YMMV / Big Brother

YMMV with their own subpages:

• Rescued From the Scrappy Heap
• The Woobie

Please note that due to the nature of Big Brother, spoilers will be left unmarked. Proceed at your own peril.

---

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Pretty much all of the house guests.
  • Likewise, alternate gameplay interpretations in the American version.
  • The show can be followed by watching only the broadcast TV feed (called "Casuals"), reading social media updates, or watching the permanent feeds. This led to fans having very different interpretations of Houseguests depending on how they get their information.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Zach Neilson was shaping up to be the Big Bad of the Eleventh Season of the Canadian edition. Like many other "Villains" he demonstrated a Lack of Empathy but unlike other "villains", held apparently no standards. His Villainous Breakdown ended not by him being backdoored and a near unanimous eviction but by simply being too proud to be evicted after trying to blackmail Hope.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: The eleventh season of the Canadian version removed the live feeds altogether (Replacing them with "Digital Dailies") and changed the schedule to Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday. Because of this, casual viewers would have to dodge spoilers until Tuesday's episode which would be five days behind the "Digital Dailies"; while those who watched the "Digital Dailies" found little reason to watch the broadcast episodes as they would have already known what was happening long ago. Viewers were not happy with the decision, and hope that GlobalTV returns the feeds for the twelfth season.
• Awesome Music: Say what you will about the bland Season 1 in the US, it had a jammin' theme song.
  • Canada also has a very catchy theme.
  • The UK version features a high-energy trance theme by Paul Oakenfold. It's easily considered one of the most iconic TV themes in the country.
• Badass Decay:
  • Some say this happened with Neda's return for Season 5. On Season 2 she was seen as a brilliant and charismatic chess master, and in the years following she was considered one of the all time Canadian fan favorites and one of the best North American players to never win. Within the first few days of Season 5, the fans vote to give her immunity until jury. This causes the other players to be resentful towards her, and also leads to her becoming complacent within the game. The moment her immunity runs out during a double eviction, she is sent out the door, far earlier than most Season 2 fans would have hoped for her.
  • Some also say this happened with Paul - when in 18, he made bad moves, but ultimately was doing so to do what he could to get to the end. Unfortunately in 19, he apparently learned nothing from his stint on 18 and ends up basically shooting himself in the foot getting Alex and Jason evicted while trying to tell them he had nothing to do with their eviction.
  • Cirie, as on Survivor, she gained a reputation of being one of the best players to never win, and managed to win the first season of "The Traitors". When she played in 25 with her son Jared, Cirie managed to control the first six weeks... but went from controlling the game to expressing surprise that the people she wanted to evict were going after her.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • BB 12 (US): During a discussion about his plan with Matt in the HOH room, Lane spontaneously declares that he needs some pop rocks. Cue him sitting in a chair in silence, the sound of the rocks being caught by his microphone, and Matt staring incredulously. And then:
    Lane: Green apple's not the best flavor.
  • The house having a big dance number to Kaycee's Health Nut jingle at the end of Week 6 in BB 20 (US).
• Big "OMG!": A few days before Double Eviction night, CBS Chairman Les Moonves - Julie Chen's husband - was fired in the wake of several accusations of sexual harassment against him. At the conclusion of DE night, Julie signed off using her married surname for the first time in the show's history. Within the hour, Twitter exploded.
• Bile Fascination: No matter what season you watch, no matter what region, the show is full of sickening houseguests who would put a grin on the Devil's face, but that's what draws some of the viewers in. Yes, there are good-natured contestants, too, but so many more are borderline bigoted sociopaths.
  • It's become somewhat of a meme for Season 19 where a good portion of the viewers were watching out of shock that yes, the house is indeed that stupid.
• Broken Base: The various fanbases of the show do not agree on anything:
  • Danielle Reyes's loss in Season 3 US. Was it a case of a legitimately bitter jury (As their reasons for voting against Danielle were how she smack-talked them in the diary room and once they were out) or was it a case of Laser-Guided Karma since Danielle knew the rules going in (as this was the second season following the changed format) and the producers simply Didn't Think This Through. One thing that they can agree with was the Obvious Rule Patch made to season 4 - in which the jury is seqestered specifically to prevent this from happening.
  • The Key Wheel^note The HOH puts various House Guests' keys except the two they wish to nominate in a wheel like contraption, then the HOH pulls out the first key out of the wheel and the next person pulls the second key and so on until the two nominated House Guests remain. Used in BB 2 to BB 15. versus the Nomination Block^note The HOH turns two nominated House Guests' keys inserted into a block contraption, revealing their nominees up on the memory wall. Used in BB 16 and since.. Fans of the former like the wheel for adding more tension to the nominations, not to mention there's a little bit of strategic element on how you order your fellow House Guests' keys. Detractors will point out that the order of the keys matters very little in the grand scheme of things and wastes a chunk of the episode, especially if its at the beginning of the season where a lot of House Guests' remain that could've been used to develop them more. It doesn't help that the change was caused by the implementation of Battle of the Block, a controversial twist.
  • A more recent trend has emerged in multiple seasons of the show. It started with Dan's loss to Ian in Season 14 and continued with subsequent seasons where a contestant who played a more subdued game emerged as the winner over a player who was more domineering throughout the season. This was primarily because the winner managed to avoid burning bridges with the jury. Examples of this include Josh winning over Paul, Marissa winning over Ross, Kaycee winning over Tyler, and Paras winning over Kaela in Canada. This has sparked a fierce debate over whether the runner-up is at fault for failing to manage their jury properly, or if the jury is at fault for being bitter and voting based on personal feelings rather than voting for the person who played the superior game.
  • Related to the above is the Retool of the finale starting with Season 11: instead of Part 3 of the final Ho H, the final eviction, and the jury questioning happening a few days before the season finale, they all now happen live on finale night. Many fans complained about this change, as reducing the jury questioning segment from a few hours to a few minutes gave the Final 2 no time to realistically be able to convince jurors to vote for them. Dan has said he blames his Season 14 loss on this change, and several fans have pointed out that Tyler, Paul, and Ross may have been able to win their seasons if they had a chance to better explain their games. Others felt this change was positive and helped to speed up the finale which otherwise had a tendency to drag, and that still having 3 people in the house on finale night created more mystery around who would win the season.
  • Is Big Brother 21 a good season? Due to the unique combination of having one of the worst pre-jury sessions in the history of the show, along with a great jury phase where nearly every pre-jury villain got what was coming to them week after week, only to end with the season's unofficial heroes getting evicted just before the finale for the season's Manipulative Bastard to win, and then promptly get called out on his racist behavior... yeah, Big Brother 21 is polarizing, to say the least.
  • Big Brother 23, and in particular the Cookout, tends to be hotly debated among fans.
    • While nearly everyone is happy that an African American player won for the first time in the show's history, the circumstances that led to this achievement tend to be the main point of contention. Supporters of the Cookout argue that the end goal justifies the path taken to get there, especially considering the historical treatment of black players on Big Brother. Those who oppose the Cookout alliance often highlight that it is the first alliance in the show's history to be explicitly formed based on race. They argue that if an all-white alliance had formed with the intention of evicting all people of color (POC) in the house, production would have promptly intervened to stop it. Some have also expressed concerns that the Cookout's success will result in future seasons where black players are targeted. Even among those who supported the Cookout's mission, many expressed a desire for gender to be taken into account as well. They believed that the way the plan was executed allowed two highly athletic men to reach the end, when they would have likely been targeted earlier. As a result, these men were able to dominate the final competitions and eliminate the two women who had played a significant role in getting them that far.
    • Debates on the Cookout from a purely strategic perspective are similarly divisive. Some view their plan of each forming a close friendship outside of the alliance and taking turns evicting each other's friends as a brilliant strategy. They point to the fact that all six members made it to the Final Six without anyone outside the alliance even suspecting it as evidence that the Cookout should be considered one of the greatest alliances of all time. Others found the gameplay boring to watch because it became evident that the Cookout would successfully execute their plan. The game turned into a predictable pattern of the Cookout evicting their targets week after week, with no potential for a member of the Cookout to betray the alliance ever materializing. From an entertainment standpoint, some also found it frustrating to watch players considered to be The Load like Azah and Derek F, who were considered to be liabilities, make it so far into the game without winning anything. Meanwhile, more well-liked players such as Derek X and Claire were evicted due to circumstances largely beyond their control.
  • 24 featured a twist in which the house was divided into two camps who would live separately and ultimately culminate in a double eviction before reuniting. This naturally split the viewers - some view it as a good twist, some view it as a bad twist. Some think it was a twist that sounded better on paper, some think it was just poorly executed. Some think the twist itself was indeed bad, but it only worked within the context of 24, and some think the only saving grace was that it actually saved the season from being another big-alliance-blowout.
  • The third season of Canada had one twist in which the jury started earlier than normal, but the final three would have to unanimously evict a juror. Some think this twist was unfair, some saw it coming. Others pointed out that it may have only worked within this particular season due to the final three being able to divide the jurors into their allies.
  • Was Canada's 7th season good because of the impressive game that the boys' alliance played, or was it boring because Dane always managed to get everything he wanted week after week?
  • Was the short lived 8th season of Canada a promising season filled with some potentially great players tragically Cut Short, or was it a season that was put out of its misery by Covid?
    • Proponents of the first camp cite the sheer amount of gameplay that happened within only 25 days. Among these were a classic alliance that believes they controlled the game but didn't, as well as multiple sub alliances and counter alliances being formed and dissolved at the drop of a hat.
    • Proponents of the second camp cite the cast as overly volatile (Resulting in two non gameplay eliminations back to back) as well as several players who either quit (Nico) or were talking about it (Carol). Thus it was felt that any potentially great players would have had a very easy path to the end.
  • One rule unique to the Canadian edition as of recent is that the HoH does not play in Veto until much later in the game. Proponents of this mechanic suggest that this could keep fewer "Blowout weeks" where the veto isn't used and keeps things chaotic. Opponents suggest that it discourages the HoH from trying to make big moves since statisticaly speaking, the Veto will be used.
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • In US Season 14, the fact that the coaches would be joining the game was treated as a foregone conclusion by everyone for the first 3 weeks, to the extent that every conversation about the coaches joining the game was treated as a "when", not "if". So by the time the week 3 eviction comes around and Julie reveals that there is a chance the game will reset and the coaches will join as players, she gets pity surprise from the houseguests at best.
  • In the third season of Canada, Jury started at 12 players left (Meaning there would have been an even number). The fact that a juror would have their vote nullified was largely suspected the second it was revealed Jordan was the first member of the jury.
• Cargo Ship:
  • Daniel/a fake coconut tree in BB S11.
  • Will/the backyard camera in the US All-Stars edition.
  • Frank/Ted (a large stuffed teddy bear) in U.S. S14.
  • Gary and Marsha the Moose in BBCan 1.
  • Zach/his pink hat in U.S. S16.
    • Also, Zach/his Gator shirt.
  • Steven and the cameras in BB17.
  • Paul and Pablo, his trusty inflatable duck tube. The only person he loved more in the game than Pablo was Victor. And in BB 19, he's traded up Pablo for Trejo the toucan, that season's bird floatie.
  • Christmas and Pepe, her medical scooter. Production even adds a lot of dorky sound effects for Pepe.
  • Josh and his trusty pots and pans. Or Delilah the duck tube, who is already in a relationship with Hubert. And we can't forget Orwell the talking owl, either ("Help me!"). Nor can we forget the late addition of Theodore (Orwell's brother, who has on Josh's bandana, is with him and Orwell post-earthquake after tremors struck the house, and is seen sitting on the couch throughout the events of the finale and the defining moment when Josh exits the house as the winner of the season).
  • Tyler/his inflatable cow Moo-lan and "Tangela" pillow in BB 22.
  • Taylor/Lay's potato chips in BB 24.
  • Orwell and Metta in CBB 1.
• Character Perception Evolution:
  • During Season 11, Chima was lambasted by fans following her expulsion. How could she be so selfish and throw away a cherished spot on Big Brother, all because the game wasn't going her way? In recent years, fans have become more sympathetic towards her, recognizing that she was screwed hard by the coup d'état. It helps that general fan opinion of Jeff has also turned sour in recent years.
