Tampa video store clerk is on ‘Big Brother’ this summer

The CBS summer staple “Big Brother” this season includes Joseph Rodriguez, 30, a video store clerk from Tampa, as one of the 16 houseguests competing for $750,000 as cameras watch their every move.

Rodriguez is the only contestant from Florida for Season 26. The reality show airs three times a week with live feeds that are watchable online at all times.

“I have consumed a disgusting amount of reality TV over 30 years of life,” he said in a video posted by the show. “I love this genre so much and I love ‘Big Brother.’”

He said he is an avid poker player and that helps. “This is like the most high-stakes poker tournament you can be in.”

In the first week of the show he has so far remained under the radar and said that was part of his plan to let the “bigger personalities” tire the others out.

The show features a diverse group of people living together in a house outfitted with 94 cameras and 113 microphones. It airs Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, with Thursday night typically the week’s only live episode and an eviction taking place within the hour.

Rodriguez works at Viper Video in Tampa’s Riverside Heights neighborhood. Located at 706 W Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., it sells movies of all genres, but focuses of classic fantasy, horror and science fiction. It offers a niche product in a business that has less than two dozen storefronts in the country, its owner said.

Owner Shelby McIntyre, who opened the store in 2021, said Rodriguez is a film buff who has watched the show “religiously” for a number of years and talked about his multi-level strategy to lay low and let the bigger personalities “bury themselves” while he works behind the scenes.

“I hadn’t watched the show much before, but we are all ‘Big Brother’ nerds now, watching the live feeds and debating,” McIntyre said. “We are all rooting for him.”