The last step of the Love is Blind process is the wedding, where surviving couples either profess their lifelong commitment to one another or dump their partner in front of friends and family for the world to see. Each season, usually one or two couples get married, completing the experiment by proving that love is blind.

A key part of reality television is the “talking head” interview: edited conversations between cast members and producers, sprinkled throughout the season, where cast members explain their motivations or reactions to various moments. Some of the show’s most iconic moments come from these intimate confessionals, like when one contestant used eye drops to simulate tears over being broken up with. 

Love is Blind has been a massive success for Netflix, the streaming platform that distributes the show, and a large part of that success comes from the wacky yet earnest premise. To many viewers, the show was a refreshing break from the predictable, salacious tone of series like Too Hot to Handle—where attractive singles go to idyllic beach locations and are challenged to avoid physical intimacy in exchange for money, resulting in high intensity drama; Dated & Related—where family members go to idyllic beach locations to help their family member find love, resulting in high intensity drama; and Perfect Match—where former participants from Netflix reality shows go to idyllic beach locations to search for love, resulting in high intensity drama. 

It’s worth noting that all the shows Love is Blind self-consciously distinguishes itself from—through its branding as a pseudo-scientific experiment—are also distributed by Netflix. Thus, Netflix manufactures the problem of toxic reality television while simultaneously offering what appears to be its antidote. And if a viewer gets tired of either, the alternative is just one click away.

And Love is Blind seemed to take its role as the responsible older sibling of dating reality television seriously. It didn’t cast influencers and force them into raunchy situations to be objectified. Love is Blind cast members were different: they were older, had familiar jobs, and were serious enough about finding love that they were ready to get married at the end (in theory). The show was built around this mythology of authenticity and sincerity.  

“I bought into the idea of the show being different from other shows.” 

Season 2 Love is Blind cast member Nick Thompson remembers being selected. “They reached out to me on LinkedIn.” He recalls feeling flattered but skeptical. “I just joke that I just kind of slept walk into it because I never thought I’d be cast. I’m not a very dramatic person. I don’t watch reality TV,” he admits. “So I kind of thought that I was just going through these motions.” 

Nick wasn’t motivated by fame or attention, as many audience members assume of people who go on reality television. He sighs. “I bought into the idea of the show being different from other shows.” 

And Love Is Blind is different—even in how it spends its runtime. The show devotes much of its time to the pods, where couples talk and connect—something that’s relatively rare in dating reality TV, which usually moves at a breakneck pace and prioritizes footage of interpersonal conflict over the emotional bonds that give those conflicts meaning. Viewers felt like they were watching real conversations between real people about the things that lead to love in real life: childhood, dreams, losses, hobbies, and family.

Working Conditions

But while audiences see the cozy couches, fuzzy blankets, and iconic golden goblets—available for sale at $30.95 a piece—cast members live an experience described as “unsafe and inhumane.” From the first moment cast members arrive, production assumes total control over their lives.

Thompson remembers landing at the airport, just to be taken to set instead of his hotel. “We went to the set first and there they slowly take away all of your stuff. So first they take your cellphone, then your wallet, then your passports, any credit cards, any cash.” They made him unpack his bag so they could review the contents. Michael Carroll, a former producer for the dating reality television show The Bachelor, which used the same tactic, says when the producers finish, there’s nothing left for cast members to do. “Nothing. No pen. You can’t write anything down. You can’t do anything.” Without distractions or alternative ways to spend their time, contestants spend the days leading up to filming in a growing state of emotional tension.

Thompson emphasized that he wasn’t naïve about giving up his freedom, but he was caught off guard by the extent. “The thing you can’t prepare for is the structure of your everyday life you don’t even realize is there being taken away from you.” Thompson wasn’t even given a key to his hotel room. If he got locked out, he would have to talk to an employee at the front desk who would alert production. Thompson said that got you in trouble. 

Once filming started, the conditions worsened. Cast members worked up to 20-hours a day, were derived of food and water, plied with alcohol and socially isolated from one another when the cameras weren’t rolling. The conditions themselves became storylines, like in season 4, when one cast member falling asleep during another’s love confession in the pod phase became a plot point of whether he would forgive her. 

