‘Big Brother 24’: Why the Producers Need to Stop Cutting the Live Feeds
Big Brother has been on for 22 years, and the live feeds have always been a significant component of the show. Casual fans tune in to the three weekly episodes, but the super fans closely watch the live feeds all summer. The feeds show many aspects of the reality competition series that aren’t translated into the episodes. And that’s why it’s so disappointing that there have been many feed cuts in Big Brother 24.
[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers from the Big Brother 24 live feeds.]
Michael and Brittany outed Kyle’s racist comments on the ‘Big Brother 24’ live feeds
After Michael Bruner won the Power of Veto during week eight of Big Brother 24, he and Brittany Hoopes decided it was time to tell the house about the dirt they had on Kyle Capener.
Kyle expressed to them weeks ago that he believed another Cookout alliance had formed with all of the people of color. And he took his racially motivated comments a step further and proposed an all-White alliance to oppose the presumed Cookout 2.0. This group of Kyle, Michael, Brittany, Alyssa Snider, and Matthew Turner never solidified an agreement, but the damage had already been done.
Once Kyle turned his back on Michael and Brittany, they unleashed hell on him. The timing is definitely alarming, given that Michael and Brittany could have released this information weeks ago when their necks weren’t on the line. Nevertheless, their plan worked, and the majority of the house turned against Kyle.
Fans missed crucial conversations in the house on Sunday, Aug. 28
Michael and Brittany first informed Taylor Hale and Monte Taylor about Kyle’s racist behavior on Sunday, Aug. 28. However, Big Brother fans didn’t see this conversation on the live feeds. Instead, all four cameras were on Turner sleeping. The producers were obviously hiding the discussion from the fans.
The duo later told Alyssa and then Turner about Kyle, which the live feeds did show. The news spread throughout the house until it reached Kyle.
Kyle immediately knew what was happening, and he entered the diary room. The Big Brother 24 live feeds then shut down while Michael and a few guests watched a movie as a reward from the POV competition. When the feeds came back on, Kyle was out of the diary room. And based on offhand comments, we can assume that Kyle and Brittany argued during the shutdown.
Unfortunately, the live feeds turned off again shortly after they returned. It was two hours before fans saw what was happening inside the Big Brother house. And once the Big Brother 24 live feeds returned, it was evident that we missed a vital house meeting.
Unfortunately, producers prohibited fans from seeing one of the most important moments in Big Brother 24 so far. Hopefully, the episodes will do a good job of painting an accurate picture of what happened during the house meeting. But because we didn’t see it on the live feeds, we’ll never know.
Why shutting down the ‘Big Brother’ live feeds is damaging
Discussing Kyle’s racial biases and racist comments is an uncomfortable subject, but they can’t be ignored. And the fact that the Big Brother live feeds tended to show the conversations about Kyle between the White houseguests and cut away from discussions between the Black houseguests is extremely disappointing.
Big Brother is a social experiment at its core. It plucks people with diverse backgrounds and forces them into a house where they have to compete against one another while simultaneously cohabitating. And by cutting the live feeds, the Big Brother producers are taking away from the show’s roots. Fans need to be aware of what is happening in the house and not be spoonfed an edited version of the truth.
CBS is trying to control the narrative around this awkward topic, but they are doing more harm than good. Fans are rightfully outraged at the live feeds shutdown. In their eyes, Big Brother is doing more to protect Kyle than they ever did when players bullied Taylor at the beginning of the season. As a result, the hashtags “#StopProtectingKyle” and “#KKKyle” trended on Twitter.
If anything, CBS is losing trust with their Big Brother fans by cutting the live feeds at convenient times. Hopefully, the uproar on social media on Sunday, Aug. 28, inspires the producers to adjust their way of thinking. And we’re crossing our fingers that the Wednesday, Aug. 31, Big Brother 24 episode accurately depicts what fans missed while the live feeds were down.
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