Love Is Blind premiered on Netflix in February of 2020 and quickly became the hottest new reality TV show, spawning countless memes of the “I’m Nick Lachey… Obviously” variety. Having binged all six seasons as soon as they came out, and also dipping our toes into the eight international spinoffs (Brazil, Japan, Sweden, UK, Germany, Argentina, Mexico, Habibi/UAE), we’re not surprised that a seventh season of the original US-based show has been announced.
But… Do we really need – or even want – another season? Is Love Is Blind still an intriguing “social experiment” or is it actually a bad idea that should bow out before it causes more than just public heartbreak?
Hitting the screen just as the COVID-19 pandemic was shutting everything down, Love Is Blind reportedly reached 30 million households within four weeks of its premiere. Subsequent seasons also had massive viewership. It’s hosted by Nick and Vanessa Lachey, who swan in and out wearing fabulous outfits, interview participants, and take us to commercial breaks.
The formula is this: 15 men and 15 women (the show is stubbornly cis/het), all from the same region – participants in season one were from Atlanta, Georgia – date each other in “pods” where they can speak to one another via a sound system, but not see each other. They only meet face-to-face once they become engaged. Engaged couples are then sent to a resort together for a week where they share a room, and afterward, they return home to the city they’re from and live together for three weeks while planning their wedding. At the altar, they decide whether “love really is blind”, choosing whether or not to get legally married.
There’s more – meeting one another’s families and friends, becoming intimate (or not), having bachelor and bachelorette parties with the other engaged participants, wedding-dress shopping… And a fair dose of drama, which is to be expected (and which is what makes the show watchable).
Love Is Blind is popular and watchable but it’s also stressful and emotionally wrenching. And therein lies the quandary. You’re watching people bare their souls – they’re not allowed to talk about physical attributes so the other person doesn’t know what they look like – so conversations between participants tend to take two wildly different directions: Sexy flirting without much substance, and stuff you’d probably not bring up until several dates in, like childhood trauma, bad breakups, divorced parents, cheating… At least, that’s what they show.
Love Is Blind is a wild ride, both for the participants and the viewer. Its compressed timeline means couples need to get to know each other super-fast, and producers need storylines to follow. Participants emerge as villains and saints, which might not reflect actual reality (as opposed to manufactured reality).
In the six (so far) seasons of Love Is Blind – the US version – there have been 15 men and 15 women in each season, a total of 90 potential matches. Here’s a breakdown of how that turned out in reality:
So of the 90 potential matches, 32 happened, 11 made it past the altar, and 9 couples are still together. A 10% success rate.
Obviously a 10% success rate barely registers on the list of reasons for Netflix to keep Love Is Blind going and going and going. It gets the viewers, for sure. And what’s shown onscreen keeps those viewers coming back season after season. It’s a bona-fide hit.
Rotten Tomatoes said, “Addictive, but problematic, Love Is Blind is undoubtedly an intoxicating binge, but its version of romance often comes off as more toxic than aspirational.”
And that toxicity seems to flare up, then swiftly be quashed. Participants have alleged mistreatment – abuse – while they were on the show. A season one participant said, “The sleep deprivation was real. I feel like they do it on purpose because they’re trying to break you.” Here’s a precis of some other issues that have come to light:
And that’s just behind the scenes. Participants have been subjected to public humiliation and bullying too – one woman who suggested to her pod date that her looks were similar to celebrity Megan Fox (remember, they aren’t supposed to talk about physical attributes) was subsequently relentlessly body-shamed on social media.
The pressure to “perform” was also relentless. In early Love Is Blind contracts, engaged couples were required to show up to their weddings even if they didn’t want to get married, there was a $50,000 penalty for leaving the show early, and married couples weren’t allowed to divorce before the final episode aired. (Some of these contract terms were changed for later seasons.)
Season seven is set to air on October 2, 2024, and this one is set in Washington, DC – which sure seems prescient given the upcoming presidential election. Romance between lobbyists of opposing causes? Capitol Hill interns whose parents own horse ranches in NoVA? Picnics on the Mall?
It's a beautiful little city, to be sure, with an undoubtedly colorful cast of characters (DC has a population of about 6 million, and according to Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, pays the highest federal taxes per capita in the nation even though it's not a state and has no voting representation in Congress – keep that in mind when Love Is Blind is inevitably showcasing the stunning sights of our nation's capital).
Much as we absolutely want Washington, DC to be represented in the world of dating, there are now too many red flags about Love Is Blind that we can't continue to ignore or attempt to explain away.
Although the Love Is Blind producers say they've made improvements, offer support, and take complaints seriously, the lawsuits the show is facing from former participants indicate serious ongoing problems. Non-disclosure agreements, standard in reality TV, have likely prevented many other past participants from revealing their own difficulties. Crew members have corroborated some of the stories that former participants have told of toxic behaviour both on and off camera – much of which never makes it to air, for obvious reasons, or is heavily edited.
The bottom line is, participants in reality TV shows are almost uniformly at risk of poor treatment, and have almost no recourse if things go wrong. There isn't any "union" for reality TV show participants. Both the producers and the public take the line "You signed up for this" when the proverbial hits the fan.
Audiences love drama, and negative, salacious, personal, private-made-public drama gets viewers, which feeds the beast. It's a vicious cycle, and the victims are the participants, who are revictimized when their traumatic experiences air on TV and garner opinions from the world at large.
So maybe we don't need another season of Love Is Blind. Is there a kinder, more thoughtful, friendlier, more caring version we could pivot to? Can therapy be made an integral part of the show, which would remind viewers how important it is to look after their own mental health when they're going through something as big as getting married? Can the producers admit they made mistakes and show the world just how they've taken the participants' concerns seriously? They have the receipts (in the form of unreleased footage and audio recordings), so it's difficult to believe they don't know what really happened.
After all, changed behavior is the best apology – so maybe it's time for Love Is Blind to lead the change.
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