Excuse this break from potty training and mommy posts so that I can nerd out for a sec.
Most people don’t know this about me (I think the closest people to me just found out about this like last year?) but I am a Challenge super-nerd. For the majority that have no idea what I am talking about, The Challenge is a show on MTV.
For some reason I have just never talked about the Challenge to people. I just watched it, emitted a squee or a groan at opportune times and kept my little obsession to myself. I think this stems for the idea that people I talk to regularly just had never heard about it, so becoming obsessed with it seemed like a solo mission. It could also be that I started watching The Challenge out of desperation because when I lived with my parents we only had one TV and at least 3 different view points on what makes quality television so I was relegated to my room (the basement) with my laptop and very naive knowledge of streaming content. Keep in mind kids this is before Netflix so MTV was one of the only places online that I found anything remotely interesting to watch. I binged old episodes of the Real World on demand and then got intrigued by The Challenge that I kept seeing pop up. Enter in my fascination with this guilty pleasure.
Basically The Challenge is like Big Brother but with ex-Real World contestants. So if you are familiar with their RW season, it adds another layer of intrigue and drama to the contestants. After over 30 seasons of RW and 28 Challenge seasons there are some interesting contestants and lots of past history that sucks you in. A few seasons ago they also added contestants from the show Are You The One? But I personally find these people more like Bachelor/Bachelorette contestants meaning they are all super good-looking but seem to be lacking the competitive edge that is needed for the Challenge. Because The Challenge is exactly what it sounds like, a challenge. Each season there is a different theme (Rivals, Battle of the Exes, Battle of the Seasons, Cut Throat, Fresh Meat, etc) and the 26 contestants are either competing individually, in pairs, or as teams depending on the theme of the season. They have challenges that they have to do every week while also all living in a house together so you get the best of the Real World but it doesn’t get stale because there is a competition to break up the regular drama. I actually got Brian hooked on The Challenge because of how competitive it is (#Athlete4Life) a couple years ago and he is pretty well-versed in Challenge trivia and has his own favourite contestants.
Now that everyone is caught up, Season 29 is filming right now (!) in Thailand and I was just going to fangirl solo but then decided to spread the love and possibly rant about this upcoming season of The Challenge on here because I just can’t hold it in anymore and while Brian likes watching it, he doesn’t nerd-out as hard as I do so I am in desperate need of an outlet for allthefeels that this show brings out. I might do another post of my all time favourite contestants (this will be SUPER hard) but we shall see. I will leave you with this GIF of an iconic moment in Challenge history that Brian and I reference an embarrassingly large amount whenever the topic of how awesome The Challenge is gets brought up. This is CT (Brian’s #1) wearing Bananas (super vet extraordinaire) like a backpack to dominate an elimination challenge.
tawnylee 