  • Marissa Jaret Winokur in the first US version of Celebrity Big Brother. Many felt that Ross Mathews was robbed and that most of the jury was voting for her on principle. However, as time went on, people started to point out she got Not Badass Enough for Fans treatment by the fandom, and that she deserved it due to a more social game. (The fact that she was more interested in the game than her career also helped.) She later returned to co-host a post-eviction special with Ross Mathews for Big Brother 20, which helped soften some hatred towards her.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: One common fan complaint of recent US seasons is that houseguests will almost always stick to the strategy of forming a large alliance of 6-8 people within the first week or two, and using this numbers advantage to vote out those not in the alliance week after week. This alliance will also usually consist of the most athletic people in the house (to increase the odds that they control the HoH and/or Veto every week), and usually those who have proven themselves to be at least somewhat emotionally stable, keeping the alliance from imploding too early. The houseguests outside of the alliance will find it difficult to compete with this majority, and thus be easy pickings for eviction. Strangely, production seems to encourage the forming of this kind of alliance, as Season 16 (which contained the first and most successful example of this kind of alliance) is almost always given to the contestants to watch while in sequester before the show.
• Creator's Favorite:
  • Brittany (US 1) was a very distinct character with signature Girlish Pigtails and dyed fiery red hair and The Fundamentalist, who was often said to be the season's most favored contestant. She was banished fourth nevertheless.
  • Tyler counts big time in Season 20. So beloved was he that he even appeared on another CBS game show prior to the season, "Total Knockout." He also effortlessly wins competitions and has gained a Power App advantage, giving him control over both sides of the house. However, unlike last season, there are individuals in the house who are aware of his immense threat and have the courage to target him.
• Creator's Pet: The editors pick their favourites from the players and decide to show them off to the audience. The problem is; they assume we'll like them too, or at least we'll Love to Hate them. Given that producers in every version have the power to slant the show and make Manipulative Editing work in their favor, their favorites become even more obvious, and sometimes even though we loved them, we begin to hate them due to overexposure.
  • Jessie (US 10 and 11) seems to be hated all over the Internet, yet, he has now made an appearance during five consecutive seasons, Season 19, and Celebrity Big Brother. He's been used as a punishment from Pandora's Box during the last three.
  • Brendon and Rachel because they take up 50% of the screentime and were already highly unlikable from Season 12, then returned for Season 13 having learned almost nothing. Jeff and Jordan are also this due to similar overexposure. Not to mention, the producers even fixed the entire season for them.
    • From live feeds or websites, part of it comes from the fact that the vets paid $25,000 each to participate in the show, while the newbies are paid a stipend of $750 for every week they've been on the house.
  • Amanda of Season 15. She's disliked due to her controlling attitude, racist/homophobic comments, bullying behavior, and her general bitchiness to all Houseguests. Yet, the absolute worst of her comments are kept exclusive to the live feeds as to portray her in a positive light, and rumor has it, the season has been rigged for her from the start. All of these turned out to be quashed as production actually did not step in to bail out Amanda or Elissa however.
  • Frankie of 16. They even delayed a challenge for a couple of hours to save him from elimination.
    • Derrick. As Frankie falls from grace, Derrick gets all the spotlight. Later challenges are even tailored to play to his strengths and the others' weaknesses.
  • Paul from Season 19. Back by popular demand (due to the major backlash over Nicole beating him), he quickly takes control and steals the spotlight from at least 90% of the cast. This means that if your name isn't Cody, Jessica, or Paul, you're Out of Focus. The rest of the cast's extremely poor gameplay only helps solidify his hold. He was even the first to receive a temptation from the Den of Temptation, and then his right-hand girl was the second to receive one. Ironically, the fact that Paul "lost" this season has generated more buzz about him than Josh, the actual winner. This includes bitter viewers rejoicing or Paul's fanbase expressing frustration about the bitter jury. It's enough that the season is now basically known as "THE SUMMER OF PAUL," "BIG BROTHER PAUL," or just plain "BIG PAUL."
  • Xavier from Big Brother 23 was seen as this to an extent, where many fans noticed that the edit was playing him up as the hero of the season and heavily focusing on him, while doing a combination of villainizing Tiffany and ignoring Hannah to dismiss the two contestants that the live feeders were more often rooting for.
  • Derek F from Big Brother 23 was also seen as being this to an extent due to the show going out its way to ignore his negative qualities (mainly, his frequent misogynistic comments) in favor of playing him up as only a lovable jokester and giving him nearly as much focus as Xavier.
  • Jared from Big Brother 25 was Cirie's Son, and as a result of this got quite a favourable edit. Said edit expunged his covering his mouth while talking game to Cirie so that Matt (who is partially deaf) could not hear or read his lips, or receiving no consequences for using the word "Retard" (Which is against the rules)
  • From Big Brother Canada 3, Sarah and Brittnee were this. A competition was said to be rigged for one of them to win (it was about an ally of theirs who was just evicted) and the coup d'etat-like-twist came at a time when they were in immediate danger and only one of those two could win it. Not to mention one of them (Sarah) actually won the game by quickly getting rid of all the other potential candidates.
  • Kiefer from Season 9 Canada was perceived as this. Some dismissed him as being "White passing", others dismissed him as using his race as a crutch for sympathy while virtue signaling.
  • Charley Uchea from UK Series 8 (2007), who the producers tried everything in their power to keep in as long as they could:
    • The first week she got nominated, they used the fact that she had an argument with Billi to delete both of their nominations out of the pool, which took Charley and her Beta Bitch Nikki off the public vote, but not Billi. To repeat, Charley was rewarded for breaking the rule about nominations. Billi ended up being evicted that week, presumably because people were annoyed that his rule break meant they couldn't get Charley out.
    • The next time she was on the block, Big Brother decided it would be a "fake eviction" where she was sent outside to a fake audience, and shown her highlights, but then sent back into the house. They announced this play on the same day she got nominated, so it can't have been coincidence. This let her stay in another 2 weeks.
    • It came out after the show that she had been warned repeatedly off screen for saying the N-word, including directing it at fellow black housemate Brian, though when Emily got thrown out for the same thing on Day 7 there were nearly a thousand complaints about the Double Standard that time alone.
• Critical Dissonance:
  • Season 6, it is one of the most beloved season by fans. Ratings? A massive downhill after Season 5 (from 8.3 to 7.24 in average viewership in millions).
  • Season 13. According to CBS, season 13 was one of their most rated seasons for Big Brother. If you ask some fans, especially the ones who've been watching the show since 2000, it made Season 9 look like pure gold.
  • Season 15. Ratings only went up after CBS decided to show some of the comments made by Aaryn and GinaMarie.
  • Season 16, loathed by fans, beloved by casual viewers and CBS (since there is an increase in average viewership).
  • Season 19, for being weighted down with a sackload of idiots following Paul like lemmings (while the primary opposition consisted of two Jerkass contestants who repeatedly botched their attempts to turn the tables), only for the finale to play host to one of the biggest upsets the show has ever seen when Paul gets loses to Josh (either because Josh outplayed him or because the jury was unjustifiably bitter), and leaves the viewers in uproar, either in delight or misery, depending on who you wanted to win.
  • Season 20. Fans love it because it's gotten back to unpredictable gameplay, but there's a lot of ego in the house this season and controversial behavior both on the televised episodes and especially on the live feeds.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • The "David's dead" incident: David Bowie died shortly after the January 2016 Celebrity Big Brother started. His ex wife, Angie, was in the house at the time. Big Brother chose to inform her personally, with 2 housemates to keep her company. Around the same time, another David named David Gest was also in the house, sick and sleeping in the bedroom alone. One of the other housemates, Tiffany "New York" Pollard notices Angie crying, and she explains to her that "David's dead", without mentioning that she means her husband. Cue Tiffany freaking out and thinking Angie meant David Gest, and quickly scaring the entire house.
  • Jason's joke about tying Kevin's wife to a pole and raping her while all their daughters watch. The Whistle-Nut and Ole team had to issue forth an apology and Jason got a nasty tongue-lashing when he learned about that.
  • Sam screaming that she takes cold showers because she's a f—king animal, followed by Brett responding that he's never been more scared and turned on at the same time.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Some fans tend to ignore or downplay their favorite player's more nasty behaviors or flaws ^note Zach bullying Victoria or messing up his own game; Frankie backstabbing people and playing it off like nothing, often insulting that person's rival to make them look better. ^note Taking Frankie's comments out of context to make him seem more problematic than he is; portraying Caleb as a complete idiot. Often, the the producers do this themselves through Manipulative Editing, or putting their favorites in a good light.
• Even Better Sequel:
  • Celebrity Big Brother US was seen as this to 19, due to featuring a cast that (for the most part) was there to play and were not afraid to be making moves. The gripes abut the season comes from celebrities wanting to leave from the show due to personal reasons and a winner who herself admitted that she's mostly riding on the runner-up's coattails.
  • Big Brother 20 is widely considered the best BBUS season in years.
  • From Canada, seasons 2 and 6 were this. Seasons 1 and 5 weren't bad per se, just controversial. (Topaz's vote, Canada's jury, Suzette being targeted, and 5's "Fans vs. Favourites" twist combined with Neda's downfall.)
• Fan Nickname:
  • Chima from Big Brother 11 was nicknamed "Hirochima" after her explosion(s).
  • Julie Chen has been nicknamed "Chenbot". House guests have actually called her "Chenbot" a few times, and CBS even has videos of Big Brother up on YouTube with "Chenbot" in the keywords, so they're well aware of this.
    • The origin of the nickname "Chenbot" is because Julie Chen has been able to say certain lines (mostly "but first") in the exact same way each time, even making the same movements as she looks towards the camera or stands up from a bench. You can see a Montage from season 6.
  • Gretel Killeen was named Gretski by housemate Blair in season one, and continued to be called Gretski by fans for the remainder of her hosting stint.
  • Victoria from BB16 has been called Queen Victoria, partially out of irony due to her inability to win competitions, but also due to her self-assured personality and being the only girl left by Final 5. Other fans will jokingly call her anything but her actual name, like Velma, Vacuum, or Vuvuzela, in reference to how forgettable she was.
  • The "Chop Shop" alliance from BBCan3 has been dubbed the "Flop Shop" by many fans, who consider it doomed from the start: Zach is a mole, the two girls (Willow and Ashleigh) are more interested in working with the other girls, and the three other guys are generally disliked due to being boisterous bruisers.
    • From the same season, Naeha quickly became known as Slaeha. Apparently it was for her gameplay, although she was only briefly seen before coming in 15th place.
  • Victor on Big Brother 18 got the nickname "Juan Snow" due to his strong resemblance to Jon Snow, combined with his Latino heritage.
  • During one HoH competition on Big Brother 18, Michelle, already known for being Prone to Tears, started vomiting due to stress during the competition. This sent her into another fit of hysterics, during which she dubbed herself "Vomit Cry Baby." Fans quickly ran with the name.
  • Fans have come to dub Big Brother 19 "Big Paul" because he completely stole the show. A reporter for Entertainment Tonight made note of this to Paul himself at the afterparty, and he laughed at it heartily.
  • A common joke nickname is for people online to call Christmas by any holiday name other than Christmas, e.g. Thanksgiving, Arbor Day, Flag Day, etc. The more obscure the better.
  • Big Brother 21: Pretty much everyone from the Gr8ful/Six Shooters alliance was subject to some nasty nicknames by fans, due to their unpopularity.
    • The Gr8ful alliance as a whole was nicknamed H8ful as a result of their constant bullying and belittling of the other side of the house. Production even became aware of the nickname and used it later in one of the episodes' recap!
    • Jack and Jackson, while given the collective nickname "The Jacks" by the show, were referred to as "The Jackasses" online, for obvious reasons.
    • Jackson also gained the nickname "Snackson" due to his Big Eater tendencies, including breaking Have Not rules by eating in the shower.
    • Holly was dubbed "Beth" after David accidentally called her this, to her annoyance.
    • Analyse became "Anal Lice", referencing Brett's intentional misspelling from the hacker competition last season.
  • Nicole Franzel is commonly referred to as “Ratcole” or “Snakeole” for her cattiness and victim playing.
  • Big Brother 23:
    • Kyland is often referred to as "Kyren" by fans due to the discovery that his Twitter account was full of tweets where he acted like a "Karen", often crying for customer service over small issues and showing entitled behavior toward corporate accounts. To his credit, he was a good sport about it when he found out and has accepted the reputation.
    • Kyland also has "Kryen" ("cryin'") for similar reasons, along with "Kyle". "Kyle" came about because fellow houseguest Sarah Beth said that she would deliberately misname him as "Kyle" if he ever betrayed her, and because he did, she has insisted on calling him this during interviews. Naturally fans joined in too.
    • Derek F’s actual nickname in the house was "Big D", to differentiate him from the skinnier and younger Derek X, who was "Baby D". Fans however took to calling Derek F "Big Delusional", due to him genuinely believing that he carried his alliance through the season despite him winning zero competitions to help them or even having to betray anyone for them like all five other alliance members had to do.
