I don't think (most) people explicitly choose not to follow her because she is black - meaning I don't think most go, "oh, she's black, I'm not following her." I think many viewers probably look at Rachel (and maybe before her Caila or another POC) and think "oh, she's sweet, smart, friendly, etc." or whatever...But, then that is it.

Contrarily, I think (at their respective times) these viewers looked at people like JoJo, Becca, Lauren etc. and thought similar things, PLUS "oh, I love what she wears, I want to look like that or I want to see where she gets her stuff " or "oh, she's just like my sister or friend X, but cooler" etc. AND THEN let me go follow her on IG to see what she's up to.

My point is that because this show appeals to a particular demographic, those viewers watch the show and see people who theoretically could be that "cool" person they know in their daily life or someone who has certain traits, experiences, etc. that they could like for themselves and can see themselves in that person.

For POC contestants and the wider Bachelor audience, the missing step from "oh, she's sweet" to "I want to follow her" I think has to do with "being relatable," or how "accessible" people who are more like POC contestants may be in their own lives. That may have do with not identifying with someone of a different race to the point where you want to keep up with aspects of their life. Hopefully this makes sense.

It's different than celebrities, because Bachelor people are just like really popular everyday people, so I think most "fans" view them as they would someone they could theoretically know. And if you are only surrounded mostly by what you know or what looks like you, you are not so much going to take that next step to follow the "everyday" person you don't really identify with, even if overall you think she's great or fine.

On a much smaller scale, (because at the end of the day this is SM we are talking about) this sort of social discrepancies are hard to explain when they are not necessarily products of explicit racism yet still relate to race.