Watch Love is Blind in quarantine

The argument

Sometimes, you need an escape from the real world-especially now, when it seems so confusing and scary. What better way to unplug than to shut your mind off and watch some good old-fashioned reality TV? We’re not talking about reruns of Real Housewives or Big Brother-instead, tune into Love is Blind. This innovative series follows thirty young people who speed-date in pods, able to talk to one another but never see each other. Throughout the series, many of the new couples get engaged, but when they see each other for the first time on their wedding day, all bets are off. Equal parts problematic and addictive, this show is the ideal guilty-pleasure binge-watch, especially in the midst of quarantine. Not only does the drama take your mind off of the outside world, but it may also be eerily reminiscent of your current dating life. In this modern “corona era,” many things we once took for granted changed dramatically-and that includes the dating scene, which now takes place largely online. Like the contestants on Love is Blind, it might be a while until we can meet our Tinder matches face-to-face. Until then, hold off on the proposals.

Context

Aired originally on Netflix in February 2020, Love is Blind puts a modern twist on the classic dating reality show genre. Fans and critics alike agree it’s hard to tear yourself away from the trainwreck-esque drama of the 11-episode miniseries.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Aside from being just another low-quality reality TV show, Love is Blind presents the audience with a toxic distortion of what romance is supposed to look like. The series pushes the misleading narrative of “love at first sight” by shamelessly exploiting the most intimate emotions of the contestants for entertainment. Not only does this show harm the people directly involved, but it also twists the viewer’s ideal of what love should be, and in the corona-era dating scene, this misperception can be damaging.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] A need for escapism does not select this show over any other, and the sibling positions offer comedy, drama and documentary as escapes without the objections raised here. [Rejecting P2] "Addictive and drama-filled" describes a format rather than supplying a reason to think it good, and the argument's own "problematic" and "guilty-pleasure" framing concedes the case against it. [Rejecting P3] The resemblance is superficial: quarantine dating was mediated by video, whereas the show's premise is dating without seeing at all, and its engineered isolation and compressed timeline are production devices rather than a mirror of anything.