To be fair, I, for the life of me, cannot remember the last cycle of America’s Next Top Model that I actually watched.  I’m pretty sure the cycle number was in single digits, Twiggy/Janice Dickinson/Paulina Porizkova along with Miss Jay’s were judges, Mr. Jay was dealing with photoshoots and Nigel Barker was there too.  I don’t know why I stopped watching, but it might have something to do with the shows constant failure to actually produce a next top model (unlike our Aussie version – Aussie Aussie Aussie!)  So there, in my email sat the first two episodes for cycle 22 and I reluctantly pressed play…

So, to my shock horror, it turns out, Cycle 22 is waaaaaay different from the last thing I remember watching.  I don’t know how long this change has been in effect ( I could Google but really….) but silver haired Mr.Jay is gone, no haired Nigel Barker is gone and what’s this?  There’s men now in this competition?!

Men?!

For the most part in cycle 22, there are men, and then there are those more determined to discover what happened to their crown…(just saying).  So on the topic of men, it turns out a bloke won cycle 21 (who knew?) which is making these new bitches even more douchier thirstier than ever before to take home their very own ANTM crown, plus a NEXT Model Management contract, an editorial in Nylon magazine and a $100,000 deal with Zappos (here’s their site in case you have no clue like me)

If one thing is still the same, it’s the varied range of crazy models that end up on this show…some of which are of course purposely kept to get under our skin.

Of the ‘men’, there’s Devon who is an unusual creature and claims to be signed to “six agencies” at the time of his casting to the show…

There’s shy Mickey who relies on his hair and literally jumps into testosterone filled puberty by episode two..

There’s also Bryant…but i’ll let the following GIF do the talking about him –

Among the girls this cycle is Ava, your token Jesus lovin’, bible fearing gal

There’s Hadassah, a pageant girl looking to make the move into modelling cause’ she’s not here to make friends..

and we already got to meet Alexa and her twins right at the beginning of this post.

To say I was getting more of a ‘MTV’s REAL WORLD’ vibe from this show would be an understatement.

So the problem with me and these kinds of shows it that while I originally might be less than enthusiastic to watch, when I do, I become very invested, and very quickly and I always tend to root for the one that’s always in the background or the one that somehow manages to get to fifth place or the one where you ask ‘whats her name again?’ or “is she still even in the show?” like Gage, below, who has literally 20 seconds of screen time by end of episode 2 and who i’m pretty sure is still in the show…

You have to give it to Tyra and her model search empire though.  22 cycles in and this show, just like Tyra, is showing no signs of ageing or slowing down.

America’s Next Top Model Cycle 22 begins Thursday night, August 20th, 7:30pm on FOX8.