“The thing you can’t prepare for is the structure of your everyday life you don’t even realize is there being taken away from you.”

Within the dates themselves, the control doesn’t stop. Despite how editing made it appear, topics didn’t arise organically in the pods—producers gave cast members specific themes to discuss with lists of questions at the start of each day.

Even once they left the pods, the control didn’t stop. Thompson remembers flying to Mexico for the post-pod trip. “They hand you your passport right before you go through security then take it as soon as you’re out.” The same went for customs. Thompson and his fellow cast members were in a foreign country without any form of identification or money. During travel and in the days before and after, Thompson wasn’t allowed to see his new fiancée, Danielle, because the men and women were kept separate— likely so production could capture all interactions on camera.

Thompson says the lack of autonomy weighed on him. “I thought when I went in all I have to worry about is producers trying to manipulate me one to one. I didn’t think the whole thing was set up and designed to be like this giant pressure cooker environment of manufactured situations, conversation, relationships and all that.”

Producers were instructed to make sure cast members were being supplied with a steady stream of alcohol. Cast members wouldn’t see the sun except when they were escorted to the bathroom; lack of sunlight made it difficult to track time. Food and water were so restricted that Thompson lost 15 pounds in two weeks. Multiple cast members report mental health crises that occurred as a result of filming. 

Journalist Emily Nussbaum who’s written books about the history of reality television said that the process is designed to push people to their limits. “People’s emotions become very real, and the producers don’t have to create them.” She continued, “If you keep people in a box for all day long for ten days, they will create their own drama.”

The set conditions isolate and emotionally test cast members, pushing them to their limits. Producers have another big advantage: the casting process. It’s thorough and includes psychological evaluations—which cast members aren’t allowed to access, as they sign away their rights to the results—as well as interviews with casting agents, producers, and production company executives. By the end of the process, production has a strong sense of how people are likely to react in almost any situation.

“If you keep people in a box for all day long for ten days, they will create their own drama.”

A goal of the casting process seems geared toward getting people on the show who will create drama and stir up controversy. Like when the show casts people who openly disavow the premise and break the rules of the pod phase by inquiring into physical appearance of cast members. At the season two reunion, cast member Shake Chatterjee was asked whether he even believed love was blind. His reply: “love is blurry.” 

This participant became one of the first major villains of the show, and the level of online engagement his actions generated seemed to reveal a formula. Now, nearly every season of Love Is Blind includes a conflict during the pod phase in which one cast member becomes overly fixated on the physical attributes of the people they’re talking to. The show isn’t afraid to create villains to generate engagement. 

Production control becomes even more overt during talking head interviews. Thompson remembers producers making him reword things. In the moment, the requests felt harmless. “You don’t think anything of that. ‘Oh, could you call it the experiment.’ Yeah. ‘Oh, could you talk in present tense.’ Yeah. And it’s, like, you just don’t think of it. And then all of a sudden there’s a whole narrative crafted with things you’ve said.” Thompson remembers being shocked at how all these small moments were cut together. “You’re feeding the machine and don’t realize it.”

Nussbaum said the job of the producer on a reality dating show is inherently corrupt. “You bond with the person.” She emphasized that the problem is the incentives, not individuals. “It’s baked into the [producer’s] job. You’re trying to make people cry.”

In the process of researching her book, Nussbaum interviewed over 300 people, including many producers and editors in the industry who refused to work on dating reality shows. “The people that I talked to in the industry found those shows to be more unjustifiable, both in their methods and just in the subject matter.” She said their reasons were moral. “[Producers are] manipulating people into falling in love, being rejected and being heartbroken publicly. That was too much for [the producers and editors] to take.”  

Thompson remembers his ex-wife Danielle Ruhl, whom he met and married on the show, describing her experience with producers. “Danielle told me after the fact that every single time she did one of those [talking head] interviews, they would ask her if she felt like she was deserving of my love. And she said, ‘at first I was like confident yeah yeah’ and as more time went on, she questioned it. ‘Why are they asking me this over and over again? Like am I worthy?’ And she started questioning it. Whether she was or not. And why they were asking. And if I had said something. And all of this stuff that you would never think twice about if you weren’t being asked about it every single day.” Thompson thinks it was intentional. “You don’t ask that question every single day for seven weeks if you’re not trying to do something, get something.”

