So. I've been watching Love is Blind since the show began, and while I can confirm its reputation as a show people love to hate has existed since its conception, I have to say the newest season is exceptionally easy to hate. That has to do with the erosion of the contestant's authenticity (something I spoke at length about in my newest Substack post) as well as the show managing to employ some of the most incompetent producers I've ever seen get their hands on a reality tv show.
It's a growing epidemic across the reality tv canon that more and more often people are joining shows in order to grow an online following. The level of heightened self awareness everyone has is only exacerbated by the presence of physical cameras, rather than the looming threat of being recorded people deal with on the daily. Everyone is too worried about how they'll be perceived by the general public, which is how we got that man in season 3 using eye drops to simulate tears in his confessional. It's how we got someone like Matthew last season, a robot of a man who made meta comments about how "America loves an underdog" and how he wanted to keep the audience on his side. And it's the fundamental reason why this season did not work at all.
Of course we know very well that all reality television is heavily produced. Storylines are tweaked and curated to fit a certain arc for every "character" on the show, otherwise it wouldn't make for good tv. The core of any compelling narrative, be it fictional or not, is truth-- a universal truth, a relatable feeling, a story based on actual events, some level of honesty and vulnerability must be present for audiences to really engage with media. Over the last few years Love is Blind has felt as though it's moving increasingly further away from the original conceit of a show for people who struggle dating to experiment by getting married, sight unseen, and instead become a completely manufactured pipeline to being an influencer.
Everyone on the show is too self aware, from Nick and his perceived "brand" at home he doesn't want to tarnish, to the mess that was Tyler and Ashley, a TikTok creator I stumbled upon summed it up perfectly: the contestants are trying to produce the show. They are trying to curate a specific image and create a favorable narrative in order to get ahead of potential discourse and to garner favor with viewers before trying to sell us candles or pilates classes. The problem is: none of them are good at facilitating a compelling storyline, and we have eyes.
In the case of Nick and by extension Hannah, I think there's a lack of understanding about exactly what they signed up for. Nick asks for Hannah to keep things discreet on a show where they're constantly being filmed/mic'd up and it's unsurprising when we're forced to listen to Hannah prattle on about their sex life not realizing her mic is hot. While Hannah alleges Nick succeeded to some extent at hiding aspects of himself in order to preserve his "nice guy" exterior, she forgets the cameras have been recording the whole time and regardless of the edit she got, the audience can see how she speaks to/treats people and come to their own conclusions accordingly. Alex and Tim's entire storyline was butchered for us as an audience by the two of them attempting to control the narrative too much, and while I do understand to an extent Alex's choice to protect Tim's image in Cabo (trying to calm him down so he wouldn't be seen as an angry Black man), I think it would've been beneficial for viewers to better understand what was happening in their relationship. And while it certainly feels like an invasion of privacy to say something like that, the crux of reality shows, especially one focused on dating like LIB, is to see the ins and outs of these relationships. Without that critical fight the breaking of Alex and Tim's bond falls flat and is incredibly confusing, even with the little clarity we receive in the reunion (we will get to that) I have a hard time wrapping my mind around what happened between them and have an even harder time caring.
And of course I can't talk about participants trying to produce the show without touching on the absolute worst offenders, Ashley and Tyler. In order to talk about them however, I have to mention my next gripe with newer seasons of the show, there's always supplemental reading. Now I cannot remember if this started happening in season three when SK cheated or if there's earlier instances of huge plot developments occurring off the show, but it feels like every season since you never get the full story from any of these people unless you partake in a Twitter deep dive afterward. There is always a girlfriend/wife/baby mother waiting in the wings to let us know some man on that show is low down and dirty and it is rarely, if ever addressed on the show. This season was possibly the most ridiculous, within the first half of episodes being released it was discovered online that Tyler is the biological father to three young children, a fact he did not tell his then fiance, now wife Ashley. It was especially egregious because during this early batch of episodes he makes so many jokes/references to the two of them making a baby, never bothering to mention he has three already. As the season went on we learned more online: the mother is his close friend and a lesbian, the twins were conceived naturally, they've spent Christmas together in matching pajamas.
