Um, How Did Tayshia See Bird Box & Its Viral Memes While She Was Filming The Bachelor?

Usually The Bachelor is pretty unaware of itself and its surroundings. After all, it's filmed months before it airs (generally in September through November of the previous year), so there's not a lot of room for timely content or pop culture references. In fact, it's generally a bad idea to even try: One time a contestant made a Damn Daniel reference during his limo exit on JoJo Fletcher's season, and it was super awkward when it aired months after the (very played out) meme was a thing. But on Monday night, Tayshia made a Bird Box reference on The Bachelor that seemed so out of place because the series wrapped filming in November... a month before Netflix released the movie. Also, Bachelor contestants generally don't get to see Netflix or Twitter. Still, she put a blindfold on Colton to lead him to their skydiving date, and then she joked in a talking head interview that this "wasn't the Bird Box Challenge." Um, how? Did? This? Happen?

These contestants are sequestered from all media and entertainment (including books, magazines, music, and the internet) while on the show. How would Tayshia have seen Bird Box on Netflix and the Bird Box challenge memes in time to joke about it during her hometown date? Are the contestants allowed to watch Netflix? Are the producers sharing their favorite memes with the women behind the scenes? Also, there's the matter of when this hometown was even filmed. The movie doesn't even seem to have been out yet when Tayshia and Colton had their date.

Colton announced on Instagram that his season had finished filming as of November 17, 2018. Technically Bird Box had its AFI Fest release on November 12, but it's highly unlikely that Tayshia was in attendance. The movie didn't hit Netflix until December 21, 2018. And then the Bird Box Challenge (walking around blindfolded and performing daily activities) didn't really become a thing until January of 2019.

The most likely answer to why Tayshia is suddenly super on top of her meme culture is that her talking head may have been filmed later. Former Bachelor Sean Lowe wrote in his memoir that sometimes the show would film talking heads months later as the producers began putting the story together and needed extra content. That's probably what happened but it was pretty confusing for fans who know the filming schedule.

If you're wondering why producers would want to go back in time to add a reference to something that happened a month ago, it's worth noting that this wasn't the first Bird Box Challenge moment of the season. Back at The Bachelor mansion, Demi blindfolded Colton during some one-on-one time together in an attempt to have a funny, sexy moment. Colton himself made a Bird Box joke on Twitter with a screenshot from the episode.

Maybe the producers wanted to continue the joke and asked Tayshia after the fact to film that quote really quickly to play during her hometown date (weird flex with minimal payoff, but OK). She literally could not have known about the movie or the challenge when the date was originally filmed, but the joke plays now that it's been a few months.

And it really draws attention to how many times Colton was blindfolded this season and a new mystery: Which came first? The Bird Box or The Bachelor?