“It’s baked into the [producer’s] job. You’re trying to make people cry.”

Ruhl would go on to have a panic attack when she and Thompson were in Mexico. The show would edit the footage, so it appeared like Ruhl was having a break down over Thompson going to a party without her and talking to other women. The show doesn’t shy away from showing these vulnerable moments. The heightened emotions are part of the draw for audiences. Audiences want drama, and they want it to be real.

However, in the absence of real drama, producers can use the talking head interviews to solicit content to construct storylines. Thompson remembers the producers using different tactics “They’ll say, ‘I need you to say this.’ And then there’s other times where they’ll ask you the question in different ways.”

Audiences want drama, and they want it to be real.

At the conclusion of each season, cast members would have a marathon session to produce content for the talking head interviews. Thompson remembers how disorienting it was to recall events that had happened weeks prior, a fact which producers exploited to their benefit. When he struggled to remember something he was asked about, producers would prompt him. “And they’re not telling you what actually happened. They’re telling you storylines. And then I’m responding to something that, like, I don’t even remember it happening that way. And then you kind of feel like — am I misremembering? Am I being gaslit?”

Once editors get their hands on raw footage, they have a variety of techniques for constructing them into storylines. Some are more subtle, like editing in pauses to create suspense. Editors can also trim conversations to ensure only the most interesting parts are left.

However, editing can force a narrative into existence by cutting together different conversations. To obfuscate these cuts, production uses tactics like having cast drink from opaque cups, so audiences can’t use the amount of liquid in the cup to spot jumps in time. 

Season six cast member Matthew Duliba was edited to look like he had walked out on a dates mid-conversation during the pods. Duliba denied that ever happened, and cast members he supposedly walked out on confirmed his account.

Sometimes Love is Blind can’t avoid continuity errors that reveal how conversations are cut together, like when cast members are suddenly wearing different clothing. 

An even more insidious form of editing is called the Frankenbite, in which editors splice together words or syllables to make cast members sound like they’re saying something entirely different. Nussbaum recalls speaking with a producer who described how she had assembled a sentence from an inarticulate cast member saying “flies,” “her,” and “but.” The editor took those pieces and stitched together a clip to make him say, “I have butterflies.” 

The sheer volume of raw footage produced means editors have a lot to work with.  “Editors can do anything,” Nussbaum said. “The people creating the show want to make money and have a popular show that gets huge ratings.” To do that, they need to “create a show with exciting stories.”

When audiences watch the final product, they can’t see the manipulation of cast members and footage, leading them to believe what they’re seeing is real. What makes these editing tactics so pernicious is how they exploit a deeply human tendency to trust our senses. People assume that what they see and hear reflects reality, which makes them feel they fully understand the situation—without recognizing how misleading edits can be.

“The people creating the show want to make money and have a popular show that gets huge ratings.” To do that, they need to “create a show with exciting stories.”

This sensory trust also makes audiences less sympathetic when cast members claim they were misrepresented in the edit. After all, viewers believe they’ve witnessed everything with their own eyes. Since the objections often come from cast members who appear worse in the final cut, they’re seen as biased and less credible.

Management 

At their core, editors and producers are working to create entertainment — and the numbers don’t lie: Love is Blind is popular. Since its premiere on Netflix in 2020, Love is Blind has spawned eight seasons, along with eight international spin-offs (with two more on the way in Italy and France). Love is Blind is the top unscripted streaming show of all time, and it consistently draws a high viewership. 

In the pre-streaming era, networks generated revenue by selling times to advertisers. In the streaming age, services like Netflix make money primarily through subscriptions. While Netflix has recently introduced a subscription tier with advertisements, the primary currency in the streaming age are watch hours. The more hours that viewers spend watching a show, the more time they spend on the platform. And because subscription periods renew monthly, minutes equal money.

Aside from its popularity, Love is Blind offers another advantage to production companies: it’s unscripted. This means it’s generally cheaper to produce than scripted content because of lower labor costs. Love is Blind doesn’t need to pay writers or actors who have agents negotiating for higher salaries. Generally, reality television cast members are legally barred from unionizing unlike workers in scripted content who can strike and collectively bargain for better pay and conditions. 

