The Season 9 edition of the Big Brother Naija (BBN) show, themed “No Loose Guard”, began last week Sunday, and the majority of the country is ready and seated for the drama that will certainly happen. While contestants change year after year, the fans remain the same. From the mature fans who didn’t fix Nigeria before the start of a new BBN season to the Die-Hard Fans prepared to die on top of their fave’s matter, find out which category of Big Brother Naija Fans you belong to.
1—The Keyboard Warrior
Ah…the keyboard warriors; omnipresent on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram, and WhatsApp Group Chats, prepared to battle with whoever slightly criticizes their fave housemate. These BBN fans are a menace to BBN viewers who *just* want to give opinions on activities within the house and leave it at that. With the Keyboard Warrior, no insult, no abuse, and no slur is off-limit. If you say anything they don’t like? You, your family members, and the doctor who gave birth to you will publicly collect. Some of them—the keyboard warriors in the frontline of battle—, even go as far as sending you private direct messages that would have you really wondering, “Is it really that deep?”.
Honestly, these Big Brother Naija Fans are high on the scale of deranged and delusional because before the housemate they are breathing fire for came on National TV, they never sabi am before—peak bullies.
2—The Mature Ones
The mature BBN fans come alive at least 4 weeks before the start of a new Big Brother Season, and they announce their presence by saying something along the lines of “Watching Big Brother Nigeria diverts youths attention from focusing on things that really matter, like our crumbling economy”. *Yawn*. These are the questions I put to the mature fans (yes, fans, because as far as you’re talking about BBN, positive or negative, you’re a fan): From October 2023 to July 2024, you had all the time to make one dollar equal to one naira, impeach the president and solve the flooding crises in various states, what happened? Why are you now trying to suck away the temporary joy that unites Nigerians in vast ways?
Anyway, BBN isn’t pure entertainment. In the past, the show through the activities curated for housemates has educated Nigerians on pressing issues, catalyzed salient societal discourse, and created jobs for youths.
The irritating thing about the mature fans is how they are constantly keeping up with BBN for the sole purpose of hating and acting like they are better than people who watch the show to be entertained. Whenever something fun, exciting, or scandalous happens between housemates, they will watch the content and analyze it with their established bias on how the show is a waste of time. Waste of time ehn, but here you are, still watching it.
3—The Chilled Ones
These fans no even send.
They watch the show, enjoy all the epic moments and then call it a day. You won’t catch them doing anything extra. They don’t vote. They don’t engage in any kind of heated discourse about housemates. If they are shipping, they do it with common sense and moderation. For them, whoever wins, wins, it’s really not that deep.
This is the only way to stan BBN.
4—The Shippers
These fans are planning Shaun and Wanni’s money bouquet as you’re reading this.
The Shippers are hopeless romantics who love Love, so they cannot help but identify the lovebirds in the house and root for them. The shipper’s first agenda is to come up with ship names for the relationship they stan. After that, their only mission is to “oooooh” and “ahhhh” at their ship and to ensure that their favourite couple stays in the house for a long long time—you see, one of their greatest fears is one member of the relationship getting evicted while the other remains in the house. History has shown that such an occurrence usually ends in tears for the shippers as well as the partner who gets evicted.
So, while the coupled housemates may just be taking things jeje, the shippers outside the house are with their battle sticks ready to eliminate whoever seeks to put asunder to their favourite union.
5—The Die-Hard Fans
These fans, usually in the first few weeks of BBN’s beginning, pick a housemate they like, pitch a tent in that fan base, and make the housemate their entire personality, and I am telling you, it doesn’t even matter that BBN has come to an end, their obsession persists.
The Die-Hard fan is typically a keyboard warrior, but there’s more. These ones typically change their personal social media page to an altar of worship for their fave—their profile picture will most likely be their fave’s photo and all conversations will most likely be about their fave. Their loyalty transcends the borders of social media. The Die-Hard fans not only spend hefty sums voting to keep their chosen housemate in the game, but they are also relentless in canvassing for votes for their faves, until you start seeing the housemate’s names in your dreams. You see, their preferred housemate has to win the show by fire, by force.
The end of the Big Brother Naija show doesn’t signify the end of the die-hard fan’s adoration and loyalty to their Favorite housemate. These fans organize the most lavish gifts and celebrations for their faves once they leave Big Brother’s house—sometimes, they gift them up to the tune of the official prize money. Honestly, the only word I can describe a die-hard fan relationship with the contestant they support is, head-bursting.
Sometimes, as a chilled fan, you might wonder if the die-hard fans have been jazzed because their obsession with a housemate is far from what we all consider normal and healthy. Seriously, why are you bending over and backwards trying to please housemates who are most likely doing better than you and who you might never get to meet in your lifetime?
Personally, I wouldn’t mind having some die-hard fans in my life, but as an outsider looking inside, these fans are usually downright scary.
6—The Devil’s Advocates
You know those housemates with objectively bad character? Those are who the Devil’s Advocates stan hard. It doesn’t matter if their badly-behaved fave is abusive on national TV, the devil’s advocate will twist themselves to find an angle to see reason from the fave’s side. They strongly believe that their fave housemate is misunderstood.
It may seem the devil’s advocates are bad judges of character, but a lot of times, these fans support a popularly hated housemate because they can’t stand it when someone is being cast aside and picked on. I know, it’s sorta confusing.
