they did get engaged and found themselves in a happy place, it was when she had her wedding dress on and everyone was waiting for her in the chapel that something unusual took place. When Gia was readying her vows, Damien decided to not say "I do" in citing her emotional state... and eventually #Giamien were no more.
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love island castaways
Most LI-USA clips not available on YouTube
due to show's upcoming network change
As we enter the month of July at week's end, Love Island is making plenty of buzz: last weekend, the eighth series of the original UK show was made available on Hulu as it continues to dominate the buzz across the pond as Britain's favorite guilty pleasure. Season 4 of our U.S. version will begin in a few weeks -- but on a totally different platform, just as alumni of the first three seasons will compete on The Challenge: USA... we'll delve more into that here as we lead up to next week's premiere of that show. But on All-Star Shore, we have two going from one Island to the Canaries for this one.
JOHNNY MIDDLEBROOKS
● Love Island USA - Season 2
Per his bio, Johnny's qualities in being a good companion is being able to "...listen, compromise, forgive, understand, and love." When given a chance to write his own profile, he saw dating as "...like paying rent for a one-room apartment with bad furniture and no electricity. I want to be paying a mortgage on a mansion with a long driveway, a pool in the backyard, and cars in the garage." And when he does go on dates, he prefers to be active in going on more adventurous ones than just chilling at the movie theatre.
In summer 2020 at the Las Vegas Villa -- yes, inland in the desert due to the pandemic (and the same season that gave us Jeremiah & Lauren of Spies, Lies & Allies), Johnny clicked with one of those Islanders who we'll see on the CBS Challenge next week, Sacramento's Cely Vazquez. They coupled up early on there, survived the midseason trip to Casa Amor and finished runners-up at season's end... and they stayed together for some time after the season but broke up at the beginning of 2021.
TRINA NJOROGE
● Love Island USA - Season 3
Trina was a 24-year-old psychiatric nurse from Hacienda Heights, CA when she moved into the villa twelve months ago next month, but who grew up in the nation of Kenya. So much was the case in her roots, she was voted Face of Kenya USA in 2015... and two years ago even in the midst of that chaotic year she was named Miss Hacienda Heights and competed for the title of Miss California and a spot in the Miss USA Pageant -- it didn't happen but it proves that she is just as beautiful as she is smart. And that proof of that comes in Trina holding a psychiatric nursing certification card, one which she earned in 2018 while going to school... and it's due to her nursing job that she can point out those red flags, just like anyone looking for love.
Trina moved in on Day 1 to the 2021 Love Island villa, where she was paired with four different guys on coupling nights -- three of them to Virginia's Cinco Holland before she and Andre Brunelli of Miami got dumped in mid-August, but not before Trina became a villain in that villa. And just last week, she and her good friend (and CHAL-USA's) Cashay Proudfoot got into a Twitter battle after they were part of a triangle with Cinco last year... a sign that she might spill plenty of tea in the Shore house and a preview of a potential Rivals IV pairing.
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Straight Off The Runway...
Two years ago, a winter-themed EOTB welcomed to Season 4 in New Zealand an alum of the biggest reality offering on Paramount+ and VH1 in Adore Delano from Season 6 of RuPaul's Drag Race, who first made waves as budding singer Daniel Noriega on American Idol. Our last subject in part 1 came on a few years later than Adore, but who has emerged as one of the best-known contestants on the series.
VANESSA "VANJIE" MATEO
● RuPaul's Drag Race - s10
The Puerto Rican drag queen also known as Jose Cancel first took up the profession while watching Season 3 of the show (which then aired on LGBT-oriented channel Logo TV), where shortly after All-Stars alum Alexis Mateo asked her to be a backup dancer... and for which Vanjie's drag name originated from her mispronouncing the term "banjee," and where that given first name originated rom the human form of Ursela from The Little Mermaid. Vanessa would ultimately follow in Alexis' footsteps in going on Drag Race herself, which began her rise to becoming one of the show's biggest alumni.
A usual rite of passage for any Challenge rookie has be getting eliminated in week one, and that might apply to Vanessa's Drag Race journey: on Season 10 she was the first one gone after her looks in a daily challenge and a less than entertaining performance outweighed her charisma and energy. And when she left with different pronunciations of "Miss Vanjie... Miss Vanjie... Miss... Vanjie," it became so popular a meme that it sprung onto various other TV shows, movies and even overseas to the Eurovision Song Contest... and the overwhelming support for Vanjie led to a second chance.
The following year on Season 11, Vanessa returned with so much more to prove... and she began where she left off in offering hilarious performances in the acting phases which offset poor performances early on and carried her through the rest of her season. But when she did drop into the bottom two late in the affair, she survived the first two times in Weeks 9 and 10 but couldn't make it work in Week 11 -- and in that semifinal week she fell a spot short of making the finale. Since then, Vanjie has been in two music videos with Iggy Azalea, notched a million Instagram followers and even appeared in a Chips Ahoy ad.
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Coming up on Part 2 of "Who Are These Newbies?" of All-Star Shore: we shift the focus to those who speak either an English accent or don't speak English at all... we focus on the six contestants that come from three overseas variations of the MTV Shore franchise, another who has something in common with last year's late arrival to Spies, Lies & Allies, and the man who might be the favorite on the international side to take the money back home to Britain. That comes your way after tomorrow's premiere, which will be posted there along with Challenge All-Stars on Paramount+.
- I AM DC
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Photo Courtesies: Paramount+, CBS
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