“People become numb to basic drama,” Thompson observed.

Love is Blind season two garnered 218,333,333 watch hours in the first 28 days; with an estimated cost of $350,000 per episode, standard for reality television, one statistician estimated that Netflix paid $0.02 to produce each watch hour. Because the subscription cost for a viewer is static, lower production costs are incredibly important to the business model for streaming platforms so long as the final product pulls in viewers.

A show’s continued popularity means new viewers can watch previous seasons, generating more watch hours for Netflix without any additional cost. Thompson says that every time a new season premiers, he gets a barrage of messages from people who’ve just watched his season—season 2—for the first time. 

This model falls apart if the final product is not entertaining. Over time, the shock of the initial premise can wear off and the show works harder to raise the stakes and produce scenarios that generate the same level of engagement.  “People become numb to basic drama,” Thompson observed. “They just want more drama. And so [production] just keep escalating it and making these stories more interweaved and complex and [generating] more community involvement.”

 

The Consumer 

While reality television has long relied on drama to attract viewers, the rise of social media has amplified this strategy. Today, controversy on a show can spark passionate online discourse, turning content creators and viewers into effective grassroots marketers. These posts and debates not only keep the show relevant but also promote it organically, driving engagement and promoting Netflix subscriptions—without any additional marketing costs for the production companies.

In fact, Netflix actively encourages social media coverage. For example, in the lead-up to the season 4 live reunion, it tweeted at specific content creators like Kendall Dumas, a YouTube content creator who goes by Kennie JD and had previously discussed the show, asking if she was “ready to find out which… couples [were] still together…”

This kind of engagement highlights an important point: the most effective way to get coverage is to produce content that viewers want to talk about. Shock and villainy seem to be an even bigger draw than the love stories the show is ostensibly based around telling. Anger has proven an effective catalyst for bringing viewers to the internet to call out cast members. 

This ties into one of the more unique aspects of Love Is Blind: the synergistic relationship between viewers and the show, where information uncovered by viewers about contestants spawns storylines on the show. Nearly every season involves a scandal stemming from a revelation about a cast member, like when season six fan favorite Trevor Sova was discovered just before the reunion to have appeared on the show while still having a girlfriend. He was publicly shamed by the hosts after his texts were publicly broadcast. 

Thompson believes the show set Sova up, saying he wouldn’t be surprised if Netflix leaked the Sova information itself. “[The production team] do run background checks. They follow you on social media. They check who you’re following. I think they’re purposefully [showing] these complicated situations and, in some cases, maybe just making them up completely and complicating them after the show.” Thompson believes these tactics are used to extend the relevance of the season and “keep the drama going.”

Thompson’s theory isn’t outrageous. Production has learned that outrage generates engagement. In season 3, couple SK Alagbada and Raven Ross got engaged in the pods and left the show together despite not getting married. Because they were fan favorites, the couple generated a ton of online buzz following a TikTok where a woman alleged that Alagbada had cheated on Ross with her. 

What followed was a messy series of events that sparked controversy and spawned countless social media posts,  interviews with Ross, and even spilled over into mainstream media coverage that assembled the complex timeline and laid out the evidence for viewers.

Since then, a particular sleuthing culture grew up around the show which is encouraged by the show itself. Sleuthers uncover secrets, like when a cast member mischaracterized his relationship with his children on air, when a cast member had a fiancé while applying to the show, or when a cast member cheated on the partner they left the show with.

These controversies do more than generate buzz leading up to reunions: they become storylines. Just like Sova’s story became a topic on the reunion because of internet speculation and sleuthing, these other incidents become lines of questioning. This direct acknowledgement creates a positive feedback loop: Netflix brings online discourse into the show, which validates the sleuthing and encourages viewers to dig deeper and find more drama. This keeps viewers engaged while also bring the show to the attention of those who haven’t seen it. 

Nussbaum notes that cast member scandals rarely reflect poorly on the shows. “For the whole history of reality TV, the revelations that somebody wasn’t sufficiently background checked and has some criminals stuff in their background has actually ended up as publicity for the show. People don’t generally get turned off by that news.” She continued, “[These scandals] often end up boosting the show.”