  • Big Brother 24:
    • After Joseph had a surprising Took a Level in Badass moment on his 25th birthday by showing lucidity about the game that he had entirely lacked in the weeks before, fans started referring to him as “Joseph (25)” to indicate how he seemed like an entirely different person after this point.
    • Kyle got the unflattering nickname “KKKyle” once he started repeatedly encouraging the white houseguests to team up and vote out all of the black houseguests, seemingly out of a paranoia that another black alliance would form and dominate like it did on the previous season... ignoring the fact that seven out of the first eight houseguests already put up for eviction on his season had all been black.
  • Big Brother 25:
    • After Felicia used the phrase "fucking Bowie Jane" on the feeds, that became Bowie Jane's go-to nickname in the fan community, often shortened to FBJ.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Some certain fans of the American version tend to ignore the first season due it being a completely different game than the games in the other seasons and the developers of that series treating it like Old Shame themselves, with new producers later coming on to revamp the show into its current format. Because of that, you usually don't find that season in some season/houseguest/winner rankings. There's also people who basically treat Season 15 like a Red-Headed Stepchild because it started out okay but quickly descended into the rectal cavity and into the bowels of infamy from which it will never return.
• Foe Yay Shipping:
  • During Russell and Chima's infamous live feed fight, Russell repeatedly accuses Chima of making sexual overtures toward him, including cuddling, kissing and once "grabbing [his] dick" when they were in bed together. Dedicated viewers note that the two were actually somewhat flirty with each other, or at the very least least overtly friendly, before things went south.
  • In US Big Brother 18 we have Michelle and Paulie. It is mostly one sided on Paulie's end, with him making somewhat flirtatious overtures toward Michlle. All of which culminating in him kissing her at his eviction.
  • In Big Brother 23, Tiffany and Kyland had this kind of relationship during Kyland’s third HOH reign, when Kyland was actively trying to get Tiffany sent home and Tiffany clearly had enough of him by that point, yet they ended up sleeping together, likely because of those strong emotions between them.
• Fountain of Memes: The US version has produced a few.
  • Nearly every moment involving Britney Haynes has provided quotable entertainment, thanks to her amazing Deadpan Snarker comedy.
  • On the opposite end of the spectrum is Rachel Reilly, who is nowhere near as self aware as Britney, still proved endlessly entertaining and quotable thanks to being one of the Largest Hams to ever be on the show.
  • Many of Da'Vonne's quotes and moments became popular on sites like Twitter and TikTok.
• Fourth Wall Myopia: Because this show in particular makes heavy use of the Confession Cam, as well as the fact viewers are able to see in multiple rooms at once (or swap at will in impossible ways), it's not uncommon to hear people dismiss the players as "Stupid" or "Idiots" because they can't see what we can. The confessionals are still private after all.
• Friendly Fandoms: While many of the fandoms of this show tend to have a little bit of infighting over which versions are better (Note that the American, Canadian, and Brazilian versions are quite different than the others!) they actually do have people who enjoy watching other versions. One of the single most notable examples of this is Big Brother Canada - which was largely watched on YouTube by American viewers who couldn't get access to the SLICE TV channel that ran it. One poster even put it that Big Brother Canada was essentially "Big Brother Spring".
  • One of the major factors that prompted the creation of Big Brother Canada was the popularity of Big Brother US in Canada. This is most well evidenced by the fact that BB Canada uses a near-identical format to the US version of the show rather than that used by most other countries, and Arissa even introduced the Season 1 premiere by saying "For 14 seasons we've let our neighbors to the South have all the fun". Even thought Big Brother Canada now has its own established fanbase, most Canadian viewers still watch the US version of the show, and most former US and Canadian houseguests interact with each other on Twitter & the like. It's pretty much taken for granted by the Canadian show that even if it's viewers don't watch Big Brother US, they at least know about some of the more famous houseguests like Dan and Rachel.
    • Season 4 of Big Brother Canada even had a twist which saw two houseguests from international versions of the show coming in & competing on the Canadian version.
    • Interestingly, though, this fanon-sharing is not mutual, as the US version of the show has yet to even acknowledge the existence of the Canadian version. Though with all seasons of Big Brother Canada coming to Paramount+ in February of 2022, this could change.
  • For a little while, the short-lived "The Glass House" shared a few fans, but ultimately lost most of its viewers once Big Brother came on.
  • Also with Survivor and The Amazing Race- in fact, These fans have been known to turn on Big Brother and watch it because when Big Brother is airing, normally most seasons of Survivor or Amazing Race are being filmed. Airing during the dead time also helps. Former Big Brother players were introduced in The Amazing Race or Survivor also add the charm, with varying degrees.
• Game-Breaker: The Coup d'état allowed the holder to take off the nominees and put up their own. The first time this was put into the game, the specter of it made people afraid to nominate their own way. The second time, it completely turned the game around.
  • The MVP from Season 15 US before changing the mechanics due to Elissa getting it again and again, due to it's ability to act as a sub-HOH even when you're nominated and said Elissa being a relative of a well known houseguest. Do the math.
  • During the fourth week of Big Brother Canada 2, the producers let Canada act as the HOH for that week (similar to international versions like U.K.'s version, minus the audience voting to evict) causing a complete reversal of power in the house.
  • Big Brother Canada 3 had a twist that was, basically, the coup d'etat. The houseguest, who had to win the power, had the option of using it on one or both nominees while also naming the replacement nominee(s) They were forced to take off one nominee as minimum.
  • The instant triple eviction in Canada 3, also got many of the potential threats in the house out, leaving Sarah and Britnee to dominate the game.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • As noted, the show is popular in many countries around the world, especially Britain. But in the Netherlands, the country whence it came? Cancelled in 2006 after six series.
  • The Brazilian version manages to be one of the most popular reality shows of its country. It's probably the only reality show that actually works in the country. No Limite (a Survivor knock-off) hardly managed to get three seasons in 10 years, and only in 2022 got a revival. Though a Seasonal Rot started to kick in with season 12, and the show is starting to overstay its welcome. That is, until season 20 got "lucky" that the COVID-19 Pandemic both kept people at home and interrupted many shows\forms of entertainment, bringing viewers back to BBB and making them get attached to its diverse cast of mostly subcelebrities, leading to the best ratings in a decade (after 19 was the lowest overall!).
  • Guess who was the biggest celeb on Germany's first celebrity edition in 2013? Played painfully straight. He left after just a few days because "his father was sick", to be replaced by Pamela Anderson.
• Growing the Beard:
  • After the viewer voting concept implemented in Big Brother US 1 proved to be a disastrous bore, the producers ended up making Season 2 (and the rest of the series) something akin to "Survivor in a luxurious prison". Then, several more seasons later, the show dispensed with tobacco and alcohol products sometime later and began adding many of its trademarks.
  • Season 12 is this for one simple fact- it introduced Zingbot.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Big Brother UK
    • The infamous David's Dead incident in Celebrity UK 2016, where just 3 months later, the David (Gest) that Tiffany thought had died sleeping in his bed at that time, actually 'died'' from poor health brought on by drug abuse. Gest had been sick to the point, he had to walk off the game and later. Some of his houseguest friends would later attend his funeral.
    • Jimmy Savile's appearance on Celebrity Big Brother UK in 2006 naturally falls under this. Not only did he engage in his typical creepy behaviour, but this exchange eerily predicted the fall-out following his death.
    Pete Burns: He'll take his secrets to his grave and beyond, Mr Savile.
    George Galloway: Nobody's secrets survive the grave.
    • Jade Goody insulting an Indian celebrity on Celebrity UK 2007, then coming onto the Indian version of Big Brother (hosted by Shilpa herself, after the two had made up) and receiving a deadly cancer diagnosis two days in and being forced to pull out and later dying from it... damned cruel.
    • UK Series 11 is known for launching the media career of winner Josie Gibson, but also the YouTube career of professional troll Sam Pepper. At one point Sam was admonished for going way too far while "jokingly" sexually harassing Josie by thrusting his crotch in her face while he had to wear a revealing outfit for a task. A few years later his YouTube career was destroyed by another prank seen as a sex offense, along with allegations of actual sexual assault.
    • Same as the above for the 2016 series and Andrew Tate.
    • Grace Adams Short's Heel Realization about how much the audience hated her, prompting her to sob that she'd never been unpopular in her life. She would be assaulted only one month after the season ended - when in a fight outside a nightclub led to her getting scarred with cigarette burns.
  • UK Big Brother power couples really don't tend to last long after they get out of the house.
    • Pete and Nikki didn't last, in his words due to her clingyness and his drug use.
    • Chantelle and Preston infamously had a 9 month marriage after meeting in the house.
    • Josie said John-James left her within a month.
    • Ziggy and Chanelle broke up a few months later for reasons that should be obvious to anyone who actually watched the season they were in.
    • Lisa and Mario did eventually marry, but after 3 years he almost literally threw her out of his house, and she ended up homeless and begging for food for some time.
  • Big Brother US
    • In Big Brother 1 in the US, Brittany has a job as a pharmaceutical representative who tests different drugs in the lab. William cracks a funny joke that this is a cover for being a drug pusher. Fast forward to Season 9 and that actually happened with Adam Jasinki using his winnings to finance a drug ring that was later busted by cops and having to go into rehab. Worse, houseguest David Gest of Celebrity Big Brother got very sick and later died due to misuse of drugs.
    • The competition in BB 2 where it was said to be constitutional to fire people based on their sexuality from workplaces and fellow closeted homosexual now out in the open Bunky joked, "YEAH! Fire all the gays!" This is before the gay rights movements erupted in the next decade and an intensely controversial and highly publicized legal case over a gay wedding cake galvanized the public.
    • Kent Blackwelder's chain smoking habits in Big Brother 2 were so bad, he blew through all his cigarettes and production cut him off of cigarettes when he requested more. This forced him to try to quit smoking in the house. Later, he died at the age of 62 near the end of 2017 because a long lifetime of smoking had brought on complications to his health.
    • 9/11 taking place during Big Brother 2 and one of the contestants learning her cousin was missing... because she would later come to learn that cousin had been killed.
    • Chilltown's antics in Season 2 & 7 became a lot harder to watch, after Mike "Boogie" was arrested for threatening and stalking Dr. Will his family.
    • In Big Brother 12, Enzo is shown to have a supporting wife rooting for him in the game. Fast-foward to a decade later in Big Brother 22, and Enzo mentions he got divorced on live TV.
    • In Big Brother 14, Ian was potrayed like a weirdo by production and was mocked by his fellow houseguests for his mannerisms. Ian would later admit in Season 22, that he was diagnosed as Autistic. Unfortunately not every houseguest in Big Brother 22 knew of that fact, and more mocking of Ian was done in that season (which ultimately caused Nicole F. to lose a sponsorship deal in the process).
    • Frankie mourning the loss of his grandfather in BB 16... only for Derrick to also lose his grandfather that same week.
    • All those jokes that Frankie envies his sister's popularity are harder to swallow after one of Ariana's concerts was targeted by terrorists because it drew so many young fans and the bombers wanted to slay children.
    • In the final moments of the live feed for Big Brother 19 before they shut it down for the finale later in the evening, Paul is seen changing the battery on his body mic for the ninth and final time, remarking that this will be his last battery change, and hopefully it won't precede the last time he was in the house, "when I played myself." Unfortunately for Paul, that's EXACTLY what happened: he lost in a carbon copy of his defeat in Big Brother 18, 5-4, beaten out by the one person whose game was seen as less unlikable than his. This season, he bragged about never going up on the block once and made it to the final two... and because of that, he lost in the most painful way possible AGAIN.
    • During Will Kirby's interviews of the houseguests at the afterparty of Big Brother 19 on September 20, 2017, the night of the finale, Will nicknamed Alex "Tom Petty", because she wore a "PETTY" hat throughout the season. Just twelve days later, on October 2, 2017, Tom Petty died of a heart attack.
    • A few weeks into Big Brother 20, rumours started spreading that Bayleigh had gotten pregnant by Swaggy C while in the house. This prompted a storm of memes and jokes on social media about the alleged Big Brother baby, including multiple "Swayleigh Fetus" joke accounts. These jokes stopped almost immediately after the end of the season, when Bayleigh revealed that she and Swaggy did conceive a child in the house, but she had a miscarriage in the jury house.
  • Big Brother Canada
    • On Big Brother Canada 4, Nikki is finally chosen as a have-not and has a meltdown at the thought of having to go on slop. The show plays it for laughs, but Nikki has disclosed her lifelong struggle with anorexia multiple times outside the house, which provides a darker context for her reluctance to go on an unappetizing meal plan for a week. In 2021, Nikki passed away from complications related to anorexia, taking the incident from mildly funny to borderline unwatchable.
