jackie non core rant_04

I want to preface this with I do not religiously watch Love is Blind, I am graciously behind on the current season, and I never know any of the contestants names even after they say them so many times because why does this show not do what The Bachelor does and always have name tags regardless of what episode we’re on. But, I do want to call attention to the live reunion slated for Sunday evening that turned into a bust.

As originally mentioned, I am very behind on the current season and was only recently aware there is a contestant named Jackie and no one is calling my name across the room. But Saturday I was informed that there was a very much live reunion scheduled on the following night, which meant many of my friends used to the binge model and watching something at any type of day had to schedule around 5-7PM PST.

But nothing happened. Due to what is now referred to as technical difficulties they were unable to premiere the Live Reunion according to its own title. Viewers were able to stream a day later, Bartiste jump scares still affected audiences, but the element of liveness it was sold on was no longer the case.

I want to reiterate I know nothing about this; I don’t know if there was still a live studio audience at the time of recording, I don’t know if there were shockers planned for live reactions across social media, but I do know that Love is Blind is another heavily edited reality dating show akin to a game show. What we see is the result of some kind of script (the details of which I may never know and do not actively seek at this time) and emotional goading that become entertaining to us while transforming moderately normal people into figures of the spectacle. Any added liveness to this is untrustworthy. I come to this from my Bachelor obsession where the final episodes are still pre-taped but played in front of a live audience with supposed live commentary and feedback from participants. It’s a fun gimmick; you’re convinced all this is being experienced for the first time like the couple didn’t break up thrice in the three month period they lived off screen, and that reactions are natural and not continually staged by producers who feed lines to Jesse Palmer (an early Bachelor contestant who replaced Chris Harrison as host amidst the shows continued refusal to actively validate their race issues). Yet audiences are sold on "liveness" as much as they are sold on "reality".

There’s also something to be said about streaming platforms continuing to “try new things” by adopting old things but that’s all I have time for this evening.