Why ‘Candidly Nicole’ is My New Favorite TV Show
“So, I never online-dated. I met my husband the old-fashioned way. At a club,” Nicole says unabashedly, rocking a leather tank crop-top and her iconic purple hair. Of course she’s talking about Joel Madden, my 7th grade boyfriend crush whose face I procured from Seventeen magazine and Scotch-taped all over my bedroom walls. When I was a teenager, I was mostly jealous of Nicole. She was BFFs with Paris Hilton, she got to hang out at farms and whatever, she was the pioneer of the golden headband, and she got to marry sexy, eyeliner-wearing Joel Madden. But that jealousy turned into genuine fondness after I read about her charity work and how cool Nicole really seems. So when I heard she had a reality show coming out, I was totally excited.
Candidly Nicole is like Nicole’s Twitter on steroids. It’s practically everything you hoped and dreamed of, except better. The first episode of Candidly Nicole covered everything from parallel parking, to Uber, to accidentally Catfishing someone. Let me explain why all of Candidly Nicole is so important for us/society/humanity:
Nicole explores online dating in its truest form (via making a parody profile for her friend)
So Nicole does her friend Erin Foster (HG contributor, TV show writer, and cool lady) a huge favor: she sets up an online dating profile for her. “We’ll put ‘32’ so at least people will think you look good for your age,” Nicole suggests, as she types away at Erin’s profile. “We’re not just gonna get a guy for you by showing who you are,” Nicole says.
Online dating culture seems partially insane. I’m sure it frequently works out; I mean, half my relatives have met their spouses on J-Date, so I have no doubts online dating is effective. BUT, men and women alike sometimes paint these unrealistic version of themselves because they can, and that’s why shows like Catfish become so successful. In a way, Nicole points this out by doing exactly the same thing. For her friend. Kind of.
We get to go wax nostalgic about dating IRL
Okay, so a little bit more on online dating. It IS different than IRL dating and has its own set of perks, because when you don’t meet a person on the Internet, you don’t have the opportunity to kind of cultivate that ideal depiction of yourself and what you would say. It IS easier to have a better first-impression online than in person. In person, you just kind of have to go with it, organically and naturally, and that can be awkward sometimes. “I just had to like, go with the flow. Joel had to ask me a question, and I had to just answer, like a psychopath,” Nicole tells her friends.
We can all agree that parallel parking isn’t a big deal, okay?
I also live in Southern California, so I totally get Nicole’s parking plights (I don’t know about where you live, but parking is a serious issue here. Sometimes, I’ll just not go somewhere if parking is a b*tch. I am also a total online-shopping convert because online-shopping = no parking). Whenever you want to go somewhere that’s slightly busy, you’ll most likely have to parallel park or at least circle the parking lot five times until you give up and go park two miles away and walk. I HATE parallel parking. I drive one of those long Camry—the ones with a long front and back—so I am in this nervous, cringedom state whenever I have to fit into a tight spot.
Nicole’s parking anxiety speaks to me on so many levels. Like, not only do we sometimes have to parallel park, but we have to parallel parking on a busy street, where other people will be honking at you in their cars because they have no sympathy for your situation. Or they will do that passive-aggressive driving really, really fast right past you thing. At the very least, you’ll have people gawking as you struggle. “People don’t save lives parallel parking,” Nicole asserts.
Nicole illustrates the convenience of Uber
Uber is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. It’s ridiculously convenient, you can usually play your own music, sometimes the drivers will give you free water bottles, and it’s cheaper. Sometimes. Well no, it’s not cheaper, let’s be real. BUT it’s awesome, and it beats a DUI (and dealing with parking).
Nicole’s enthusiasm about Uber is so endearing and relatable, even though she kind of holds her Uber driver hostage for a little while. Which is amazing. Nicole, I request more Uber hostage situations. Please. And thank you.