    • Once Maki was evicted in Big Brother Canada 7, he summons (figurative) plague on his house as he was leaving. Unfortunately, the following year, a real plague forced production to end on Big Brother Canada 8 early.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Houseguest Amanda referred to Candice (who is adopted) as the "Black Annie"/"Blannie", intending it as an insult. Fast forward to 2014 where Annie was remade...
  • In Big Brother 5 (US), to show how much Jun doesn't trust Alison, Jun tells the Audience that she wouldn't even trust Alison to hold her (hypothetical) newborn son. Years later, Jun would become a mother and actually had a Son.
  • Gary and Peter mentioned that in Big Brother 2 Canada, the First Five were pretty much unstoppable throughout the entire game at that point, and they would have just knocked everyone out all the way to the final five if something wasn't done. Fast Forward to the BB US 16, where another alliance did just that.
  • In Big Brother 13, Dominic ended up having zero idea who Dick and Daniele were when they first entered the house in which he thought Daniele was Dick's girlfriend. In 2013, Daniele actually went on to marry Dominic.
  • Big Brother 18's opening titles feature Nicole and Victor shown at the same time. One year later and those two are dating! Doubles as Heartwarming in Hindsight and coincidental Foreshadowing.
  • At the afterparty of Big Brother 19, Will is casually throwing around the idea of houseguests appearing on The Young and the Restless and The Amazing Race. Josh and Jessica got to appear on the soap opera that comes on right after Y & R, The Bold and the Beautiful, and Jessica has also been commissioned along with her boyfriend in the house Cody to compete on The Amazing Race 30 of the US edition.
  • After nearly everyone called the cast of Big Brother 19 the dumbest ever, during the preseason interviews of the cast for Big Brother 20 on Entertainment Tonight right before the night of the premiere, nearly everyone going into the house says their strategy is to play dumb.
• Heartwarming Moments: From 5 in the US, the realization by Cowboy and Nakomis that they were siblings.
• Ho Yay:
  • Ragan (gay) and Matt (straight) in US S12. They're almost always together to the point where people think they're in an alliance, and Matt even referred to Ragan as "a good showmance partner". When Matt was put on the block, Ragan began to weep uncontrollably. A few contestants even thought that the "secret relationship" Annie implied existed was between Ragan and Matt and that they had been dating before entering the BB House. It was actually Rachel and Brendon.
  • A minor but hilarious example with AJ and Andrew from the Canadian version. As the two oldest guys in the house, they pretty much only talked to each other. Later on, during the veto competition (which AJ was playing in), contestants had to choose someone else by random draw to be their partner. Jillian pointed out in the Diary Room that almost everyone drew their showmance. Cut to AJ drawing Andrew to be his partner.
  • Peter and Gary from BBCanada get some of this during their time hosting the side show in season 2. One particular moment is when Peter is criticizing Scott on his game (or lack thereof) and Scott interjects.
    Scott: Can I just say that I love what you're wearing tonight?
    Peter: I didn't wear it for you, I wore it for Gary.
  • Frankie and Zach. Just... Frankie and Zach. One houseguest thought they'd even start making out, despite Zach's claims that he's heterosexual. Subverted later on by Frankie's cruel comments towards Zach on the live feeds about wanting to "kill the baby" and "bathe in his blood". Which is kinda ironic, considering how Zach made a similar comment about yearning to get blood on his hands while Frankie said he didn't want to at all when he and Frankie were dueling for control of the eviction block one week. For more information on Frankie, see the Scrappy section.
  • Johnny Mac and Steve. Even though they are both straight, they've both made double entendres about each other, both have an incredibly close friendship, laughed together, cuddled, would probably vote for each other in the final two, and both are Birds of a Feather in that they are both very Adorkable nerds. They even admitted to having a nerdmance, and have some cute moments together. As much as they've tried to hide it, by pretending to align with others, they obviously really care about each other. Not to mention Steve, despite holding it in, was visibly shaken by John's eviction. They even joked about kissing.
  • Victor and Paul from BB18. Paul was noticeably crushed when Victor was evicted the first time, and then the second time, he practically broke down. But when Victor won the right to come back, Paul formed an even bigger friendship with him. The two even bicker at times Like an Old Married Couple. And then there's Corey with almost every guy in the house, but especially Victor and Paulie. The two were even sleeping in the same bed at one point during Day 74 causing more people to question Corey's sexual preference.
  • Brett and Winston in BB20. They immediately start an alliance upon entering the house, and become known as "The Bros" both for their Frat Bro personalities, and developing an extremely close friendship during the course of the show. Although they had only known each for just a few weeks before Winston was evicted on Day 30, they had already become inseparable during that time.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Aaryn on Season 15. Aaryn's first true love was Cuban American but it didn't work out and in her college years she longed for love and she became lonely and spiteful. That's the Aaryn we got coming into the game. Aaryn later remarked in the game that she wasn't aiming for friendship, and had a "smart-ass" personality, but her Eagleland-bred Texan humor and lack of clarification that she didn't mean any of her jokes in an offensive manner created the impression of a racist. However, people decided to twist it WAYYYY out of proportion and paint her as "Aaryn the Aryan" as if everyone felt compelled to jump on the bandwagon because they could. She Took a Level in Kindness in a real life when a guy named Nick Williams showed her guys do care and awakened the best in her and the two wed, erasing away the bad namesake we once knew.
  • Christine from US Season 16. She confided in a lengthy podcast that she once suffered from a suicidal level of depression due to people talking negatively about her behind her back. In the house, when that happened, she flipped out. Now all of those bad things she was up to have a painful connotation underneath them.
  • Austin from U.S. Season 17. Being universally despised by everyone despite not being that bad of a guy and genuinely hating liars and traitors, the guy's a Noble Demon at worst and it's shown even the twins don't care for him if the conversation they had on the hammock was any indication. Could be a regular or Iron Woobie since he's nicer than the twins. He genuinely felt betrayed when Julia picked him and when Steve and Vanessa turned on him.
  • Cody from US Season 19. Making some hateful transphobic remarks and treating a lot of the houseguests very poorly doesn't endear him to the viewers, and up to a point, the houseguests, who turn the tables and subject Cody to a massive hazing by the entire house. His girlfriend is evicted right before the jury, thanks to Paul going the extra mile. Whether this is just a Kick the Dog moment or Laser-Guided Karma is up to the audience, at least in a chronological lens.
  • Poor Josh. The guy's hometown got hit by a category 4 hurricane, he cries and genuinely feels bad whenever he hurts people, and every time he tries to speak his mind, Christmas and Paul keep bullying him. Fortunately, with him playing with his heart and actually getting people to like him ended up winning him BB 19 over Paul in a shocking replay of Russell Hantz's storyline from Survivor. The guy even managed to get Cody's vote. The same guy who basically called him a brainless bratty kid along with Jessica.
  • Sarah Beth from US Season 23. She’s a genuinely nice person until the season’s Big Bad, Kyland, messes with her head by sleep depriving her with long talks overnight that are full of lies and gaslighting which warp her perception of reality and ultimately turn her into a Jerkass to everyone in the house except for Kyland. Once she goes to the Jury House, she mellows out and seems extremely hurt by the way Kyland treated her, saying that while she respected the Cookout alliance manipulating the players to get themselves to the end, she felt that Kyland took it way too far.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Zach from S16 (U.S.). Many fans are either shipping him with Victoria, Frankie or Frankie's sister, Ariana Grande. The shipping for Zach often teeters on Ship-to-Ship Combat; for most shippers, Zach isn't so lucky, since Zach isn't overly fond of Victoria, said that he is heterosexual, and Ariana faces similar problems among a wider group of shippers/in-universe fans.
  • Victoria. There's the mentioned Zachtoria, Beast Mode Princess ^note after Caleb and Victoria were handcuffed together as Adam and Eve after a challenge, Derrick/Victoria, Victoria and Hayden, Nictoria (Nicole and Victoria), and people who approve of the show's brief tab at a Victoria/Hayden/Nictoria love triangle ship all three together.
• Les Yay: Sarah and Willow from BBCan3. Sarah is queer, Willow appears to be straight, and both of them have made out a few times and spend a lot of their time cuddling.
• Love to Hate:
  • Rachel Reilly is legendary for this, for being an equal measure of insufferable Jerkass and genuinely hilarious Large Ham.
  • The Friendship from Season 6 also counts, if only they haven't won.
  • Big Brother 23 has both an early game and endgame example. The early game example is Frenchie, who went really overboard with making deals and thus couldn’t help but fall into several instances of Chronic Backstabbing Disorder within the span of just two weeks! His Drama Queen antics on top of this made him extremely entertaining to watch despite being such an unlikeable backstabber. The late game example is Kyland, who is a total Jerkass to several houseguests and gets into an absurd amount of Evil Is Petty behaviors, but the hilarity of some of these antics such as rubbing his face in the tortillas and arbitrarily sparing the biggest threat in the house due to his massive ego making him believe he could personally defeat him in the final two, makes him very entertaining as well.
• Memetic Loser: Frenchie from Big Brother 23 has reached such a point of infamy with how badly he played that any time a contestant has a chaotic or otherwise terribly thought-out HOH, they will inevitably be compared to Frenchie. For example, Kyle from Big Brother Canada 10 was quickly called the Frenchie of his season once he won HOH and made such bad decisions with it that he alienated his entire house. It even became a sort of Ascended Meme during the interviews with the new houseguests for Celebrity Big Brother 3, when incoming houseguest Mirai cited him as an example of how NOT to play Big Brother and used him as an anti-role model for good gameplay.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The Chenbot, as well as making montages of her saying "But First".
  • Janelle (6): "Bye bye, bitches."
  • Mike Boogie (7): "Get to stepping."
  • "Nobody comes between me and my man" a quote that once made popular by Rachel Reilly.
    • Or "Floaters grab a life vest."
  • Helen Was Pushed ^Explanation Season 15's buyback competition involved balancing on a moving platform against a wall. Just as Helen falls and is eliminated, you can see movement behind her through a hole between the platform and the wall. This spawned several conspiracy theories that Helen had been pushed off the wall by a member of production to keep her from winning the competition. Nowadays, "Helen was pushed" is a stock phrase jokingly referring to these conspiracies.
  • Elissa (15) spit take. Ubiquitous on Twitter as a reaction GIF, though Elissa sometimes gets mistaken for Jennifer Lawrence.
  • "Good TV? IS THAT WHAT THEY FUCKING WANT?" ^note On Canada Season 2, this was Sabrina's reaction to learning Adel nominated her & Rachelle because he wanted to "make good TV".
  • Jocasta's (16) expressions have become very popular reaction images, notably this◊ Death Glare and "I'm so used to giving and now I get to recieve!"◊.
  • Frankie's crestfallen expression after learning he was not in the top 3 for America's Favorite Player.
  • Becky's story about getting hit in the face by a train
  • Meg's brutal header on the ramp during the OTEV competition in 17, which gets replayed a lot.
  • Da'Vonne provided several throughout her three seasons:
    • The moment of her dancing as she exited the house on Season 17 turned into a popular reaction gif.
    • "Wait a damn minute" ^note The audio originated from the moment Day discovered Paulie won Veto the week Zakiyah was evicted and chose not to use it on her. Later became a popular audio for reactions on TikTok and the like.
    • "This is the one you lay with?!" ^note During a massive jury house fight between Da'Vonne and Paulie, Day starts yelling this at Zakiyah, questioning her decision to remain with Paulie. Several people noted the almost Biblical tone Day took on, which contributed to the notoriety.
  • UK Season 7, Nikki: "Who is she?!"
  • Corey's (18) love for Christmas. ^note Not the player Christmas Abbott, the yuletide season.
  • CONGRATULATIONS ON MAKING IT TO FINAL FIVE THAT IS A HUGE ACCOMPLISHMENT IN BIG BROTHER ^note Paul’s overblown exclamation to the other houseguests following the BB 19 double eviction
  • 20 gives us quite a few:
    • Rockstar screaming at Brett ON HER DAUGHTER'S BIRTHDAY!
    • Brett spelling "anallice" during the hacker comp.
    • "Who flipped?"
    • What's wrong with Angela?
  • From Season 23
    • #Kycomplains. ^note Fans had an absolute ball when they discovered that houseguest Kyland Young had a Twitter account full of “Karen” type complaints directed at various companies, often crying for customer service or showing entitled behavior in his expectations from these corporate accounts. It even gave him the Fan Nickname of “Kyren”.
    • Child of God ^note During Claire’s exit interview with Julie Chen, Claire uses the word “grace” when describing how she wants people to respond to Tiffany’s decision to evict her, to which Julie responds by saying “I love that you use the word grace. I feel like you’re a child of God.” The random insertion of religion into the conversation was something that caught many fans off guard, and then the funniness of the moment took off even more when a friend of Claire’s confirmed that Claire isn’t actually religious, making Julie’s statement even more awkward. Claire herself gave the moment Meme Acknowledgment by adding “Child of God” to her Instagram bio.
