THE WORLD OF TELEVISION CASTOFFS

REALITY-TV CONTESTANTS ARE BARELY PAID, AND THE EXPERIENCE CAN FEEL LIKE ABUSE. SHOULD THEY UNIONIZE?

- EMILY NUSSBAUM

Nine months into the pandemic, Nick Thompson, a marketer at a tech firm in Chicago, got a message on LinkedIn inviting him to apply to be a contestant on a Netflix ­reality show called “Love Is Blind.” Thompson, a Midwesterner with bright-blue eyes and a sheepish smile, didn’t watch much reality TV, although he’d caught a bit of “The Bachelor” so that he could join a betting bracket at his office. He was more of a fan of W.W.E. wrestling, so much so that he’d once trained to become a wrestler himself. “For, like, a day,” he said, laughing—he’d busted his ankle, then quit.

The format of “Love Is Blind” sounded outlandish: fifteen men and fifteen women were gathered in Los Angeles, where they were ensconced in individual “pods” and flirted with strangers through a wall. After just a few days of speed courtship, contestants fell in love and, amazingly, some got engaged, sight unseen. The show’s producers, who worked for a company called Kinetic Content, emphasized that “Love Is Blind,” despite its premise, wasn’t some sleazy guilty pleasure like “Temptation Island.” It was a sincere experiment in human intimacy—participants were placed on a “digital fast” designed to liberate them from all distractions, including physical appearance, so that they could form a deeper, more lasting bond with a partner. The producers weren’t looking for clout-chasers but for emotionally mature adults, people who were ready to commit to marriage, for real.