Eventually Tyler does address this on the show but unfortunately, he's a liar to the core. A half truth about how he helped out his friend by essentially being a sperm donor for her and her wife, and then a bold faced lie about how they don't know what he looks like. At this point, the viewing public knew he was lying but soon after his baby mother came out of the woodwork and uploaded videos of her detailing the entire timeline of their relationship and his involvement with his kids. Internet sleuths went to work and found court documents and records of custody battles, so much so that by the time the wedding aired people were sharing the info with Ashley hoping to save her from spending her life with this fraudulent man. People waited with baited breath for the reunion to know what this bombshell of information would bring--did Ashley know? Would she leave him? Instead of any interesting or insightful conclusion to this saga, when Nick and Vanessa (and we will get to them TRUST) broached the topic we were met with a passive aggressive monologue from Ashley about how she's known this whole time. How, apparently, Tyler had been honest with her initially--off camera--and she decided for continuity's sake (because she "can't hide how she's feeling on her face") they decided to lie about everything on camera to "protect the children." She spends about two minutes finger wagging at the audience for believing what they see on social media--what we've seen is his actual baby's mother sharing her story and pictures of him and his children on Christmas--rather than believing them when let me reiterate, they literally lied to us. On purpose. Truthfully I've never heard such an absurd line of thinking, and even worse: they were never challenged once!
Nick and Vanessa Lachey suck. It's just true, they do. They're the fakest hosts I've ever seen, and Love Island barely has one. They could be replaced by the speaker from Too Hot to Handle and honestly, maybe the show would be better. Over the course of this season, there are two love triangles, a major fight that happens off screen, a couple that breaks things off days before the wedding, whatever the hell Stephen was up to at that sleep test, the nightmare that is Tyler, and a relationship that is bordering emotional abuse and the reunion left us all frustrated and confused. All the answers are taken at face value, interesting conversations are cut short, and for some reason we have to listen to cast members we have literally never cared about (not once have I wondered what Jessica I-Am-So-Drunk-Barnett-Is-So-Sexy is up to!) tell us about their new partners, or their new babies, or if you're AD: nothing. They couldn't even press AD enough to make an interesting "where are they now" segment. It was laughable. The lack of serious questioning at the reunion only exacerbated the issues where the editing and production elements were lacking. Tim and Alex's fight, Ramses and Marissa's breakup, Tyler and Ashley's baby conversation, Garrett and Taylor's cheating scare, Stephen and Monica's confrontation. A litany of important moments we as viewers are dropped into the middle of and asked to figure out what the hell is happening. Many of which we never fully understand because our hosts were more than willing to take half answers and change the subject in order to diffuse a situation when conflict arose. That or they didn't even bother asking. There is actually more reliable and detailed information from the cast members' post show podcast press tours than from the show's own reunion.
I maintain that the issue at the core of this show, and at the core of a lot of media nowadays that stops it from being interesting or good is a self consciousness that is hindering everyone's ability to be vulnerable. No one wants to be authentic because there is always the threat of rejection, or failing, or people just plain not liking you. It's a risk no one's willing to take and because of that, everything is palatable and everything is boring. There is no love if there is no conflict. It takes a certain level of vulnerability to admit that you're wrong, or to fail in front of people. It takes a level of vulnerability to be honest with someone--to break up with them, have the difficult conversation. Instead, the cast of season seven wanted to be regarded as though they opened themselves up to the "experiment" while doing everything in their power to do the opposite. It's a mindset I see across the board in recent years, in relationships, media, and online spaces. People want all the rewards you get for being vulnerable, love, loyalty, connection, trust, but don't want to do the actual work and are confused about the end result. It's a mindset I myself used to have, but as you can see a common theme in my more reflective essays is that I am realizing more and more that the good is not divorced from the bad. If you want to create something impactful or be the center of the next great love story, you have to put yourself out there in order for anything to happen to you. The only way out is through. You can't wake up if you don't fall asleep.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, and particularly my Love is Blind thoughts check out my newest Substack post and subscribe :)
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