There's a number of structural issues with the show, not the least of which is having the people who are competing do the voting/judging is a problem, because it tends to mean the asshole has the upper hand - you vote the other ones down. Voting starts to have little to do with what is being voted on and becomes more of a strategic assessment of yourself - I am on TV, how willing am I too look like a jerk in order to win this stupid prize?
Then there are a few more conceptual problems.
-First, is that it is "wedding as competition", which done through shopping/consumerism and assembling/cultivating goods/services as competition (see: haul blogs and haul videos). This is completely unhealthy.
-First and a half, is the idea that a wedding should please other people, and that ones choices for a wedding need outside validation, and that a wedding should be judged. This makes no sense.
-Second, it reinforces the notion that weddings should be bride-centric, that the husbands are props.
-Third, while it does sometimes explore other cultural customs, some of the people on the show seem to have a willful misunderstanding of them. And it tends to put the customs and culture into a lens of either entertainment or cheap/expensive/luxurious, rather than in the context of meaning.
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Beard update: it's going well, pretty happy with it. I've never had more than about a week's worth of full facial hair growth and now I am at about 3 weeks.
I'm getting a pretty natural Hulk Hogan or Goose Gossage. As you can imagine, I'm quite happy, since this also provides a nice direction for the type of motorcycle gang I should be joining.
(Even better news: in July the North American Beard and Moustache Championship is being held in Bremerton.)
