America's Top Model Season 19

For the record, this season of Top Model is WEIRD... In an attempt to make top model seem progressive and interactive, they posted the photos on facebook in Spring and had people comment, like, and all that. Then now, during the already recorded episodes, they act like the social networking stuff is current and live. It some weird trick-type-thing: The show makers are hoping that viewers don't know any better (don't search and read up), so that they will actually think the interaction is current and that their own viewpoint matters. Maybe their opinion would matter a tiny bit if they knew anything about this social media component during filming, but not if they are tuning in for the show now. It is strange and confusing to work in a "faked-live" component, to trick the viewer into feeling useful.

Anyhow, they some ideas that aren't bad, like having college contestants and themes around that.

But I don't care much for this season so far.

1. The "faked-live" thing.
2. Because it is college-themed, they mention "Tyra's degree from Harvard" a bunch. A 9-week certificate program is not a Harvard Degree. I don't mean to sound elitist or anything, but that is not anyone's definition of a "Harvard Degree."
3. The complete cast change could have been okay. I do miss Jay Manuel and J Alexander, but they probably had other things to do, so it probably did not hurt them. Or any of the other judges, who are accomplished in their own right and used to change every few seasons anyway (except Nigel). But, since this season also has the social media thing, they have a guy who is famous on YouTube delivering the "Tyra Mail" and they have video clips and quotes from fans who did the Spring commenting stuff. It's odd extra stuff that doesn't really fit for me. I don't know about or care about the random YouTube guy or the non-expert opinions, especially if they aren't "live."
4. To make the "faked-live" thing work, they need all the contestants to participate in all the photo shoots so the numbers don't go down (so the people interacting in the Spring don't know who wins). So there's an online series to follow just to watch the eliminated people (who I usually forget about once they are gone, especially the first half or so) do their photos and one will get to come back. Yay? I don't care, really. Since I know they only did that to have pictures of everyone for the Spring social media interaction, it just seems like a falsified after-elimination-competition so they could get something out of having to take the extra photos. It just feels fake. I guess that should fit, but it's in-our-face-fake this season.

My normal downloading site is down, but it seems I need to work on tracking down the other country top model shows and just watch them instead of this season. Yes, I know I will watch this anyway, but there are so many things that bother me about this season. I just feel as a viewer they expect me to buy into the falseness of this season, like they expect the viewers not to know any better or think, at all. Give me some credit, especially during the "college-themed season."