Netflix's 'Love Is Blind' isn't all that interested in love

Imagine if, after The Fonz jumped the shark, actor Henry Winkler turned to the camera and winked. That's what's happening in the ongoing season of Netflix's Love Is Blind.

The show, the cast, and the audience seem to realize the entire concept has become an un-look-away-able train wreck, and the be-podded castmates are more than OK with that fact. They knowingly signed up to jump the shark.

Love Is Blind, in which you agree to date someone sight unseen, be filmed constantly, and live together, is perfect fodder for the internet. It's also the kind of reality TV machine that churns out D-list celebrities every season, and the participants know this. There is a strong chance this show will leave you humiliated. But you'll also gain followers. Even the folks who are there for the right reasons know that becoming a micro-influencer is the backup plan.

This new season of the show makes that clear. It's dropping in batches. The first few episodes premiered last week, while a new crop drops on Feb. 21. In the pods, everyone is acutely aware that they're on a TV show. Matthew told AD that "America" would watch him try to win her back. And then there was Jessica's made-for-TV dragging of Jimmy, telling him he'd need an EpiPen for all the choking he'd do when he saw her. Meanwhile, Clay is giving a gratuitous performance of a villain, too shallow to really grasp the meaning of the series. The cast knows they're putting on a show.

Not to mention that the show itself is designed to go viral. Cringe sells, especially online. And hell if Love Is Blind isn't cringey. This season, for instance, an entire saga unfolded after Chelsea told Jimmy people say she looks like Megan Fox. Jimmy, upon meeting Chelsea IRL, clearly disagreed and wasn't pleased. It was a reality TV moment that launched countless posts on X, many of them unkind. But Chelsea herself, not to miss the moment, was immediately capitalizing it on TikTok.

In fact, you could pretty much find the entire cast posting about the season as it dropped. Here's Jessica, with her daughter, talking about her EpiPen rant at Jimmy.

And here's Jimmy on that very same rant.

Here's AD with a fellow cast member.

Here's Trevor addressing not getting chosen by Chelsea.

On X, the chatter was constant as well, as viewers dissected the season and its cast members.

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The cast are basically a TikTok guerilla marketing team. Where actors loathe promoting their work, Love Is Blind participants feed into the internet chatter ecosystem.

Netflix, for its part, gets that this show causes a lot of conversation. Why else drop the episodes this way? It simultaneously lets the virality build via binging while also assuring everyone is on the same page to discuss it online. It was so ubiquitous that I felt like I had to watch the episodes right as they dropped to avoid spoilers. For a deeply unserious dating show, mind you. This is not everyone watching and reacting to Game of Thrones in real time. The design of the show and it's effectiveness at going viral, essentially lets it over-perform online. You probably think Love Is Blind is a bigger deal than it actually is.

Whatever might be the TV version of eating your vegetables, Love Is Blind is the opposite. It is empty calories. And this coming from Mashable's resident Bravo lover. I am far from anti-reality TV. And yet, despite its inanity, Love Is Blind works because it also gets you invested in these characters. And they do feel like characters sometimes and not people. That's because everyone involved seems to know how the game is played. Why else are they immediately TikTokking about their respective experiences?

As The Cut noted in a piece titled "Is It Time to Stop Watching Love Is Blind," the show has been subject to serious allegations of awful workplace conditions and mostly seems uninterested in creating real relationships (except, perhaps, on the first and only season of Love Is Blind: Japan).

It's really a show about people having a truly strange experience in those pods, then flailing in a manufactured version of the real world. Everyone will have cringey moments and very few people will come out of it looking good. In exchange, everyone gets a little famous for a short while.

Love Is Blind feels like show designed to go viral. That's why it works and also why it can give you the ick. Because what is being online if not a bit unsettling?