However, these incidents have a very real impact on the cast members who are ritualistically shamed and harassed. Reality television has resulted in the suicides of many former participants who struggle with the public shaming that follows how they’re depicted. At least 28 former cast members of reality television shows have taken their lives and countless more have faced online harassment that veers into real world consequences. Women and people of color who go on these shows face even greater harassment.

“For the whole history of reality TV, the revelations that somebody wasn’t sufficiently background checked and has some criminals stuff in their background has actually ended up as publicity for the show.

Cast members are fired and can struggle to find jobs after a negative depiction on television in addition to receiving death threats. These results seem inevitable when considering that shows like Love is Blind edit the cast members to ignite audience passion. 

Love is Blind does very little to deter online bullying of cast members, and in situations like Sova’s, the show itself will join in the shaming. Thus Love is Blind reaps the reward of the increased engagement in subscription fees and free marketing from viewers posting their reactions and theories while cast members are left to handle the onslaught of abuse on their own.      

But if Love is Blind viewers are savvy enough to uncover buried drama, how are they missing the exploitation at the heart of the show’s production?

The Worker

Savvy viewers think they see the game: cast members don’t go on these shows for love—they’re in it for fame, attention, and money. Skepticism is directed almost entirely at the participants, while the show’s conditions, manipulation, and editing are taken for granted or overlooked. Why?  

Legal tools are used by production to control cast members during and after filming. These legal tools can ensure that cast members who might want to leave the show are forced to stay. Season Five cast member Renee Poche was “utterly terrified” of her partner on the show Carter Wall but felt pressured to stay when production “made it clear” that she would be subject to legal action if she left prematurely. Poche isn’t the only cast member who’s felt pressured to stay by production. 

Season Five cast member Tran Dang sued Kinetic Content and Delirium Entertainment, the production companies behind Love is Blind, for false imprisonment. As a result of her false imprisonment, she alleges fellow cast member Thomas Smith groped her, exposed himself to her, and “forcibly and repeatedly made sexual contact.” Dang reported Smith’s behavior to producers when it happened but, according to her petition, they “questioned whether the problem was really one of communication and swept aside her concerns.”

Cast members are also required to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDA) when joining the show which forbids them from discussing the details of productions. NDAs mean former cast members can’t speak up without risk of incurring severe legal consequences. 

Poche has been sued for four million dollars for making four public statements regarding her negative experience on the show—one million dollars per utterance. In addition to bringing legal action against her, the show removed Poche from the final edit of her season. Love is Blind was sending a clear message: shut up or be prepared to pay. 

NDAs function as a form of public relations, ensuring that the companies producing these shows maintain a monopoly on the narratives emerging from the show while concealing how punishing the filming conditions are.

For similar reasons, production companies also include forced arbitration clauses in cast members’ contracts. Arbitration is an alternate form of dispute resolution wherein parties don’t settle their legal claims in courts of law where the proceedings would become public record, pushing those details behind closed doors like in the case of Poche’s lawsuit. Thus, forced arbitration provisions become another form of narrative suppression by restricting flow of information that reaches the public. 

was sending a clear message: shut up or be prepared to pay. 

Until a recent NLRB decision, Love is Blind cast members were classified as independent contractors, not employees. This meant cast members weren’t entitled to protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) like minimum wage, anti-discrimination protections, safety protections under Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA), benefits like health insurance, and aren’t allowed to engage in labor organizing to advocate for better standards. 

What makes this deal even worse for cast members is that the key distinction between independent contractors and employees is usually question of control. In theory, independent contractors give up certain legal protections in exchange for greater autonomy—such as setting their hours and deciding how they do their work. But Love is Blind cast members don’t even have control over when they eat. 

While their change in classification status to employees is an important step toward improving cast members working conditions, that classification’s legal stability is thrown into doubt under the Trump administration.

Legal recognition as an employee provides the opportunity for cast members to unionize for better conditions. However, many people are uncomfortable with the idea of thinking of reality television stars as workers.

Part of the problem is definitional: what is work? The traditional 9-5 office job is a far cry from the living quarters of Love is Blind. Furthermore, the day-in day-out work being done by Love is Blind cast members can appear frivolous, a paid opportunity to self-actualize through beautiful vacations and interesting dates. 

