Confession: We always kind of assumed that the ridiculous job descriptions on The Bachelor and Bachelorette—ones like "chicken enthusiast," "whiskey enthusiast," "free spirit" and this season's mind-boggling "Tickle Monster" and "Whaboom"— were mostly made up to distract us from the fact that some of these people just want to be on TV.
But, blessed be, Chris Harrison has opened our eyes.
"Early on," Harrison tells E! News, "we weren't very creative [with descriptions]. We were just like, ‘You're a manager of this,' or, ‘You're a doctor,' whatever. And then we thought, that's not really how you know these guys. You're not going to know Lucas because of what he does. You're going to know Lucas because he's a Whaboom. And same thing with Jonathan. He's an accomplished doctor, which should be enough. But you're gonna remember him as the Tickle Monster. I think what we realized is, let's have a little more fun with the labeling because that's who you're going to remember these guys as."
Whatever the reason, we're obviously already fascinated with this season's resident "Whaboom," Lucas. 'Cause, boy oh boy, if you know Whabooms like we do…
Just kidding. We have no idea what a "Whaboom" is.
"It's one of those words that can be like..." Harrison explains, gathering his words, "It's an essence, it's a lifestyle, it's an occupation but it's also a verb. You can Whaboom and you can be Whaboom."
Ohhhh...kay? One good thing for Rachel Lindsay, whose Bachelorette season starts off this Monday, Harrison did confirm that Lucas' title is not related to the World of Warcraft (which comes up if you Google it), but still, he probably won't give you warm fuzzies.
"[Lucas] is one of those guys...you either want to murder him, or you really like him," Harrison tells E! News. "I kinda want to choke him, like, 'Stop!' Enough is enough, let it go. You're at a 12, I need you to bring it down to a four. "
Harrison says Lucas is most likely this season's "villain," but there are other contenders. "Lucas might be that guy you love to hate," Chris says thoughtfully. "But Lee is also the guy who's this very Southern gentleman, sweet as apple pie, you know, nice as can be. But the way he talks and the way he says things kind of rubs people the wrong way.
Apparently this season of The Bachelorette will have plenty of controversial contestants and testosterone—as Harrison reveals that two guys hated each other so fiercely they kept crashing each other's exit interviews, to tell each other to "F—k off," on the night they were ousted at the same time—but also plenty of tears. Lots and lots of tears.
Bachelor fans know that no one cried more, or harder than Jason Mesnick in his season-four finale, and Harrison draws comparisons to that watershed.
"This season is Mesnick-ian," Harrison quips. "It's not Mesnick. But it's Mesnick-ian. On the sliding scale of zero to Mesnick, it's like a 6 or 7. You're not gonna get a full crazy Mesnick but you're gonna get some serious man cry. And it's funny who you get it from. There's Kenny, who's a wrestler and a badass dude. He'll rip your head off, like ‘RAWR!,' but then he has a daughter, and he's a bawl bag, and he starts crying. So it's funny. You never know who it's gonna be. You have all these Type A personalities, some older guys, more professional, because of who Rachel is. These guys are used to being successful, and good at what they do. And they're not used to having people getting in their face, and so there's some conflict."
See what Harrison has to say about this season's guys, "Whabooms" and villains in the video clip above!
The Bachelorette premieres Monday, May 22 at 9 p.m. on ABC.