One To Watch (6 page)

We thought for sure the most shared content of the week would be an already-infamous video of a tabby cat being catapulted off a seesaw by an overexuberant toddler (if you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor and
click here
), but a late-breaking surge of support has brought us a new champion: Plus-size blogger Bea Schumacher’s scorching critique of reality romance juggernaut
Main Squeeze
has now been shared more than a million times across Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. We estimate the viral post has reached more than 15 million people, a staggering 3 million of whom have clicked “Like.” Read on for the rest of the week’s viral content, including a can’t-miss tweetstorm detailing the conspiracy theory you never knew you always needed about Hillary Clinton’s dogs.

Plus-size blogger Bea Schumacher loves
Main Squeeze
—and she’s not alone! Who among us can resist watching one man or woman choose from 25 potential suitors, narrowing the field week by week until we’re left with one lucky winner for a fairy-tale proposal, a whirlwind engagement, and a low-key breakup six to eight weeks later?

But I don’t love the show’s total lack of diversity—and neither does Schumacher. Monday night, she went on her blog OMBea (if you’re not following her, you’re doing the internet wrong) to post an epic takedown. She addressed the show’s “appalling” lack of racial diversity, its “perplexing” erasure of queerness, and most of all, its “abject refusal to include any woman who wears above a size 4, despite the fact that two-thirds of American women are size 14 and above.”

“
Main Squeeze
is the most successful romance reality show in history,” Schumacher wrote. “It defines what it means for ‘real’ people to find love—except according to its own standards, fat people aren’t real. We aren’t worthy. We don’t even exist.”

So far, Schumacher’s scathing post has been shared more than a million times on social media, resulting in a flood of new traffic to her blog and Instagram, where she now has more than 600,000 followers. For our part, we’re THRILLED that more people will see Bea’s body-positive message, and we can only hope her post will lead to some actual change on
Main Squeeze
—and on television.

Following waves of negative publicity and a five-year low in ratings,
Deadline
can confirm exclusively that executive producer and showrunner Micah Faust is OUT at
Main Squeeze
. Producer Lauren Mathers—long seen as Faust’s right hand and effectively running the day-to-day on-set—has been promoted to the top spot and will take over immediately, according to
Deadline
’s ears at ABS.

“The brass at ABS have been looking for an excuse to ditch Faust for a long time,” said our ABS source, speaking under condition of anonymity. “Alyssa [Messersmith, senior VP of unscripted at ABS] hated Faust’s shit—the drugs, the women, the risky behavior on-set, the production shutdowns.”

Faust’s bad-boy antics have been infamous for decades, but few believed he would ever actually be ousted from his own signature franchise. As for his successor, Mathers has kept relatively under the radar in the industry, working her way up the ladder at
Main Squeeze
for the last five years. I hear she’s respected on-set and well liked by the crew. At just 28 years old, she’s now one of the youngest showrunners in town—but my source says not to underestimate her.

“Lauren is strategic,” the source explained. “She knew this was the moment to make a play for Faust’s job, and that she had the ally she needed in Alyssa.” But Mathers shouldn’t get too comfortable in Faust’s chair. The source went on: “If Lauren can’t bring the ratings up for the spring season of
Main Squeeze,
there’s no doubt in my mind that Alyssa will fire her ass too. There are plenty of people in town who would love to run a show as big as
Main Squeeze.
”