The Bachelor fans are a passionate bunch. They pick favourites, they read recaps, and they throw screening parties to enjoy the series together.

But this article is not about The Bachelor fans. This is about the super fans.

Super fans are a different breed. While the rest of the viewership waits patiently for the upcoming season, they are searching (they call it ‘sleuthing’) for hints about it.

These fans communicate in the BachandBachette fan forums.

These fans claim to find the contestants before they are officially announced. They do this by comparing paparazzi shots (of the series being filmed) to media rumours and social media friendship circles.

Names are found, social media accounts are found and potential contestants are sent friend requests.

They wait. They watch. They share.

One fan recently wrote on the forum that a person they believed to be in Matty Johnson's season, had changed their social media privacy settings after they were allegedly outed by The Daily Telegraph.

"It looks like her IG (Instagram) was public before today and made private after she was revealed by DT (Daily Telegraph)," they wrote.

Many past contestants and hosts have kept their social media accounts private (or shut down) during their time on the show. Accounts are then re-activated once the episode of them leaving has been aired.

This is currently seen in how Matty Johnson hasn't made a post to his Instagram account in eight weeks

A post shared by Matty J (@matthewdavidjohnson) on Mar 1, 2017 at 10:35am PST

The fans use this information as a way to assist their theories about who remains in the series.

Two fans recently saw the loss and gain of followers of one speculated contestant as evidence of her having left the series.

"She unfollowed 5 people. Down from 1,006 to 1,001. 5 seems a bit too many for it to just be people deactivating their accounts IMO (in my opinion)," one fan wrote.

"She's now on 1003, so up by 2... does this mean we can all it and say she's out?!" The other fan replied.

The BachandBachette users have a whole page dedicated to the women they believe are contestants in the upcoming season.

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Potential contestants are placed in separate threads and given nicknames.

For example, "light blonde, wavy hair" is the title of one thread and "cheerleader outfit girl" is the title of another.

These unofficial profiles are created by using images of women on set that have been taken and sold to media outlets by paparazzi.

One super fan recently explained to another why they believed there weren't more unofficial (paparazzi) photos published by media outlets.

"This happened last year and then the media (and magazines) released pics of group dates and dates that were from earlier in filming, so likely that the photographers weren't allowed to release the pics until a later time," they wrote.

Are the super fans right? We've got a couple of months to find out.

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