The Perfect Match

The Perfect Match

Reality television is a way for people to get an inside look on a person’s life. It strives to provide a relatable scene while showing the tv personality’s perspective on certain experiences, how they respond, and what the audience can learn or take away from the situation. Are You the One is a show that expresses that dynamic. This reality show gathers twenty young adults into a mansion to have the potential of finding love, their perfect match, for one summer. The series uses an algorithm to find the best compatibility between two people in a process that includes interviews and questionnaires. Although the contestants have a chance of leaving with love there is an interesting twist. If everyone finds their perfect match by the end of the ten weeks, they all share a cash prize of one million dollars. The multidimensional aspect of the show Are You the One showcases a forced response to love, drama, and money to feed into the audiences need for entertainment.

Having a house full of people that all have “perfect matches” exploits how people feel towards love. It causes the contestants to become raw and more open emotionally. Society loves the idea of love. Love brings out a sense of hope, especially with this show. There is parallel style of finding true love in the show and in real life. Everyone on the show is a normal person just like people watching at home, even they must do a little trial and error with different relationships in the house to see which person they have a real connection with. Some of the contestants do leave the show with a strong, long lasting relationship which creates an “If they can do it, I can do it” idea. The love in the show also satisfies the fairy tale of falling in love but in a modern way. The outrageous, spontaneous dates and fun activities that the contestants go on shows romance, nerves, and even a little bit of awkwardness but those are things that most people go through early on in relationships that all lead to the potential of falling in love. Love is something that people naturally are drawn towards.

With love can also come drama. Drama is something that catches the eyes of viewers and keeps them at the edge of their seat therefore making it stimulate their brain in a sense. As an audience getting a reaction is something to look forward to when watching a show. It gives a rush of excitement throughout the body. Also, watching the reaction of others is something that intrigues viewers. In the show Are You the One, it is filled with frustration, fights, and arguments due to the fact of the limitations the show holds. Since there is only a certain amount of people in the house some girls will like the same guy and some guys would like the same girl. Since multiple people are interested in one person, they would all go after that person at once which would obviously cause some clashing. After a while the person that was getting chased after would settle down with one person, the one they had the strongest connection with. Sometimes this all leads up to one of the partners getting almost territorial and overprotective of what the other partner is doing in response to fear of losing the relationship. Also, they are cautious of what any “competition” is doing since technically, they are supposed to keep their options open and not get too attached since that person is not yet one hundred percent their match which could also result in a loss of the relationship. Meanwhile, some people know that someone they were interested is not their match, yet they continue spending all their time and effort with them instead of looking for one of their potential matches to win the cash prize. Thus, creating a very tense environment which interest the audience even more.

Although love plays a big factor in the game, the chance of winning money is still in the back of their mind. For example, it could cause them to think more strategically than emotionally which can be a bad thing or a good thing. The money could sometimes even be the main focal point on their decision making and get the back on track. It is risky because one bad move could ruin their chance of winning the prize. As a result, the show has suspense and is very unpredictable, the audience is questioning whether the contestants can win the money. The unknown is what keeps the viewers coming back week by week.

The way that the show is set up made the twenty young adults go into a situation and just respond to what they had to do, find love and win some money. The show is solely for the purpose of being entertained. The three different parts of the show bring out some sort of feeling or emotion from the audience and even the contestants. Love makes people happy, gives them butterflies. Drama gets someone frustrated if they are apart of it but excited and interested if they are from the outside looking in. Lastly, money often gives someone drive which could help them or harm them. Reality tv has more substance beneath the surface.

Helen Ukwu