America's Next Top Model never -- not once in twenty-two cycles -- ranked in the top 100-rated shows of any given year. Think about that. Even back in 2002, long before our national Peak TV nightmare, Americans watched more than 100 other shows in greater numbers than they watched Tyra crown the future Ex Mrs. Peter Brady, and yet the show became a phenomenon. With the exception of The Real World and Survivor, no show shaped the language and tropes of reality TV more than ANTM.
Top Model stopped existing for me for a while when I went away to college and said goodbye to cable and, with it, all-day marathons of cycles I'd run through a dozen times. That is how I and many others primarily watched the show, even while new cycles aired. Reality shows usually aren't included in the "binge-watch" conversation, but Top Model is the first show of which I can remember watching nine straight episodes while stuffing microwave taquitos in my face. Those first ten seasons were a gay teenager's starter kit to the joys of watching trash people do trash things to one another for fame and fortune. For me, Top Model is Jade taunting Gina with a bedazzled cockroach; it's Melrose's righteous indignation about losing to hot mess CariDee; it's women who've never seen the word "magenta" in print so they pronounce it "magnetic;" it's Umeboshi and Respeito and Wholahay; it's ten cycles of women cry-screaming at a megalomaniac who likes to demonstrate the concept of acting by pretending to collapse.
I got back into Top Model with the last cycle when I began covering the show here, and one thing was abundantly clear from the start: the Top Model of my teenage years had ceased to exist. What had replaced it wasn't necessarily bad -- I actually enjoyed Cycle 21 quite a bit and found its central clash between Will and the homophobe with the glue-on beard to be pretty fascinating -- but it was not my Top Model. Half of that was due to the injection of testosterone into the contestant pool, but the other half was the loss of an established institution. Without Mr. Jay, Noted Fashion Photographer (and world-class pick-up artist) Nigel Barker, or a visible team of shade-throwing gay stylists, it felt like Tyra was a stubborn boat captain, steering her ship into choppy waters long after the crew that (attempted to) keep her in check abandoned her. Sure, she still had series MVP Ms. J at her side, and surprisingly delightful addition PR Maven Kelly Cutrone to cruelly laugh at dum-dums, but over a decade into the show's run, the ship was far off-course.
I suppose I should touch on the actual episode I'm supposed to be covering, but there's not too much to say. I feel like I've been watching this cycle for most of my life. Top Model may have never been the most expertly produced show, but this cycle's shoestring budget, multiple arts-and-craft-themed challenges, and the ad nauseam repetition of intentions, personal brands, and confessional clips has really made me feel the length of the last four months. For fuck's sake, the first third of the episode is devoted to the models giving PowerPoint presentations.
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The episode's only real surprise is Mamé beating out Lacey for the female finalist slot, but even that was only 8% percent interesting thanks to Nyle being such a ringer. His only real competition was Mikey, who I've come to tolerate in large part because of the presence of his mom in these last three episodes. (I'm still trying to blot out the heartbreak of Mikey's mom realizing he lost, putting her face in her hands, and howling, "I hope I didn't do nothing wrong!")
Nyle is an excellent winner to go out on, though. On top of being maybe the hottest man I've seen on television, Nyle also happened to be one of the only bearable people in a pile of bores and ego-monsters. Nyle is also Top Model's only disabled contestant in its history, and you know Tyra wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to add "acknowledging the value of deaf people" to her imaginary list of things Top Model has done to change the world for the better. No one's saying Nyle doesn't deserve the title -- his eyebrows should be worth are $100K on their own -- but I'm not sure Tyra would have been so quick to reward his speedy Frankenstein runway walk otherwise. (Then again: CariDee.)
Tate Tullier/2(X)IST
And, in the end, it is all about Tyra, isn’t it? Tyra wearing age-inappropriate sheer tops; Tyra hunching her neck by two degrees to trick you into thinking she's giving helpful advice; Tyra having everyone talk about what a visionary Tyra is; Tyra desperately trying to reinvent herself as a businesswoman as her days as a TV personality wind down. Many have long suspected Top Model of crowning inferior models in order to ensure Tyra always and forever stays the show's most valuable alumna. No Carrie Underwood was going to outshine this Simon Cowell. If that was Tyra's plan, it worked. After 22 cycles and over 300 contestants, no one comes close to touching Tyra's star power. There are a few relative successes like Yaya DaCosta and Analeigh Tipton, but they're only relative successes because they broke into acting. No ANTM contestant ever reached half the modeling heights of, say, Gigi Hadid, who debuted to the world on The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills and somehow made an impression while sharing a screen with Lisa Vanderpump. (I'm just kidding; David Foster paid the Illuminati millions of dollars to make Taylor Swift play hopscotch with Gigi.)
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No, Top Model's legacy is the celebration of all things Tyra: a testament to the undeniable power of believing in yourself to such baffling excess that the reality of your abilities becomes inconsequential. Tyra created a universe for herself in which every word she uttered was infallible, and everyone else's worth was measured by how close they could get to actualizing Tyra's arbitrary vision of how a model should be. You can argue about the success or failure of any given cycle (and I'd argue that Cycle 22 was a real stinker), but there's no denying that Tyra's insane vision made for one of the most entertainingly idiosyncratic reality shows of all time.