    • Alyssa’s face at the Jury roundtable ^note Kyland claims that Hannah and Derek F played equal games, despite Derek F winning zero HOH or veto competitions and making no actual moves for the Cookout, while Hannah won HOH to get Alyssa out, veto to help get Sarah Beth out, and used her connection with Derek X to convince him to not use the Coin of Destiny, causing him to fail to prevent his eviction and helping the Cookout tremendously due to him being their biggest competition threat. After hearing Kyland’s blatantly false equivalence, Alyssa gives a very confused-looking “wtf?” type of face, which caught on as a reaction picture. Similar to Claire, Alyssa has given the moment Meme Acknowledgment by making the picture her new Instagram profile pic after the game.
  • From Celebrity Big Brother 3, "talking to Cynthia is like talking to a box of crayons". ^note Big Bad Duumvirate Todrick and Miesha convince Cynthia that Shanna is a snake and needs to be evicted next. When Shanna attempts to refute Todrick and Miesha’s lies about her, Cynthia doesn’t even try to listen to Shanna at all, making Shanna feel like she’s talking to a wall, leading to Shanna giving this unique metaphor in the Diary Room. Fans ran with it, and even gave Cynthia the Fan Nickname of "Crayola".
  • From Season 24:
    • Taylor’s Karma ^note Every time a houseguest became particularly antagonistic toward houseguest Taylor Hale, they would by sheer coincidence end up getting evicted shortly after.
  • From the Canadian edition, "Gummy Bear nominations". ^note In the fourth season, Tim used "Gummy Bears" as a way to test the house's preferences, thus allowing him to avoid gaining too much heat. Gummy Bears returned in the tenth season when Marty was forced to nominate one of his five-person alliance due to a mixture of veto wins and Summer being awarded immunity. He had Kevin, Haleena, Jacey-Lynne, and Gino all draw gummy bears and whoever drew the yellow Gummy Bear was to be the replacement nominee
  • "How did your game change for, I'm going to say the better, when you joined the Mafia with Matt and I?" ^note Bowie Jane's jury question for Jag, which she had approximately ten minutes to come up with following her eviction. The joking nature of her question contrasted with the rest of the relatively serious jury questioning segment, as well as Bowie Jane's general status as a Joke Character, led many social media users to turn the phrase into a meme.
  • From Celebrity Big Brother UK in 2024:
    • "To all of the housemates here, we are deeply sorry for any upset that we have caused today. It was totally banter. And we are really, really sorry." ^note Lauren Simon and Louis Walsh were forced to write an apology letter for discussing who they think might have nominated Lauren and singling out Zeze Millz in particular. When they read the letter to the other housemates, it turned out to be very short and didn't seem sincere, and there was an awkward silence that went on for a while as the others didn't know how to react. Many viewers thought this moment was very memorable.
    • Zeze dragging a dead clown across the corridor ^note Part of this clip has a moment where Zeze Millz hurriedly drags a mannequin dressed as a clown through the corridoor, which many viewers posted GIFs and clips of on social media because of how hilarious it was. It was even acknowledged on the Late & Live show that it was the most memed moment of that series.
    • Nikita killing/knocking out Fern ^note In one episode, the housemates played a game where they were split into teams and had to go around popping each other's balloons. During this, Nikita Kuzmin accidentally caused Fern Britton to fall over and hit her head on a nearby seat, which made her feel unwell. As there had been some tension between the two over the past few days, this led to jokes about how Nikita was so fed up with Fern trying to start an argument with him that he killed her or knocked her out (in reality, he felt really bad about the incident).
• Moe: Hannah Chaddha of Big Brother 23 is absolutely adorable. She’s the youngest of the cast, very short in stature with a baby face, often styles herself with cute hairdos and outfits along with makeup blush that emphasizes her youthfulness, and is about as kind as one can be on a show like Big Brother while still doing what is required to make it far in the game. For example, having Undying Loyalty to fellow houseguest Tiffany even when it became unpopular to associate with her, because she thought the house wasn’t being fair to her, and going out of her way to be sweet to houseguests Derek X and Claire even knowing she couldn’t take them far because of her alliance. She won the adoration of many other houseguests with her cute personality and cute quirks such as accurate imitations of how the houseguests walk and goofy dance moves. Her status as this was sealed with her elimination episode, when she got blindsided by a double eviction at the worst possible time and then spent the entire episode alternating between looking completely terrified or on the verge of tears as she failed to win either the HOH competition or veto while every other member of the house ganged up on her to ensure her eviction, making her come across as a major Woobie. Most comments about the episode on websites like Twitter were along the lines of “my poor baby!” with crying emojis and outrage at the other contestants. The extent of the outrage even got so bad that the episode’s HOH who targeted Hannah had to have her Twitter account set to private for a week as a result of the intense fan backlash, showing just how much of a protective instinct the fans had over Hannah for being such a cute and sweet houseguest.
• Narm:
  • Aisleyne (BB 7 UK)'s rather OTT crying fits. Many people thought they were fake at first before realising she was just a Large Ham in real life. Particularly when Imogen was eliminated, Aisleyne's crying and Big "NO!" were a bit much. Imogen even lampshaded it on Big Mouth saying "It's okay, Aisleyne. I'm not dead". Aisleyne herself even burst out laughing at the clip when it was shown during her Best Bits.
  • From the same season, when Susie was brought into the house, the same night the live crowd were heard very loudly chanting "get Grace out!" due to how much they hated Grace. Grace herself sobbed at the realisation, but Mikey's attempts at comforting her were laughable; he tried to insist they were actually chanting "get a ball out" (Susie was selected via a ball machine). A real life "boo-urns" moment.
  • Invoked in Season 18 - wherein Jozea tries to have a serious house meeting... while wearing a dog suit. Da'vonne lampshades this by talking about how nobody can take him seriously due to that.
• Narm Charm: Normally a futuristic robot showing up to an otherwise completely mundane setting to simply insult people and then go on its way would be seen as a weird and cheesy Big-Lipped Alligator Moment at best, but fans love the Zingbot and look forward to its appearance every season despite its cheesiness.
  • Contestants get very excited for the annual OTEV and BB Comics competitions despite their cheesiness.
• Nausea Fuel: There was an obscene amount of people in Canada's Big Brother 2 who belched, farted, picked their nose, went naked, and did other unmentionable things. Also they chewed with their mouth open so you could see the food being crunched into a mushy pulp in their mouth. Peter and Gary have noted that not all Canadians are like this.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Justin from Season 2 of the US run will always be that psycho kid from Jersey who took a knife to a contestant's throat and got the free access to alcohol essentially banned from the show, and the very first case of a contestant expulsion in the series.
  • Season 4 in the US run is the one where they nefariously paired up broken engagements, and as a result, one of the contestants (Scott) actually went crazy.
  • Jeff will be known for two things: Spelling "Technotronics" ^note which is not a word as Techtronics and accidentally throwing out the clown shoe he needed to win the veto and get himself off the block two years later. (To be fair, the latter was an accident.)
  • Marcellas will always be known as that person who won the golden veto when he was on the block, and didn't use it, resulting in his eviction.
  • Chima's meltdown where she Rage Quit and was subsequently ejected by Big Brother is arguably the most famous moment of season 11. ^note So much that when Jeff Probst hosted a show of the most memorable TV moments, Chima throwing her microphone into the hot tub was the only Big Brother moment that was even mentioned.
  • Season 9 US will forever be known as a drug-running season. Never mind that only two out of sixteen people cast for the show actually did that.
  • Season 13 US will be known as the "rigged" season, by introducing various twists that favored the veterans, particularly Rachel Reilly.
  • Nikki will forever be known as a Wangster.
    • Bunky will forever be known as the person who cried in the house. Interesting to note that his crying wasn't so much Wangsting as it was happy crying.
  • Willie Hantz, brother of infamous Russell Hantz, will be remembered for carrying on the family legacy of snakes- and head-butting somebody and getting himself booted off the show by force.
  • Season 15 will now be known as the most mean-spirited season for the US, with the racist, sexist, homophobic and other bigoted comments made by certain houseguests.
  • The Australian series will always be linked to two unforgettable words: Turkey slap.
  • Canada's first season has Topaz's infamous slip-up. Because she wasn't paying attention, she voted against her closest friend her the house (thinking that they were voting to evict a final person rather than voting for the winner). This caused Jillian to win over Gary by a single vote. Ever since, Arissa has been very clear that the jury is to vote for the person they want to win.
  • Season 19 of the US edition is the mean-spirited season where everyone that outlasts Cody is a blind follower of Paul (except Josh), and the most entertainment/emotion to be had for most of the season comes from the jury house. It's also the season with the inexplicably good ending.
    • Shortly after this season, Christmas tried to hit a girl her baby daddy cheated on her with, with her car, and became something of a Memetic Psychopath, and is seen as having "issues".
  • Kaitlyn of Season 20 became the butt of many jokes post-eviction for flirting with several guys in a very dirty manner- especially Faysal- despite having a boyfriend named Joe (or maybe not anymore, the houseguests joke). Also her Epic Fail to complete what was essentially a six piece puzzle designed for her to win her way back in the game following eviction. She later came back in season 21 to parody this moment.
  • Bea from UK series 10 actually went onto Wikipedia at one point to demand they delete the housemate pages.^note If you were wondering why they no longer describe the actions of housemates except when they entered and left, now you know. Apparently she thinks being a total bitch on national television for 6 weeks isn't something that should come up on the first page of Googling your name.
  • It took no time at all for Memphis in All-Stars 2 to be attached to their somewhat offensive comments on Autism, which many found to be a Moral Event Horizon. Nicole F also became an example of this when she became involved in these discussions and laughed at certain comments, despite Ian supposedly being a friend.
  • 23 US will be known as the season in which players were targeted for their race.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: Big Brother 15 in the American version was very controversial (similar to the Shilpa incident) because the house was rife with dehumanizing levels of prejudice. Most people asks for the houseguests directly guilty of it to be evicted... and yet it received the most votes or fan favourite at the time, and its ratings spiked when they decided to air some of those comments made by Aaryn, GM, and Amanda. However, for the contestants, it was Hell on Earth, because this managed to wreck some of their careers when their bosses fired them for being... well, total dickholes, and the one guy who won was arguably the pinnacle of rats.
• Not Badass Enough for Fans: Anyone deemed "undeserving" or simply didn't play the kind of game that people didn't like them. Typically, if you wind up taken over someone or actually have someone backstab their alliance in order to take you further, then you've certainly done something right.
  • Porsche got this hard against the Vets. She was criticised of taking the offer of safety that the veterans offered her and for aligning with people who wouldn't have dropped her at final six.
  • In-universe: Everyone (especially Zach) thinks that Victoria is too passive and acts like she's in summer camp (as opposed to playing in Big Brother.) Dr. Will points out that she made it to the finals with her social game, and that she was playing the game while Zach was the one in summer camp.
  • Then there's BB17's winner Steve Moses. He's accused of floating his way to the end and only winning because he wasn't against Vanessa, which some claim is just because he got lucky that the last question in the Final HOH was a random tidbit from John. Quite a few have claimed he's undeserving of the million and that Vanessa should have won. This is ignoring the fact that Vanessa wouldn't have taken him because she wanted a girl to win and still didn't vote for him in the end, and despite the fact his game was miles better than Liz's, who was practically non existent.
  • Big Brother 6 Canada's winner, Paras. The fact she won period is seen by some as anti-climactic and a "Bitter jury". Kaela and Derek were much more active, whereas Paras intentionally played dumb, then became nigh untouchable at the end. Paras actually played very similarly to "Dr. Will".
  • Taylor Hale got hit with this by fans in the US's 24th season - her game being more of a social game rather than a competition oriented game. Even though she was nominated six times, she managed to survive while not losing her composure.
• Older Than They Think:
  • The event where Topaz accidentally voted for Jillian in Season 1 Canada actually might have repeated in Season 6 US, where Janelle accuses someone ^note mostly Howie accidentally voted for Maggie.
  • People seem to be making a big deal that Christmas spent the better half of her season on crutches and suffered a broken left foot, without realizing the first season of the US run had Eddie McGee, who had lost his entire left leg to cancer and had to stay on crutches all the time. However, the show was under different management back then and didn't have the zaniness and competition-heavy attributes we know now. Because of these changes, the producers mandated excellent physical health as a requirement for entry onto the show, which is why Eddie ended up on the first season only (in which he won).
