'The Bachelor' Sees a Revival. Blame Twitter

The Bachelor’s season finale on March 12 ended in typical over-the-top schmaltz. A tall and wooden man named Sean proposed to a lady with nicely defined triceps and gleaming white teeth. “You never cease to amaze me,” Sean, a born-again virgin, said to his future bride. Then the couple rode off into the sunset on an elephant. Everyone cried, although the elephant may just have had something in its eye.

The Bachelor has been trafficking in the same romantic clichés and sparkly evening wear since its 2002 debut on ABC. Yet after 17 seasons (and eight seasons for its spinoff, The Bachelorette), the show is experiencing an improbable late-life renaissance. A total of 10 million viewers watched the finale, up 8 percent from the previous year. The ratings for the entire season are up 3 percent, to 8.8 million viewers, and up 7 percent in the coveted 18-to-49-year-old demographic. A New York Times article pointed to renewed cultural interest in the series, and a subsequent ratings uptick, in 2009, after contestant Jason Mesnick picked one girl and then—JK! LOL!—ditched her and went with the runner-up on live TV. While that was surely riveting television, it doesn’t fully explain the resurgence.