“A bunch of us were drunk at my place, and it was when things just started opening up a bit. So I was on Tinder and Hinge and I was just like ‘This is useless, none of this is working,’ Elan Ashendorf told me about the origins of a dating show he recently started putting up on YouTube called “The Bushwick Bachelor.” 

While Ashendorf, a computer programmer at an advertisement-verification software company called MadHive, was busy lamenting about his dating life, his friend Ashley Lagzial was talking about her quarantine obsession with ABC’s “The Bachelor,” and “the alliteration just kind of worked out,” Ashendorf said. The very next day, Ashendorf found himself in front of a green screen and was introducing himself in front of a camera as the “Bushwick Bachelor.”

“We got really serious about it really quickly,” Lagzial added, noting that her friend had never been in a serious relationship before, just “a few situation-ships, 6-8 months here and there.” They were able to pick up most of the crew for the webseries from Ashendorf’s apartment. Lagzial, who does public relations work for a German chemical conglomerate, had volunteered to produce the videos herself.