YMMV / Flavor of Love

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Flav knew the whole time none of the women competing on the show actually had any sort of attraction towards him or a desire to be with him, so he just spent three seasons doing his best to harass and humiliate a bunch of gold diggers and fame mongers (while also getting a big, fat check from VH1 for doing it!).
• Bile Fascination: Let's face it, the real draw of the show is watching grown women make complete and utter fools and jackasses out of themselves as they pretend to have an attraction towards a short, loud-mouthed, and rather crude rapper who used to be famous a couple decades ago in order to find a quick way to earn some money and/or fame via the Reality TV route.
• Crack Pairing: Pumkin ended up dating Mr. Boston from I Love New York. ... And reveals that she once made out with New York herself.
• Cult Classic: While more short-lived than The Bachelor, the first two seasons arguably have a more passionate fanbase than its "rival" and the appearance of the show on streaming services have allowed fans to binge-watch again despite it being over 15 years since the premiere.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • New York was so popular, she ended up getting her own show.
  • Goldie was pretty popular, too for her likability and being the Only Sane Woman in the house.
  • Big Rick, for having to put up with all of this.
• First Installment Wins: While this was actually a spin-off of a spin-off, it started the VH1 celebreality dating show trend but was by far the most popular of the "universe." As a straighter example, the first season of the show is the most popular and well-known.
• Fountain of Memes: New York has some near infamous moments that are still used to this day. Some people might not know who New York is, but odds are with the amount of gifs of her that circulate the internet that they have most definitely seen her.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Season two had a twofer with New York telling off Deelishis about how she and Flav are meant to be together, even comparing their connection to the marriage of Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown. Not only did Flav reject her a second time, but Whitney and Bobby would divorce later that year.
  • New York makes a smattering of cruel comments about Goldie's weight, but when the next episode reveals New York's own mother bluntly telling her that she's gotten fat, it's clear New York may just have been projecting from her own insecurity.
  • The season two reunion had several of the contestants trying to fight New York, one of them being Deelishis because she had disrespected her mother. Come season one of I Love New York, it seemed like New York still didn't learn her lesson about not badmouthing other people's mothers since she did it to Tango, causing him to dump her on the reunion show (and made much worse when New York eliminated Onyx for him making critical comments about her own mother's faith in God and singing).
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • When New York and Flav reunite on the season 2 reunion and share a heartwarming moment. This is after Flav dumped New York twice, and New York forgave him for it.
  • An offscreen example: it was revealed that years after the show, New York had apologized to Krazy for the way she treated her on the show. It’s pretty sweet because this is coming from New York.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: It was considered a serious allegation to be accused of being on the show for clout or career exposure, or to be accused of not caring enough about competing for Flav and making friends instead. A few years after the show ended, it was all but confirmed that the majority of the contestants really were there simply for exposure or a paycheck^note They were "competing" for Flav, after all, and didn't even know who they were competing for until after they were cast, so the drama was pure television recap fodder as it was, making the accusations just look amusing and overdramatic in hindsight.
• Jerkass Woobie: New York becomes this for being dumped by Flav in the final round TWICE.
• Love to Hate: New York was the contestant to Love to Hate when the show first debuted. Nowadays, most people take her character with a grain of salt and love her even while she's being a jerkass.
• Memetic Mutation: In addition to New York being a Fountain of Memes as mentioned above, the show has proved a source of numerous memes even a full decade after it aired.
  • Brigitte giggling during Hottie's turn hooked up to the lie detector.
  • Hottie microwaving her "vegetarian" chicken.
  • Goldie asking "Did everyone try the chicken?" during a major spat between the women during dinner.
  • "Can I ask you a question? Where the FUCK did your accent go?!"
  • "Beyoncé, sweetie, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry that an ugly-ass bitch like this would even say that! Oh my god, are you fucking insane?! Beyoncé?!? Beyoncé?!?! BEYONCÉ?!?"
  • “I said now we really drinking… STRAWBERRIES AND CHAMPAGNE!”
• Never Live It Down:
  • Pumkin would always be known as the girl who spat on New York.
  • In-show example, Flav couldn't get over Somethin defecating on the floor, and thus she was eliminated.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: At first, New York was greatly despised by many fans of the show, but she was brought on season 2 for ratings. If you even look on YouTube comments, you'll see people talking about how New York made the show memorable.
• Seasonal Rot: Most fans agree that season 2 is far less exciting than season 1, until New York returns. Season 3 is largely forgotten, however - primarily due to the lack of New York.
• So Bad, It's Good: Despite this show being considered trashy, many people still took the time to watch it. The finale even broke VH1 viewing records. Even today, some people love watching this show only because it's so bad, in comparison to other safer and more family-friendly dating shows.
• Tear Jerker: New York lashing out at Flav when she gets rejected twice by him can hit home for anyone who has dealt with a broken heart.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Rain wasn't meant to be eliminated so early, but producers quickly moved to have her eliminated after her violent fight in the van with New York revealed her anger management issues, which could have spoiled production. Given that she was the only contestant to bring New York to tears, many had wanted to see the latter go up against her again as a Worthy Opponent, especially since New York had mostly kept to herself that season and didn't have another serious fight until the infamous spitting incident with Pumkin.
• This Is Your Premise on Drugs: It's The Bachelor with the trashiest, cattiest women you've ever met, with more sex, swearing, fights and general bad behavior in one season than the former would see in a decade, alongside the man they are competing to get being the hype man of Public Enemy. However, despite being short-lived and more of a guilty pleasure than accessible crowd-pleaser The Bachelor, it nevertheless accumulated an unprecedented fandom that rivaled the series it was based off of, and some viewers did commend VH1 for making Tiffany Pollard "the first black Bachelorette."^note It would take the real Bachelorette another ten years to feature a black female protagonist, and was considered big news at the time.

---