Who is popular today?

The original titan of the genre transfixed audiences in a more forgiving and less self-aware age – a comeback seems irrelevantFancy another one?, as Davina McCall would say. After five years away, Big Brother is back (and if you can say anything about it without attempting a terrible approximation of narrator Marcus Bentley’s accent, then I salute you).During last week’s Love Island finale, it was announced that the original reality TV titan will return in 2023, moving to ITV2 and its new streaming platform. Rumours are circulating as to who might host it. Superfan and Celebrity Big Brother winner Rylan seems the obvious choice and though he tweeted his elation that it is coming back, he clarified that he had not been asked to present. “V early days re team/host etc,” he said, which is not necessarily a no. Five years is not a long absence. Big Brother stretched on long past its prime, though I was surprised to find that I knew who had won up to as far as series 11. Reading the names of series 12-19 winners is like looking at someone else’s school photo. Not a clue. If there is any mass yearning for Big Brother, then surely it is for those earlier days, aired through the 00s, when seeing the minutiae of ordinary people’s day-to-day lives was still a novelty. Continue reading...