  • Some people on Big Brother have gone on to enjoy guest spots on soaps operas like The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful in recent years, like Jason Roy, Meg Maley, James Huling, Jessica Graf , and Josh Martinez. However, long before any of these modern contestants got guest appearances, Brittany Petros, a contestant all the way back in Big Brother 1 in 2000, landed a recurring guest role on Days of Our Lives and went into acting.
  • Keifer is often thought of as being the "first" Indigenous player in Canada. Suzette Amaya predated him by almost eight years - in the first season.
• One-Scene Wonder: Ika was fourth out the door on Canada Season 2, but is the star of one of the (if not the) most iconic scenes from the entire series: Shredding letters from home for the entire house in exchange for $5000, as the house watched her in the living room.
• One True Threesome: Derek X of Big Brother 23 gets shipped with both Hannah and Claire due to several cute interactions with both of them, and since the three were all friends with each other, meaning that their fanbases heavily overlap, some like to ship them all together. It does help that Claire is bisexual too.
• Pandering to the Base:
  • US Season 13, which featured the return of six fan favorites with obvious slantings and bailouts when things weren't going their way. The live feeds would be almost perpetually turned towards them, and the edited shows would be about 90% veterans, denying any of the new houseguests any chance at screentime. It worked ratings wise, but the fans however...
  • US Season 14 also counts with the coaches essentially getting free rides until Week 4. Subverted that 3 of the 4 coaches got evicted in weeks following.
  • After the rigging accusations, the show decided to become rather hands-off in their executive manipulation, and in US Season 15, they even took away Ellisa's MVP powers due to being too overpowered. This reaches it's peak in US Season 16, where their hands-off approach ended up with a boring season in gameplay.
  • Even though the producers didn't rig the whole season, they obviously set up a lot of free passes for Paul in US Season 19, and made it nearly impossible for him to not be brought into the game or voted out too early because fans would obviously vote for the popular vet to have an automatic 3-week immunity guarantee. Also, the temptation twists were set up to be self-perpetuating, so that when they got taken, it would open the door for more (the last temptation offered after 3 weeks releases three more weeks of temptation-themed challenges). When the temptations ran out of juice, the season vainly introduced the Tree of Temptation, but by then the remaining houseguests had wisened up to the tricks and refused to use it after the one thing that could backfire against the rest of the house the least was taken.
• Periphery Demographic:
  • People often watch many versions for Sociological purposes. ie, studying what the houseguests do. The people who watch the US and Brazilian versions for sociological purposes (ie, alliances and pairings) also overlap with the people who do so with Survivor.
  • UK Celebrity Series 21 garnered a strong online following from fans of RuPaul's Drag Race due to the presence of popular contestant Courtney Act on the series.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Happens every single season, especially since the "showmance" trend took off in modern BB:
  • Season 11: Jordan and Jeff started the trend, being referred to as either "Jordeff" or "Jejo".
  • Season 12: "Brenchel" for Brendan and Rachel. The season's other couple, Britney and Lane, didn't receive a similar naming.
  • Season 15: "Mc Cranda" for Mc Crae and Amanda.
  • Season 16: "Haycole" for Hayden and Nicole. Zack and Frankie's bromance also received "Zankie".
  • Season 17: "Clelli" for Clay and Shelli. "Liztin" for Liz and Austin.
  • Season 18: "Zaulie" for Zakiyah and Paulie. "Nictor" for Natalie and Victor. "Nicorey" for Nicole and Corey (that's the same Nicole from "Haycole." Whoops!)
  • Season 19: "Jody" for Jessica and Cody. "Marlena" for Mark and Elena. "Maven" for Matt and Raven. Though not a couple, Jason and Alex received "Jalex".
  • Season 20: "Swayleigh" for Swaggy C and Bayleigh. "Faleigh" for Faysal and Haleigh. Tyler and Angela received "Tangela", with plenty of fan references to the Pokemon of the same name.
  • Season 25: "Americorey" and "Comerica" for Corey and America.
• Replacement Scrappy: Vyni from BBB22 is considered a poor man's version of Gil from BBB21. Both of them are Camp Gay participants from the Northeast Region of Brazil, and while Vyni tried to sell himself as "Gil 2" in his application video, their similarities end there. Gil is a naturally charismatic and flamboyant guy whose endearing personality made him one of the defining participants of his season, whereas Vyni was clearly forcing an inauthentic character (noticeable in how he exaggerated his antics during the live moments of the show compared to his usual behavior), with little presence in the house, and his corny attitude towards his one-sided crush Eliezer did not help.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • All the way back from Big Brother 1 in the US run, which has become The Artifact among the fandom: Brittany Petros, who has become more known for her life as an actress who is most known for playing Denise on Days of Our Lives and has done casting work in other shows.
  • Also from Season 1 was Jamie Kern (now Jamie Kern Lima), who had a modestly successful run on the show, making it to fourth place and generally being well-regarded, but ultimately forgotten in the scope of Big Brother history... until she founded her own cosmetics company (It Cosmetics) after the show, made it big after appearing on QVC, and now runs a billion-dollar company. Needless to say, she is now the most successful US Big Brother alum, and she came from the forgotten season!
  • A bizarre example. Season 10 contestant Steven Daigle has recently gone on to a career acting in gay pornographic films.
  • Austin Matelson from Season 17, aside from a brief Jobber run in NXT, was not well known as a wrestler before appearing on Big Brother. After the show, he would gain a lot more recognition as Vibora in Lucha Underground and especially as Luchasaurus in All Elite Wrestling.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: Big Brother 11 UK. At the time, it was thought to be the last series ever, and it became obsessed with the showmance between Josie and John James. It hogged all the screentime, with hours of them just sat under a duvet, and their fans multivoted to evict everyone who wasn't sucking up to them or who even looked at them the wrong way, leaving a very hollow series. As noted above, the relationship didn't even last long outside the house.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Starting with Season 9, the jury asked their questions to the finalists live during the finale, rather than doing so ahead of time. Many fans have argued that this does not give the finalists enough time to properly answer the questions, and ultimately renders the jury questioning useless, as most jurors will have come in already decided on who to vote for, and are unlikely to change that based on a five-minute Q&A.
  • Day One evictions. They're seen as a cheap way to add a twist to a season, they've only given diminishing returns every time they're used again, and it's incredibly harsh on the evictee themself, to make it on the show, have the dream end before it can even begin, and then essentially be blacklisted from being on future seasons as well.
  • The zombie twist on Season 25. A universally well-liked double eviction where two of the house's biggest villains were evicted in the span of an hour, only to end with Julie revealing that both of them would immediately be moving back into the house as "zombies", and one of them would have the chance to return to the game for good. Not only that, but the entire game was paused for a week while this twist played out. The twist was thoroughly hated for making the double eviction pointless, and for killing the momentum of the season that had been building over the prior few weeks.
  • Season 25 also gave us another: The invisible Head of Household. More specifically, its particular execution of it. Invisible Head of Households provide a lot of paranoia in the Big Brother house - but because it was done with only eight players remaining, the houseguests immediately figured out who it was (Jag) with the main power being the ability to compete in the next Head of Household.
  • Instant Evictions in the Canadian edition. The Head of Household has to make nominations on the spot, and then the house has to evict one of them right then and there. No veto is played, meaning they have no chance to take themselves off.
  • Triple Evictions in the Canadian edition. One person is evicted, the Head of Household is played, then nominates three people. Veto is played, and the players vote to save one of the three nominees. Many viewers feel that this speeds up the game too much, but at least these players do get a chance to play in the veto but it also allows the Head of Household to essentially eliminate an entire alliance (Notably the French Connection alliance in Season 5) in one fell swoop.
    • Speaking of Triple Evictions, the one that occured in Big Brother 22 (All Stars 2) was also deemed controversial by fans, but for different reasons. Days leading up to the Triple Eviction, Dr. Will made a special appearance, where he heavily implied to the houseguests about the incoming Triple Eviction. This disappointed some fans, as Double Evictions (let alone America's first Triple Eviction) were traditionally done without any prior warning to the houseguests. While production did attempt to keep the third eviction a secret during the live broadcast, a camera feed of the main set was accidentally displayed to the houseguests during the 2nd eviction cycle. During the leak, several houseguest noticed the set was displaying "TRIPLE EVICTION NIGHT" on the house's façade. This forced Julie to announce prematurely that there would be an additional eviction during that broadcast.
  • Backdoor evictions that are based on the public vote rather than anything the houseguests have done. Many viewers think that it's unfair that a houseguest will be denied a proper exit to a live audience and a loved one to greet them, especially if it happens completely without warning and they don't even get to say goodbye to the other houseguests.
• Seasonal Rot: Accusations of this have been made by the US fans after Season 11, which was filled with floaters and long, boring moments. Rule of thumb though, expect fans to start crawling out of the woodwork a year or so later.
  • In the US, prior to season 12, the worst seasons were generally agreed to be 4 and 9. 4 for its bad in practice twist (pitting ex-fiancés together- a recipe for disaster- which obviously sparked a negative response from many of the broken couples, and actually caused someone, Scott, to completely lose his shit and self-evict) and unlikable cast, 9 for it's below 30 cast of eye candy (only 1 player was over 30, and even then she was a former Playboy model), a bunch of hastily cast players who were drama spiked but unlikable, a beginning twist that sort of screwed Parker & Alex (and originally Sharon) because people were evicted in pairs, its winner who became a drug dealer, and Joshuah... just Joshuah.
  • Season 12; the producers didn't slant the season that much and they didn't show off that many twists that affected the game (sans the Diamond Power of Veto, which was a small-scale coup'de'tat), the main twist (Saboteur) ended early and when it was tried again it only annoys the houseguests. (Although it did screw over Kathy) Additionally, most people were rather... dull game players (except for Rachel Reilly) that were more booksmart & drama avoiders, and were streamrolled by The Brigade (who showed a Boring, but Practical strategy) until the end. It says a lot when the fans considered the edited show are better than the live feeds.
  • Season 13. With the veteran-centric editing that made the newbies Out of Focus during the entire season, and the obvious slantings. The second Rachel and Jordan (the last two veterans in the game) are in trouble, the HOH is pressured (and ultimately chooses) to open Pandora's Box, introduces a twist that benefits them, the veto challenge is a carbon copy of the first HOH competition, and the next HOH competition is a rehash from the previous season that Rachel described as having done well at a couple days before the feeds. It was pretty much spelled out that the producers wanted one of the "Veterans" to win. The fact that Rachel even said that they were promised jury says a lot.
    • Unfortunately for the detractors, both Season 12 & 13 actually had an increase in average viewership for millions. Season 12 had a huge boost after Season 11 (from 7.19 to 7.76) while Season 13 is currently 5th for the show in average viewership (with 7.95, after Season 5 with 8.30).
  • Season 16 had the formation of a large alliance in the early weeks, the Bomb Squad, later reformed as the Detonators. From pretty much Week 1, they ruled the house with an iron fist; they won HoH almost every week, the people they wanted to target were sent packing, and they stuck together until there was no one left not in their ranks to target anymore. The season quickly became a bore to watch strategically, especially once the fan favorite houseguests were sent packing leaving behind Scrappies to watch in their place.
    • It certainly doesn't help that this season is largely blamed for the direction the series has taken since then. Nearly early every season afterward has played out almost exactly the same way as Season 16: a power alliance with one or two leaders steamrolls the rest of the house until no one else remains, after which evictions almost invariably go straight down the pecking order until only the aforementioned leaders remain. While it's certainly an effective strategy for those who manage to establish themselves at the top of the alliance, it makes for boring, predictable television that isn't fun or interesting to watch in the slightest. The producers have clearly tried fighting against this strategy with the introduction of various, increasingly outlandish twists, but so far nothing has worked, and the power alliance strategy has continued to reign supreme. Many think the only way to end it is to change the game at a fundamental level, up to and including the return of the audience voting on evictions.
  • BBCanada 3, with the combination of Tough Act to Follow, and the overload of sometimes, unfair twists for the more unpopular houseguests (like the Week 1 public vote and Instant Triple Elimination). Also, adding on to that, was gameplay that was panned by viewers and fans as "too safe" and "stupid", favourites leaving early and, at times, clear executive meddling towards certain popular houseguests that resulted in backlash.
  • BBCanada 11. The most obvious decision was the removal of the live feeds in favour of "Digital Dailies" as well as a schedule change to Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday. The season itself featured three non-gameplay eliminations, one of the biggest anti-climaxes, multiple houseguests who were very mean-spirited or prideful, Ty being an Invincible Villain, and winning.
  • U.S. Season 19, though the reason why tends to be divided into two very, very different camps.