However, this interpretation misses the point. Trying to determine what qualifies as work from the tasks being done is impossible. The work done by an actors, athletes, and accountants couldn’t look more different, yet all are paid to provide a service. Work is better understood as labor that generates value for the would-be employer. 

A charmingly edited love story can generate as much, if not more, value for Netflix, Delirium, and Kinetic as it does for the individuals involved, because it attracts viewers, fosters online engagement through commentary and social media posts, and, most importantly, drives subscriptions.

Yet despite the obvious benefit to Netflix, audiences typically adopt a you-get-what-you-sign-up-for attitude toward reality TV participants, dismissing cast members as influencers chasing fame.

However, this sentiment is an inadequate response to the conditions faced by cast members. No one should have to endure the 20 hour work days, deprivation of food and water, and near total social isolation that Love is Blind cast members are subjected to. Furthermore, as Poche and Dang’s lawsuits demonstrate, cast members who wish to leave can be coerced into staying with legal threats.   

But also, zooming in on the Love is Blind cast specifically reveals that they’re not pursing opportunities for fame and attention. Many cast members were recruited via Instagram, LinkedIn, and their gyms—not through direct applications to the show. 

While individuals must choose to continue with the application process, many are not pursuing fame. They return to their day jobs after the show and, like Thompson, participate because they genuinely believe in the show’s premise of finding love without influence from physical appearance.

What’s more, because Love is Blind intentionally recruits people who aren’t influencers, there’s a question of whether producers choose candidates who lack the media savvy, experience, or cynicism to manage their public image because they’ll be more susceptible to manipulation or influence. 

None of these criticisms justify denying cast members a safe workplace.

Even if some cast members are motivated by fame or attention, they’re still performing labor that generates profit for Netflix. The fact that the work is non-traditional doesn’t mean it isn’t a job. People often have multiple reasons for doing a particular job, and having a personal interest or passion for the work doesn’t justify not being compensated. The fact that Love is Blind cast members are also pursuing love doesn’t invalidate their right to fair treatment or pay. 

None of these criticisms justify denying cast members a safe workplace. You could argue that all employees choose the conditions of their jobs—but most people wouldn’t suggest eliminating OSHA regulations or collective bargaining rights. The same logic applies to reality TV cast members. While these individuals may choose to participate, that doesn’t mean they should be stripped of basic protections. Reality television should be regulated, and the first step toward that is transparency in the production process. This means allowing cast members to openly discuss their experiences on set, ensuring they can share the pressures, manipulation, and working conditions they face. Without transparency, viewers—and the industry—remain unaware of the challenges cast members endure, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation. 

Conclusion

Reality television is not new. The genre plays into a voyeuristic desire to watch people lose control and dating reality television offers a unique catharsis even within the genre overall. As Kendall Dumas puts it, watching romantic relationships unfold on screen has a unique power over viewers “because [] it’s something we can see ourselves in. We’ve been the villain, or we’ve been the martyr.” That familiarity is what makes the genre so compelling, but it also blurs the line between what’s real and what’s been carefully edited or manipulated into existence.

As a result of his time on Love is Blind, Thompson has become an advocate, providing legal and mental health resources for people who participate in reality television. “I just always ask people, like, is this what you want for entertainment? Like, is this the output you want—so you can watch an hour-long TV show and see real people’s lives get ruined because of a narrative that may or may not have been true?”

As long as producers control the narrative and cast members are silenced by NDAs, the imbalance of power will remain unchecked—and audiences will continue to consume stories without knowing the cost to the people behind them. Transparency is just the beginning. Real reform means recognizing reality TV participants as workers, deserving of the same rights, protections, and dignity as anyone else whose labor fuels a billion-dollar industry.

Because the stakes of producing this kind of entertainment are undeniable. Participants are often treated as props, manipulated by producers for the sake of content. As a result, people’s lives and careers can be permanently derailed by how they are portrayed.

Thompson sees the future of the industry as reflective of broader societal values. “[A]re we really going to be a society that destroys people’s lives and doesn’t give them any chance at redemption when they make a mistake, for entertainment? Like, is that really who we are and who we want to be? And I don’t really think there are very many people who’d say yes to that.”