Guest Post: The Bravoholic 101

By: Jim K

My Week as @thebravoholic

The majority of @Bravotv’s followers on Twitter know about @thebravoholic’s account. For those of you not on Twitter, it’s an account run for a week by a lucky Bravo fan. I was @thebravoholic the week of October 14-21. The week before you take over the account, Bravo sends the winner a direct message (DM) on Twitter congratulating him/her with the E-mail address of a Bravo contact to accept. After a brief telephone call discussing the perks/prize/general rules, Bravo sends the winner an affidavit to read/sign/return within 24 hours to accept the contest terms. The morning before you go live, you receive an E-mail with your password. At 12 PM EST that Monday, you’re in charge of the #holic account for the week.

Overall, it was a really fun, albeit exhausting, experience. The first day was mainly introducing, thanking people for their “mazels,” and keeping them entertained until the new episodes aired. Because I have a day a job, my tweeting was limited to lunch breaks and evenings. Some people sent “fan mail” because other Bravoholics tweeted all day every day. Sorry – my job pays by bills, not Bravo. Bloop! How previous Bravoholics did that was beyond me, unless they were on vacation and happy hour began with breakfast. At the end of the first night, I was drained. It was challenging to be funny and neutral/diplomatic at the same time because I had no filter.

The previous week’s Bravoholic asked a lot of questions. Every. Day. While some followers loved it, I got the vibe many were on the verge of a “question overdose.” Since my week included just a few shows airing new episodes, I had limited material to discuss the next day. I restricted my questions/games to a few per day and spread them out. Because it was Homecoming season, I waited until Friday to have people nominate a King and Queen for Bravo Homecoming. People voted from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. using #BravoHomecoming. When I got home from work, I started calculating the votes on a spreadsheet. Andy Cohen and Jeff Lewis were in a tight race for King, but at the end of the night, Andy was crowned King and Lisa Vanderpump was crowned Queen. Lisa won hands down.

The highlight of the week for me was the “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” reunion show – 10 years later. It was obvious why the show was such a hit and won an Emmy – the “Fab Five” had a chemistry that worked like no other cast on Bravo. They joked and revealed behind the scenes secrets, including a cast “make out” session in the back of a van between Thom & Jai.

Keys to being a successful @thebravoholic: be amusing, honest, and engaging; do not joke about kids on the shows (@Bravotv is watching); enjoy and have fun! Bravo has very loyal fans and they can smell a phony from miles away. Do not: ask 1,000 questions per day; badger Bravolebrities to follow you because you want them to sit on your face; make 500 collages; tweet about shows that aren’t on Bravo. That only results in the citizens of Bravolandia coming after you with torches or @Bravotv firing you faster than Donald Trump can flip his comb over.