    • For one camp, the divisive return of popular player Paul to have a second chance after fans complained about him losing to Nicole, as well as the fact that the entire house is following his word for everything. The only ones who're willing to actively go against Paul (Cody, Dominique, Jessica) were evicted about by halfway through the season at latest. And the sole person who wants to take him out, Josh, has been stymied by Paul and Christmas to the point where it might be too little, too late. For these players, this was fantastically averted when Josh turns out to have made the most devastating move of all and completely obliterated Paul's game without leaving any tracks for Paul to find.
    • For the second camp, the season started out incredible, only to completely lose steam when Cody won the battleback; people were actually pining for Cameron to go back in (the lovable nerdy guy) because he went out so fast and would have injected kindness back into the game, and it looked like he would... then Mr. "Victim Noises" outpaced him. While his extremely poor gameplay made for an explosive and memorable first week, his return almost completely sucked the life out of the game. Jessica, who had been slowly improving her standing in the house and was on her way to becoming an Ensemble Dark Horse, completely backslid, made nonstop dumb moves, and gave up her game for Cody. Due to his non-existent social game and all around poor gameplay (as well as Jessica imploding and giving up), Cody had no hope of ever flipping the house or shaking things up. What viewers were left with were three weeks of the house trying and failing to get Cody out (being protected by various twists), with almost no other game occurring. The first week, Cody was saved by a twist. The second week, he was saved by a twist again, so Jessica got the boot. The third week, he finally left, but at this point it'd been a month-long flatline. Then from there it was a very predictable series of eliminations until the next Double Eviction Week, where things suddenly got heavy when Jason went out, followed by the season turning DARK as every eviction to follow got increasingly heart-wrenching, and when the finale hit, things went completely insane.
  • U.S. Season 21 and 22 (All Stars 2) have plenty of haters, due to having houses where most of the fan favorites were evicted pre-Jury, several offensive remarks were said from both Gr8ful and The Committee either ableist, racist, misogynistic or a combination of the three, with one houseguest on 21 being so hated by previous alumni and fans, they threw a party when he was sent packing. If that wasn't bad enough there was the fact both seasons had a dominant alliance steamroll anyone who dared oppose them and both ended with the ringleader winning in a landslide much like BB16 with one even winning unanimously (Cody).
    • All Stars 2 meanwhile, had one previously beloved houseguest using the BLM movement to look like a hero, and another proceeding to unfollow every alumni they made on Instagram as well as make cruel comments towards the High Functioning Autism Houseguest Ian Terry with her alliance. Not helping was a lot of the houseguests in the dominant alliance had pre-game connections so most people became easy targets (A la Survivor). Several fans argue that this season was even worse than BB19! Which is a bold statement.
• Shocking Elimination: Even with it being well known that nobody is safe from eviction by that point in the series, the fact that US Season 14 saw Big Brother legends Boogie and Janelle being evicted before jury was surprising to some, to say the least.
  • By the time US Season 17 had reached its halfway point, much of the debate online was about when (not if, when) Vanessa reached Final 2, whether the jury would recognize her brilliant strategizing and vote for her to win or be bitter about their eliminations and vote for the person she was sitting against to win. As Vanessa was in the Final 3 for that season, this discussion was continuing up until Finale night, when much to the shock of everyone Vanessa lost the final HoH and ended up placing third.
  • Neda twice in Canada. First in season two when Jon evicts her in third place, and then in Season 5 when Ika manages to turn the house against her at the very last minute.
  • The first eviction of Big Brother 20 in the US got this response when Steve suddenly went from carrying the house majority to a player flipping her vote at the last minute and causing his eviction. Steve was a very strong social player with the potential to become the next Derrick Levasseur in the house if he played his cards right, but bad luck had enough of a run with Sam that it jumped over to the other player on the block that week.
• Signature Scene:
  • US 1: The convoy of the very first houseguests of the show arriving at the Big Brother House compound.
  • US 2: Justin's expulsion.
  • US 3: Marcellus making the original stupid move by not using the first Golden Power of Veto on himself and getting evicted almost immediately afterward.
  • US 4: The reveal of the Ex-Factor twist. Scott freaking out later and getting self-evicted is another moment.
  • US 5: Nakomis securing the first backdoor eviction in the show's history. The reveal of the Twin Twist counts as well.
  • US 6: Janelle taunting the Friendship, "Bye-bye, bitches!" The giant backyard argument between Eric, Michael, Ivette, and Kaysar is a close second.
  • US 7 (All-Stars): Will's Veto Ceremony speech where he says he hates everyone.
  • US 8: Evel Dick on a multi-hour rant to torment the house.
  • US 9: The double medical emergency. Season winner Adam's arrest for running a drug ring counts as a post-season moment.
  • US 10: The whole house going into a crossfire argument after Michelle wins HOH. Jerry telling Dan "you'll always be Judas in my house".
  • US 11: Chima revolting against production and tossing her mic into the pool, soon getting expelled afterward.
  • US 12: Rachel's famous "Floaters, you'd better grab a life vest... Kirsten!" comment that soon sparked an argument with Kirsten. Ragan tearing Rachel down can go up here, too.
  • US 13: The infamous Pandora's Box that saved Rachel at the Final 6 and convinced many viewers this season was entirely rigged for her to win all along. The double elimination of Daniele and Jeff.
  • US 14: Dan's Big Brother funeral, which turns into his ace-in-the-hole. Second is Willie Hantz's expulsion. Third is Dan's blindside of Shane.
  • US 15: Aside from the infamy the whole season is known for, the biggest incident was the final meltdown Amanda had at Elissa. Aaryn's eviction was the second, where the studio audience actually booed someone for the first time (Amanda was also booed). Another major one is Nick's blindside and the following events such as Aaryn taunting Candice & Gina Marie's bizarre meltdown.
  • US 16: Devin and Frankie are very notable for their own moments, but the thing everyone knows best is Cody failing to evict Derrick over Victoria, causing Derrick to win.
  • US 17: Vanessa blindsiding Austin at the Final 5, followed by Steve blindsiding Vanessa at the Final 3.
  • US 18: Da'Vonne blowing up at Paulie in the Jury House. Also, Paul evicting James instead of Nicole.
  • US Over the Top: The narrow final audience vote that caused Morgan to win over Jason.
  • US 19: Paul rallying almost the entire house to bash Cody and Jessica out in the backyard during Week 5, as well as Mark snapping at Josh moments earlier. Also, Paul placing second again, this time to Josh.
  • US CBB 1: Omarossa claiming there's a huge conspiracy in the Trump administration.
  • US 20: Bayleigh going absolutely berserk at Tyler and screaming so violently she bits her lip and it bleeds.
  • US 23: The Cookout being confirmed as a completely successful alliance after Alyssa’s eviction, guaranteeing that Big Brother would have its first black winner. Second is Kyland’s epic meltdown upon eviction.
  • Canada 1: Topaz casting the wrong vote as a juror by accident, protesting it in vain, and causing Jillian to win instead of Gary.
  • Canada 2: Ika shredding the letters from home.
  • Canada 3: Godfrey's "sleeping giant" speech and his decision to keep Sarah at the Final Two also count.
• So Okay, It's Average: Season 1 of the US run is interesting at times and has a dynamic bunch of houseguests, but it is guilty of a lot of Padding (Ran 70 episodes opposed to seasons in more recent years that run about half that long) and a generally "meh" and blah run with an unambitious production in regards to gameplay. Season 2 changed all that and kept a lot of the boring stuff contained to the live feeds.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: Being a competitive game, this is bound to happen. Some people are very competitive and attack people for playing the game differently than them, when people with different strategies have proven to work.
  • Brenchel and Jeff & Jordan (But Jeff moreso) have shown to be incredibly intolerant towards floaters, in trying not to make yourself be perceived as a threat to others. Typically; what gets you further in the house is making the other houseguests think they can beat you - And winning competitions is typically a good way to make houseguests think they can't beat you. One almost wonders if they'd accuse Will and Mike "Boogie" Malin of having poor gameplay and say they are terrible players, since Will's entire strategy was making people underestimate him and target somebody else. (Boogie even lampshaded this in All Stars when he immediately dropped out of an endurance competition saying they (Janelle and Erika) had to take him, even comparing himself to Richard Hatch in the process.)
  • Fans from the BB US franchise can be extremely judgmental and extremely demanding on more gameplay than entertainment.
  • Cody Nickson from BB 19 set himself up as this when he decided to make a maverick move against much-beloved Paul at the very start of the game when he won HOH. His approach killed any shots of this working though, as he'd brought Paul into his alliance before blindsiding the entire alliance by targeting Paul and, when this failed, an another alliance member in Christmas.
• Stuck in Their Shadow: Frankie Grande to Ariana. The Zingbot even made fun of this.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel:
  • Big Brother 20 US as hopes were already low after the disaster that was Big Brother 19, but the house showed a very clear divide with houseguests constantly wondering who voted for who, and with three weeks of non-unanimous votes with no "It's what the house wanted."
  • Celebrity Big Brother 2 US was seen as this to the first. In contrast to the previous year, which featured multiple players wanting to quit for personal reasons and were there for publicity, just about everyone was there to play and a lot of game talk on the feeds.
  • Big Brother 24 has been received better than previous seasons. Primarily due to its older cast featuring much more diversity, multiple shocking eliminations, and people who were very clearly Genre Savvy and thinking about themselves. A stark contrast from the previous seasons.
• Tainted by the Preview: The 11th season of the Canadian version was highly controversial because they announced that the live feeds would be removed and replaced with "Digital Dailies", essentially a version of "After Dark". Fans were not impressed.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • In BB19 Cody, Elena, and Mark spent most of the jury house segments trashing the other less than popular houseguests for falling for Paul's lies.
    Elena: "They're not playing Big Brother... they're playing Big Paul!"
• That One Level:
  • A couple challenges had a Special Effect Failure or two. From the American and Brazilian version, the hot dog/soda challenge. What they had to do was split the houseguests into two teams and had to climb onto the punching bag shaped like a hot dog or bottle of soda and then ride it to the other side while the teams had to operate a pulley to get it from one side to the next.^note There were pullies on both sides when it was reduced to one The challenge encouraged teamwork, but at the same time was slanted towards taller people because you would slip and fall right on off of the punching bag.
  • "Jury Statements", the Final Round of the Final Three HOH competition, has gotten lots of flak due to the fact that it often turns into a crapshoot to determine the final Head of Household. The competition is multiple-choice and based around guessing how jury members answered questions about their time in the house. The issue stems from the fact that these answers are extremely subjective rather than being based on fact, and even someone who knows a certain juror extremely well could still answer incorrectly. Production seems to have acknowledged this: starting with Season 20, the Final Round is instead based on statistics about each of the jurors, with contestants having to pick which statistic is false.
  • The "Slip and Slide" challenge wherein the contestants have to use small containers to fill up a larger container full of liquid and retreive something inside while traversing a slippery (And often inclined) floor. Once it ends, most players are messy from slipping and falling onto the greasy floor so much, and sometimes end up nursing injuries from said falls.
  • The "Microbrews" challenge has the contestants must stack tiny cans in a tower formation with large tweezers. Often times, one small breath will cause the tower to collapse and the cans will slip from the tweezers quite easily.
  • In the UK version, the houseguests had to sort a bunch of potato chips by flavour. They had to know which was which by licking them. This left a few houseguests feeling unable to taste for a few days.
  • In the UK Celebrity version, there was the fairytale shopping task in the ITV revival series. Firstly, the houseguests had to arrange themselves in a line from who they considered most evil to most good; the two most "evil" houseguests would then become the rulers for a day while the others would be their servants, having to do chores and take part in challenges, and only be allowed to eat gruel and bread. These challenges involved a quiz about previous nominations combined with having to eat some disgusting food combinations, filling up a vial with their own tears, and most brutally of all, deciding between them which one of them should take a killer nomination and face the public vote, which was not a secret test that would actually save the houseguest who volunteered. To make matters worse, the final challenge is the only one they actually passed, meaning that if none of them had agreed to face eviction then it wouldn't matter because they'd failed the whole task anyway.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The eleventh season of the Canadian edition removed the live feeds and replaced them with "Digital Dailies". They also changed the broadcast schedule from Tuesday/Wednesday-Thursday-Sunday to Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday. Fans were not happy, fearing that the Digital Dailies were manipulatively edited. Not only that, but the change to the airing schedule also frustrated casual viewers who didn't watch the feeds/dailies as much, as well as those who are outside of Canada and had to view it on GlobalTV's website (Which puts episodes on one day after they aired).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Seasons 19 and 20 introduced twists that were totally screwed over by houseguests either unwilling or just too stupid to use them in time. The Tree of Temptation was used only once in 19, and had more punishments than benefits, and Mark got the only advantage worth a crap, which he gave to puppetmaster Paul. The next two weeks saw houseguests say no to the tree and avoid taking anything else because Paul had ironclad rule over the game and nobody wanted to disrupt the weeks. 20 had Bayleigh, who received a Power App out of pity for her showmance going home, but Bayleigh's utter inability to avoid the spotlight got her backdoored before she had a chance to hijack nominations. Tyler, the Paul-in-Chief of this season, didn't even need his Power App to get him off the block because the rival alliance in the house halted its own efforts to get him out... by being complete idiots.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Too many to count. A huge number of players who come on the show engage in bastardly behavior and earn themselves not only hate inside the house, but in real life. The most notable ones are Justin from BB 2 and Scott from BB 4, who engaged in downright demented displays of behavior on the show that warranted their expulsions. Chima from BB 11 was so much of a diva and routine rule-breaker that she was forced off the show and her Jury vote was handed over to America. And then there's Willie Hantz from BB 14, who needs no explanation, because his brother is the nefarious Russell Hantz of Survivor infamy, only he has a severe temper and the hottest of heads. Naturally, he caused trouble and was kicked out. And BB 15 is basically douche city.
