What happened to Hannah Ann during this most recent season of the Bachelor.
Dear Julia, Recently, I’ve been getting into reality TV dating shows. It started out as just watching an episode of the Bachelor because it was on TV and the remote was too far away to change the channel. Then I watched the whole season, and the next two after that. Since then I’ve binged seasons of Love Island, Love is Blind, and The Circle. I totally get how trashy these shows are, but I love watching them and I don’t know why. Is that a bad thing? - CanWeTalkAboutJessicaAndMark34
Hi CanWeTalkAboutJessicaAndMark34,
As much as I would love to discuss Jessica and Mark from Love is Blind and explain how passionately my sister and I screamed at the TV as we watched their relationship unravel, I want to figure out why it’s so easy to get obsessed with these people and their dating lives.
I’ll admit, I used to think I was above these kinds of shows. I would casually watch the Bachelor with my friends, but mostly to laugh at the cringiest moments and grace everyone with my hilarious commentary (at least, I thought it was funny). It all seemed so fake to me, and I couldn’t imagine actually caring about who these people ended up with, because most of it was scripted anyway. It wasn’t until I was horribly bored last summer that I watched an entire season (50 hours of my life I can never get back), of the UK’s Love Island, and was hooked.
In Love Island, and a lot of these types of shows, cameras are on the contestants 24 hours a day. I watched the “islanders” go swimming, workout, put on makeup in the morning, and even teach one of the other contestants about Brexit. “You have the illusion of knowing this person and of having spent time with them because in a real sense you have,” says Eleanor Gordon-Smith, a philosopher, radio producer, and author. “So, you feel like you’re in a position to blame them and to resent them, and oddly sometimes to forgive them, as you would if you were in an ordinary two-way personal relationship.”
When the season of Love Island ended, with three couples who were madly in love (and still somehow looked good in bathing suits after 2 months of sitting by a pool), I looked up these people to see what they were doing after the show.
All of them had broken up by two months after the show ended. And many of the contestants had plastic surgery before going on the show, which was hard to notice with well executed camera angles and lighting.
It was a shock, and I felt kind of stupid for getting so sucked in. But, according to a study by Psychology Today, liking reality TV doesn’t mean we’re any less intelligent of people. Instead, us fans tend to be interested in immoral behavior and gaining status. And because these contestants are seemingly normal people, just like us, we get so caught up and invested in their lives and want to watch them gain fame. But, the people on these shows are not quite just like all of us. They’re usually “in the top 1% looks-wise,” as Psychologist Honey Langcaster-James who worked on Love Island says. And when we compare ourselves to these people, ”it can affect our body image and self-esteem.”
Besides our view of ourselves, reality dating TV can also affect how we see our romantic relationships. As Dr. Caroll Harris, co-host of ABC’s The Screen Show, claims, “we’re never just consuming [reality TV] passively. Culture is not just entertainment after work, it’s how we form ideas about our identity and what we want in our relationships.” Personally, I started questioning a lot of things after watching Love is Blind, an “experiment” denoted “Tinder as a TV program” by a professor at University of Leicester, where contestants get engaged after two weeks without seeing each other. Two couples from the show have been married for over a year now.
Should I stop overthinking relationships so much? Are you supposed to just know from the first conversation? Should I have swiped right on that guy who made a Harry Potter reference in his profile (a plus), but didn’t seem that interesting otherwise? Was that my future life-partner and I was too judgy?
These are questions that you’re all probably considering. But try not to. “Reality TV encourages an unrealistic view of finding your dream relationship,” says relationship expert Rori Sassoon. “Most people are [now] shopping fast and moving on, instead of getting to know people.” These shows are normalizing fast and rash dating decisions in the real world. Although it seems like this type of fast-track dating works on these shows, out of the 24 seasons of the Bachelor and 15 of the Bachelorette, 23 couples are still together. With about 30 contestants on each season, that’s a 2% success rate (on eHarmony, 75% of users meet their spouse within a year. Just a suggested alternative for trying out for a reality show if you’re really looking for love).
Even with all of this information, I don’t want to give up reality dating TV. It’s a weird kind of entertainment, that makes you feel kind of guilty but you also can’t tear your eyes away. And that might be okay. In recent years, reality dating shows have shown greater racial diversity, and a few incorporate LGBTQ contestants (Love Is Blind, Are You The One, and The Circle), which could decrease prejudices in the dating world. A lot of shows also strip contestants of all technology, which could encourage viewers to put away their phones while on dates. And apparently, we could take some lessons from Love Is Blind when evaluating our potential political leaders. Danielle J. Lindemann, a Professor at Lehigh who studies reality TV speculated how much more candidate’s policies and stances would be focused on without knowing their race, gender, or party affiliation.
So, yes, watching reality TV is probably not great for us. But if you’re like me and not particularly motivated to stop, then just keep in mind that the people who go on these shows aren’t just like us, and we shouldn’t necessarily compare ourselves to them or how they handle relationships.
Otherwise, binge away!
Always yours,
Julia
Advice from a Gen Z Who's Just Trying Her Best 