The Bachelor turns 15: Our ranking of the best modern-era men

Today marks the fifteenth anniversary of the premiere of The Bachelor on ABC. Can you believe that it’s been this long? It’s crazy to think how long this franchise has been ingrained in American pop culture, to the point where it’s now a tradition and a huge part of the social-media circus that exists today. It’s easy to be cynical about it, in between the there-for-the-right-reasons questions and some of the obvious manipulation that seems to happen behind the scenes, but in the end it’s a fun, silly reality show that does occasionally lead to happy couples.

We thought about doing a ranking today of all of the different Bachelors over the years, but there were two problems with that — we haven’t seen some of the earlier seasons, and if you go back, the setup of those seasons was very different. We consider there to be two different eras of the show — the early era where you had random super-rich people or men with exciting jobs in the lead, or the modern era where the leads are closer to real people who seem more relatable in their journey. The second way has shown itself to be far more successful, at least in terms of generating marriages and relationships that last for a while.

Since we attribute this modern era as starting with Jason Mesnick, we’re going to look at the guys from his season (which premiered in 2009) onward to today.

9. Juan Pablo Galavis – It’s not okay, Juan Pablo. Due to his limited screen time on Desiree Hartsock’s season, he was the most like some of the early-season Bachelors of the group. He was wishy-washy, he didn’t propose at the end, and he never came across as all that likable. He’s also had almost nothing to do with the franchise since his relationship with Nikki Ferrell ended.

8. Jake Pavelka – At the time, his season started off with him as a humble airline pilot from Texas. Our memory of him ends with him shouting at Vienna Girardi to stop interrupting him during the most awkward interview we’ve seen outside of Nick Viall and Andi Dorfman. Jake’s legacy is as a fairly robotic Bachelor, and someone who chose a relatively unpopular contestant over someone a little more likable.

7. Ben Flajnik – We’ve come to appreciate Courtney Robertson much more in retrospect than we did during her season, so she’s not the problem with Ben’s iteration of the show. He just seemed far too dismissive of some of the women at times, and wasn’t ever altogether interesting to watch.

6. Nick Viall – Nick himself was a fine Bachelor, and we appreciated him trying to be honest and not giving canned responses to the women. His season is just tainted slightly by the obnoxious shoving of Corinne down our throats plus some obvious desperation of times from contestants to book spots in Paradise. This is the social-media age of The Bachelor gone bad.

5. Ben Higgins – Ben was fine. He was nice, he was charming, and he tried to give people the benefit of the doubt the majority of the time. The unfortunate thing is that on paper, he was probably the most vanilla Bachelor in the show’s history. There just isn’t anything about him that stands out.

4. Brad Womack – This was the most depressing season ever in between him talking about how America hated him and the random visits the therapist. Why were we beating the guy up because he didn’t choose someone the first time? Nonetheless, this was an entertaining season with likable contestants, and his relationship with Emily Maynard, while brief, was sweet.

3. Chris Soules – Chris’ season was certainly hokey at times with all of the farm puns — we’ve actually come to be entertained by him infinitely more after his season than during it. This was just a solid season as a whole in between some good contestants, fun dates, and a Bachelor who the show could market around. Having an ordinary guy with an interesting job and a good nickname like Prince Farming goes a long way.

2. Jason Mesnick – The whole Melissa / Molly moment still lives in infamy, but even if you look beyond that Jason had a very good season and is one of only two men to marry someone from his season. He was likable and sincere, and to us, that was enough for us to like him and want to root for him even when things went south.

1. Sean Lowe – Really the perfect Bachelor story. A great guy with a good outlook and understanding about the show who went on, handled the role with grace, didn’t take himself too seriously, and found ultimately his soul mate in the process. The show itself may have went a bit overboard with the whole “born-again virgin” stuff, but Sean’s what any Bachelor should aspire to be. We also mean that in terms of social media after the fact.

Who is your favorite modern-day Bachelor? Share now in the comments below! (Photo: ABC.)