Bachelor in Paradise Drinking Game Update and Analysis: Chad is a Black Swan Event
The Apology
I'm very sorry, everyone. I never meant for this to happen.
My intentions were good; I wanted to create an easy-to-follow, moderately paced drinking game for anyone to enjoy while watching attractive strangers drink and snog in a convenient ABC-sponsored resort. It was supposed to be harmless!
Then Chad happened. Grumpy BadScruff made his return from JoJo's season of the Bachelorette and set fire to my intentions, aimlessly casting inappropriate language in all directions. In the first episode, he was responsible for the bulk of the 35 instances of blurring, swearing at a clip comparable to Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. Under our original rules, this translated to 105 drinks. Add in the 46 times people said Paradise, 30 random shots of animals, and normal results for our other rules and suddenly our players were on a fast track to liver damage. We tallied 235 drinks in the season premiere, averaging nearly 2 drinks per minute. Our target is the inverse: one drink every two minutes.
I was surprised at how poorly these rules were planned after watching forty hours of Bachelor and Bachelorette content in the last six months. Even if I hadn't seen an episode of Bachelor in Paradise, going from an average of 0.53 drinks per minute to 1.96 was a leap. Luckily, I have a defense: Chad's Episode 1 performance was a Black Swan Event.
Black Swan Events
According to Wikipedia, a Black Swan Event must:
- be a surprise to the observer,
- have a major effect, and
- be rationalized by hindsight after occurring.
I was in an inebriated state of shock tallying drink after drink, the 235-drink total nearly doubled the previous record, and in the wake of this destruction I thought to myself "I should have known Chad would drunkenly berate everyone in range of his voice." Case closed: Chad is a Black Swan in the context of our Bachelor in Paradise Drinking Game.
The Data
The good news is that without Chad, things have calmed down considerably. Pay particular attention to the blurring rule; the sharp decline from Episode 1 on is the Chad Effect.
While this suggests the Drinking Game Rules aren't as broken as I initially feared, they could still use some tweaking. Here are our updates:
Blurring swear words no longer counts. Grumpy BadScruff ruined this one by getting intoxicated enough to communicate exclusively with grunts and cursing. It has slowed considerably since, but going forward only we'll only drink for nudity or near-nudity censorship.
We're removing the Bachelor/Bachelorette reference rule entirely because it isn't fulfilling its goal. The intent was to mock contestants who remain crushed by their loss in a televised dating competition. So far, it's only being mentioned in the context of a contestant's backstory, which is both unnecessary and unimportant.
We have a couple of ideas for rules we would like to add, but we'll hold off until the pace of play slows to a less irresponsible level.
The Questionably Qualified Bachelor in Paradise Drinking Game Rules:
1 Drink Every Time:
- A contestant orders a drink; support your entertainers!
- Every "cheers!" or "toast"; it's reflexive for me, so why not?
- An animal is shown; snakes, crabs, and birds got a lot of screentime
- Chris Harrison sighting; his job seems incredible, and I'll drink to that
- Someone says "Paradise"; these people might think it's a real place
- Someone says a form of the word "drink"; classic, consistent, and easy
2 Drinks Every Time:
- A contestant finds a new snogging partner; the show encourages polyamory, don't act surprised!
- Someone talks about a hangover; it seems like a natural topic of discussion, but they (almost) all looked good after night one
- Someone eats on camera; the untouched food in this franchise is a pet peeve of mine, so if they actually eat it, I like to celebrate
3 Drinks Every Time:
- ABC censors nudity or near-nudity; I still support pantslessness whenever possible
5 Drinks Every Time:
- Some incredibly desperate person tells another incredibly desperate person "I love you"; it's a little sad, but a lot funny
I sincerely hope you all survived the two hour kegstand Chad forced on us in the first episode, and I appreciate your giving this installment of our Drinking Games a second chance. Good luck making it through the back half of this season; we'll need it!
