As if Kaitlyn’s season of The Bachelorette wasn’t full of enough controversy, Kaitlyn sure upped the ante last week when she posted a Snapchat video of herself and Bachelorette contestant Shawn B. canoodling in bed together. The Internet obviously exploded soon after, and, as soon as Kaitlyn realized her mistake, she took the video down. By then, of course, the genie was out of the bottle and everyone had screenshotted it from here to high heaven. But, is Kaitlyn’s Snapchat spoiler real?
As anyone who has ever touched a computer knows, it’s very easy to make things look real that aren’t. That is why there is a show called Catfish, and that word is now a verb in the American lexicon. There are two camps of belief when it comes to Snapchatgate: Those that think Kaitlyn blew the whole thing (accidentally, of course) and that she really ended up with Shawn B. at the end of the show, and others that think that this is a well-timed publicity stunt in time for the very special “Kaitlyn-has-sex-with-a-suitor” episode on June 22, because The Bachelorette is looking to drum up some drama in an already weird-as-hell season. So, which of the two options is it?
Conspiracy theorist (not in the chemtrail sense, but more in the I’ve-watched-too-much-Pretty-Little-Liars sense) that I am, I’m firmly in the latter camp. ABC and The Bachelorette have yet to comment on the pictures, but I think producers are using Kaitlyn to pump up the excitement for the June 22, which is already bound to be controversial. Know why? Because, like most adults, Kaitlyn has sex! With a person she wants to have sex with! Viewers have known that Kaitlyn consummates a relationship with a suitor well before the Fantasy Suite for a while now, and the Internet has mostly not been kind. Kaitlyn’s been called a slut and far worse for exercising a natural human urge. (Also, sex happens all the time on The Bachelor/ette : It's just not talked about).
With Shawn B. in Kaitlyn’s Snapchat, it starts two conversations. The first is that maybe she slept with Shawn B. during the infamous episode, and oh, well, they made a mistake and at least they’re still together spooning in bed. The second is maybe she slept with someone else (I think she sleeps with Nick, for what it’s worth, because their sexual chemistry is seriously off the chain), but Kaitlyn and Shawn B. ended up together, and oh, what a wonderful man Shawn B. is for forgiving her transgression in sleeping with someone when she wasn’t exclusively dating any particular person.
My bet is that the show is stirring the pot with the Snapchat. One could argue that Snapchat is indeed an instantaneous form of social media (and you can’t use pictures from the past), but I’ve seen UnREAL, you guys — if real reality television sets are an eighth as screwed up as the ones in UnREAL are, I can totally see producers coming for the viewers with this Snapchat fiasco. After all, any publicity is good publicity, right?
Images: ABC/Heidi Gutman; Giphy (3)