  • Spencer (15) stealing [McCrae's] body mic and thinking things he says in it will be attributed to him instead... which is then followed by a gleeful joke about how he loves to beat off to child porn, preferably 3 to 4 year olds. That one got Spencer fired from his job.
  • Andy (15) joking at the Final Three that he caught Elissa engaging in a double-hander with no sheets or anything and that she said she didn't give a f-ck about her fans or that they were being filmed nationally and her "Elissersice" workout is actually a hypnotism project that turns you into a Nazi and makes you fatter. What a rat bastard!
  • Big Brother 19 (US) for its unlikable cast as well as the fact that all the likable players (Jillian, Ramses, Cameron, Dominique) were voted out prior to jury, Jessica and Cody were still controversial, as well as Kevin, Mark, and Elena being powerless to disrupt the status quo in anyway. It's considered to be by and large the worst cast ever.
  • Big Brother 22 is this for many people, having many issues comparable to season 8 of fellow CBS show Survivor. The dominant alliance faces meaningless temporary opposition at best (Thanks in part due to pre-game connections), and is incredibly hard to like. Also unfortunately, like the aforementioned Survivor season, nearly everyone involved tanked their reputation except for the early boots and the winner.
  • Big Brother 23 had a bit of this at the end as well. After the Cookout succeeded and guaranteed that Big Brother would finally have its first black winner, most fans were rooting for two specific houseguests. Either Tiffany, who went through the most difficult struggles to get the alliance to the end including being forced to personally betray her own best friend, which made most agree that she earned her spot in the final six more than anyone else, or Hannah, who was the most kind and likable person left plus very Moe in general, which made many want to see her win for her likability. So when the two were instantly put on the block, leading to Tiffany’s eviction and Hannah getting evicted right after her in the double when she got targeted again, the only houseguests left at that point were Xavier (who had been a major Jerkass to Tiffany and the one personally responsible for getting the alliance to turn on her and discredit her accomplishments too), Azah (who had been a major Jerkass to Hannah along with using the alliance to coast to the end), Kyland (who had been a major Jerkass to both Tiffany and Hannah along with several other houseguests throughout the season), and Derek F (who had also been a major Jerkass to both Tiffany and Hannah along with also using the alliance to coast to the end), making it difficult for many fans to have any reason to care anymore or anyone to root for at that point.
  • This happened to some people with 24 wherein the issues of racism appeared - wherein the entire house turned on Kyle out of his belief(s) that there may be a non-white alliance in the house. Many viewed this as too controversial and some even thought Michael and Brittany were just as "bad" for keeping that information to themselves.
  • Big Brother Brasil 21 started out unusually dark compared to the previous iterations, with the vast majority of the house being extremely unlikeable and the participant Lucas being ganged up and humiliated by almost everyone, bordering on psychological torture, forcing him to him resign after two weeks of emotional abuse. For many fans, the show became impossible to stomach. Things did get better after the "office of hate" (Nego Di, Karol Conká, Lumena, and Projota) were evicted and the season took off on new arcs.
  • Big Brother Canada 7. Whilst not bleak in the usual sense, Dane's victory was soemwhat of a Foregone Conclusion after most people did not heed Kailyn's warning that Dane was in control of the house. Because of Dane and Anthony's nigh invincibility, some felt the season just didn't have anything to offer.
  • Big Brother Canada 11 suffered this as well on top of the changes. Much of the house was rather mean-spirited and/or arrogant, the more likable houseguests were evicted early, Ty's treatment towards Claudia was seen as very very controlling if not flat out abusive, and he was never actually in any danger due to being such a comp beast.
• Tough Act to Follow:
  • Part of the reason Big Brother Canada 3 received such lukewarm reception was because it followed Big Brother Canada 2, widely considered to be the gold standard of modern Big Brother and one of the best seasons of all time when it comes to US/Canadian BB.
    • The same thing happened with 7 even before it became a blowout of Dane getting everything he wants. 6 was seen of as being a very good season.
    • The same thing happened to 10 after 9's turbulent and groundbreaking game, the fact that Gino and Marty won multiple head of households didn't help either.
  • Celebrity Big Brother 2 US to Big Brother 20. Big Brother 20 was considered to be one of the best seasons in recent years if not the best (It helps that Big Brother 19 happened.) While the houseguests sans Dina were very willing to play, it just was hard to hold a candle to 20.
• Unexpected Character: Paul from Season 18 returning at the onset of Season 19 out of the blue as a bonus houseguest due to his popularity. He entered the game as a wildcard who would replace the first person eliminated on the first day.
• Unpopular Popular Character: Paul Clarke in the 2001 UK series was nominated for eviction four times in a row by his housemates only to have the public vote to get rid of his fellow nominee every time.
  • It happens all the time in the Argentinian version known as "Gran Hermano", specially after the fourth one. A special mention goes to the winner of said edition, Marianella Mirra, who was shunned by most of her old house mates but received the biggest amount of votes in "Gran Hermano" history.
  • Evel Dick from US Season 8. So much the America's Player twist bailed him out.
  • Elissa from US Season 15. Her win in the fan favorite came from her own likability (or being the least offensive in the later phase), her sister's fanbase, and people who voted for her because just to rub it off to other contestants in the later phase (who viciously talk bad about her).
  • Britnee Blair was this for much of Big Brother 3 Canada. As early as week one, she was one of the most liked players by the fans, but a lot of other players saw her as a go-to pawn and even Sarah at first aligned with her as a vote. This changed later on, when everyone else begun to genuinely respect her and when Sarah even became legit friends with Britnee.
  • Many occurrences in the UK series. Alex Sibley, Jon Tickle, Victor, Science, Aisleyne, Rex, Freddie/Halfwit and Aaron.
  • Karen in Canada Season 5. Apparently people do not think much about her in the house - yet she is pretty well liked by the fanbase.
  • Cody and Jessica to varying degrees. The houseguests hated them and, by halfway through, where taking as many shots as they could (including the infamous hazing incident). While Cody and Jessica are major base breakers, they have a very dedicated and passionate fanbase that resulted in Cody winning America's Favourite Player. Their come-from-behind run on The Amazing Race helped improve their reputation just a smidge.
    • Kevin from the same season. The house drags him along and only Paul and Raven treated him with anything resembling respect. He's the only one of the Minions who has a fanbase beyond they might go after Paul.
  • In the 9th season of Canada, Kiefer. Within the house, he was fairly well liked. However, he had quite the silent hatedom outside the house.
  • In Big Brother 23, the Cookout clearly disliked Tiffany the most, and yet she was such an audience favorite that she ended up winning America’s Favorite Player. On a similar note, Hannah was clearly the second-most disliked within the group but another fan favorite to the audience. Ironically Xavier, Derek F, and Azah were the popular ones within the Cookout, but based on fan polls, were disliked by the audience to varying degrees. This leaves Kyland as the only Cookout member where the audience opinion seemed to match the group’s opinion, which was dislike of him.
    • Hannah on her own is also this in terms of production. Despite the show’s editors, Zingbot, and even the BB Twitter account of all things trying their best to downplay her strategic side by keeping those moments Out of Focus and attempting to play her up as simply a ditzy lovestruck girl with no shot of winning, livefeed fans grew to love her for how effective and yet still kind she was as a strategist for her group, and tend to prefer her and Tiffany over the rest of the Cookout.
  • Cameron from Big Brother 25 got a reputation in the house as The Friend Nobody Likes due to his tendency to cause chaos and drama with his HOH reigns, but many viewers found him entertaining because of his antics. So much so that he won America's Favorite Player.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Basically, viewers familiar with the US and Canada format would tends to emphasize gameplay over entertainment, while viewers familiar with the UK format will try to make everything more entertaining for them. This is best evidenced in the first season of the US show, which followed the UK format of having the viewers vote out houseguests; American audiences quickly voted out the most volatile houseguests and left behind the least interesting of the bunch, producing a fairly sedate late-game that many viewers felt was boring. As a result, the following season they switched to having the houseguests vote each other out in order to keep the drama going throughout the game.
  • The seasons from the early 2000s contain a lot more casual homophobia from other house guests. Mikey Dalton for example in the UK's 7th Season casually said in his introduction that he hated gays. This would not fly now.
  • Earlier seasons of the US Big Brother aired conversations where houseguests used the word "retarded" in a derogatory manner on television. With the politically correct revolution in America, standards clamped down heavily. Today's episodes censor the word.
  • In Big Brother 11 US (2009), one houseguest had an allergy to red food colouring - and several people had done things like attempt to put red M&Ms into her drink to trigger it. This could possibly get them kicked off in The New '10s.
• Vindicated by History:
  • Season 15 was seen as a "terrible" season. While the cast full of mostly unlikable people has not been vindicated, the anticlimactic season 16 and two other seasons full of predictable evictions resulted in a lot more people appreciating some of the amazing plays during the season, such as Elissa and Andy flipping the vote against Nick during week two or Andy successfully causing a tied vote and framing Elissa for it during a double eviction. And compared to Season 19 and Season 22, both of which are loaded with a house full of nasty people, it looks tame in hindsight.
  • Season 17. Some hated the season and thought the contestants were too much of a shoe-horn or controversial, and only a Shocking Elimination at the final three made it anything less than a blow-out. Yet after Season 19 proceeded to have a group of people more dislikable than 15 and somehow even dumber than 16, it's not unheard of for some people wishing for Season 17 to return due to more than two or three people in that season actually playing the game.
• Wangst: Nikki Grahme in 2006 would throw tantrums over some of the pettiest of things.
  • It even carried over to the Big Brother Canada 4, though it was treated as more of a Running Gag.
  • From the American series, Amber (8) would cry over just about anything. Rachel (12 and 13) comes pretty close to her in terms of constantly throwing pity parties and crying, while Brendon would just try to calm her down. Other criers from the same series include Daniele (8), Shelia (9), April (6), Chima & Lydia (11), Ragan (12), Michelle (18; she's even self-aware of it), and Josh (19). (Zig-zagged with Bunky, who had a reputation for crying a lot but his was more happy crying.)
• Watched It for the Representation:
  • Big Brother 9 and 10 of the Canadian edition and 23&24 of the American edition were praised for actually including more than a token minority, as well as actually casting indigenous people.
  • The same could be said for seasons 23 and 24 of the American edition, as well as even 13. Joseph in season 24 discussed that arab&other middle eastern representation is pretty rare - especially in North American produced media.
    • In particular, before she had to be replaced due to testing positive for COVID, a woman named Christie who was naturally bald due to Alopecia was cast.
  • For Canada, several people expressed approval at the casting of Francophone players as well, as well as the fact that these players were not actually discouraged or othered for speaking French. Several players (Marty and Gino, William and Dre) bonded over the fact that they spoke French and were able to speak it to one another.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • Celebrity Big Brother US shaped up to be this.. After Big Brother 19, which is widely considered the worst season yet, and the announcement of mostly California-based B/C-list celebrities (among them Omarosa Manigault, who is controversial) for the casting, many fans were skeptical. The skepticism increased when game-changing "twists" were introduced, and it looked like Omarosa would be another Paul who the house kowtowed to the entire "Season". However, a combination of the houseguests getting treated like regular Big Brother contestants (getting Covered in Gunge and submitted to just as much costume punishments as a normal cast) and proceeding to outright defy the "will of the house" left the fandom cheering and optimistic.
  • Big Brother 20 US did did this even more more, with its cast of all newbies, no day one eviction, plenty of screentime given to the first two boots, houseguests who are not following the will of the house with every vote being a split, and a pretty interestingly designed house aesthetic. The twists are also not designed to unfairly tilt the game towards certain players beyond some punishments and have added rules that stop them from being abused or being sat on for too long.