Applications for the latest reality dating show FBOY Island Australia have opened and the questions are fucking cooked beyond words. I would usually finish a sentence like that with a joke about, I don’t know, Gordon Ramsay and cooking in general, but as we’ve already established words are not coming easily to me RN.
In case you’re unfamiliar with FBOY Island Australia lore, it’s a new reality dating show coming to BINGE in 2023. The aim of the game is for three women to hang out with 24 blokes and clock which ones are nice guys who want a serious relationship, and which ones are the naughty fuckboys fanging for a root.
If you have a burning desire to appear on FBOY Island Australia and put your Inspector Gadget skills to the test, you can apply now. But it is my duty to inform you that the questions you’ll have to answer are ludicrously invasive, irrelevant and completely fucked up.
First off the bat, you’ll need to divulge your height and weight, as well as your shoe, pant, shirt and dress sizes. Is this to pass on to the wardrobe department (which would be pointless because no one has been cast yet), or an attempt to weed out anyone who is plus-sized? We’ll simply never know.
You’ll also need to hand over all of your social media handles. Just fang over your Tumblr details circa 2011 while you’re at it, I say.
For some inexplicable (and Freudian) reason, the casting directors want you to relive your parents’ divorce. Marriage Trauma 2: Electric Boogaloo.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, you’ll also need to detail how many people you’ve smashed. Apparently your body count, which is extremely intimate, is also linked to your personhood and is essential knowledge to appear on a reality dating show — who knew?
Kudos to the casting directors for completely eliminating non-binary identities by only referencing male and female sexual partners. Go off!
If you want to stop trawling through the recesses of your mind, I’ve got terrible news for you. Now it’s time to dig up any skeletons in your closet which you buried because they were so unspeakably embarrassing and/or awful.
I don’t know about you but I’d consider a skeleton in the closet to be, like, shitting your pants in Year 12 while performing the national anthem at assembly.
But according to the FBOY Island Australia casting directors, such skeletons look more like “jilted lovers, sex tapes [and] sexually explicit photos of you that have been distributed or disseminated without your permission”.
I can’t believe I missed the memo that image-based offences are now skeletons in the closet! That’s so normal and not at all dehumanising or offensive.
Hunty, that was so #slay when your grog ex-boyfriend kept your nudes after you broke up and distributed them on the dark web. You really slayed the house down boots when a “jilted lover” posted your sex tape to Facebook. Work!
In case you haven’t already borne your entire soul to the FBOY Island Australia casting directors, you have the opportunity to spill more beans about yourself and your family. It’s the perfect chance to talk about your last pap smear and your Mum’s cancer diagnosis.
What would an application for a reality dating show be without a question about your experience with addiction? It’s obviously background information the casting directors need to know in order to judge whether you’ll be good on the show.
To round out trauma hour on the FBOY Island Australia application questionnaire, you’ll need to explain your experience with mental illness and whether you’re seeing, or have seen a psychologist or a psychiatrist. Don’t be shy when giving details!
That was fun and not at all emotionally taxing, wasn’t it? Unfortunately, it turns out FBOY Island Australia isn’t the only Aussie show with an utterly cursed application process.
One writer at Mamamia applied to be on the last season of The Bachelor and shared some of the questions she was asked. She was also asked how many sexual partners she’d had, if there were any skeletons in her closet and even if she’d be prepared to take a medical examination if required.
Another writer at Yahoo! applied for Married At First Sight back in 2019 and was faced with the same in-depth questions about her weight, height, parents, medical history and those dang skeletons. She was even deadass asked if she was lonely, which makes me wonder whether Sharon Strzelecki from Kath & Kim moonlights as a MAFS casting director.
If you wanna know more about the ins and outs of FBOY Island Australia, there are 12 root rats and 12 decent blokes, and the women will help each other figure out who’s who in the fuckboy zoo. At the end of each episode, three dudes will be eliminated and ‘fess up if they’re naughty or nice. It’s giving The Masked Singer but instead of guessing who’s beneath the ornately decorated Popcorn mask, it’s sussing who’s a shithead.
The series will be based off the US version, which follows this same format. A cash prize hasn’t been announced for the Aussie series, but in the States there’s a ‘yuge US$100,000 (AU$148,998) up for grabs. The sweet men walk into the show with the intention to split the dough with the woman they fall in love with, but in true dirty dog fashion, the fuck boys want to take all the dosh for themselves.
Sounds like a hoot!
