I Finally Watched An Episode of Pop The Balloon...
Should I feel hopeful or horrified?
Would you believe me if I told you I'd never watched an episode of Pop The Balloon or Find Love before yesterday? I knew of the viral dating show's premise because it's referenced incessantly on the Black side of social media (shout out to this onery baby 😂).
Still, I could never figure out why I'd want to spend a whole hour of my precious mid-30s time watching individuals who are too young to appear in my Hinge matches tell each other why they're ratchet/short/irreligious/tattooed/cheap/undateable.
Created by married couple Arlette Amuli and Bolia Matundu, Pop The Balloon or Find Love is a YouTube original uploaded twice weekly.
A group of men or women (hetero is still normative here) march onto a bare soundstage holding a single red balloon, and if they're not feeling the potential match, they pop it.
Don't let the relatively basic concept fool you. This is a gigantic hit. The latest episode has 1.1M views and counting.
I finally gave in to the hype (as I'm wont to do) because I've been reading and thinking about Gen Z's turn away from dating apps and romantic relationships. The dating culture is so broken that some demographers fear population collapse.
I haven't boarded that particular train of hysteria because most of the pro-natalists I've read up on are fascist-sympathizing creeps, but I'm not against digging into how a community/country/society breaks down when the genders cannot make their way to each other in friendship or romance.
Pop The Balloon or Find Love turns these struggles (which have been acute in Black America for decades), into the YouTube equivalent of appointment viewing. After months and months of discourse, my final takeaway was...meh. 🤷🏾♀️
Everyone except Arlette, the host/co-creator, was DRY. Where's the wit? Where's the camp? The lack of humor and/or conflict made that hour (40 minutes on 1.5 speed) a slog.
I don’t blame that on production. Unless you have a full-scale casting apparatus like the big dogs (read: the major studios), the contestants who make it to a recording will likely be boring because most people are boring.
On a positive note (because I'm working on my positivity!) I enjoyed the different kinds of women featured as bachelorettes. The ladies, all between the ages of 24 and 29, represented different sizes, shades, and occupations of Black women.
Peak Absurdities
Jordan's Dickies suit stole the show. The ensemble gave Grandpa’s Closet, but at least it had some personality.
Jordan hit ‘em with the suit-glasses combo. Why do all these people have 2 and 3 jobs? Bidenomics isn't doing what it needs to do.
There was A LOT of Jesus talk. I spend so much time around secular millennials that I forget dogmatic evangelicalism is still the norm in Black America.
Left: Prince in a shirt that read Christ is the Answer Right: Paige’s little legs The episode’s one hilarious moment came when Paige, all of 4'11", eliminated the cutest man because of artificial height concerns. We can’t shame people into giving up their preferences, but her gesturing overhead as if she was taller than him sent me over the edge. How rude! The cameraman earned his check with the shady pan down to the floor. Girl, we both have to sit on pillows to see over the steering wheel. Please be so for real.
Final Thoughts
I won’t be watching this show ever again in. my. life.; however, Kimberly the Media Geek is super impressed by how Arlette and Bolia architected a massive digital success.
After a New York Times write-up in July, the two signed with CAA in August.
Deadline reported:
The couple will now work with CAA to expand their intellectual property across television, podcasts, and brand collaborations. This strategic move aims to elevate their digital distribution and monetization, ensuring that Pop the Balloon or Find Love continues to redefine how love is explored and experienced in the modern world.
We’ll see what else they come up with.
Finally, I appreciate how Arlette and Bolia created something for their peers. THIS IS IMPORTANT. My Roman Empire is how elders (read Influencers born before 1980) corrupted the Black Dating Discourse. Nobody who saw the Nixon years should speak to 25-year-olds about the dating scene day in and day out.
It’s especially loathsome when said Elders are romantic failures themselves. Young people should take the lead in conversations about the particularities of their experiences. The rest of us can drop in for sporadic fact-finding missions, but the 60-year-olds who take advantage of post-adolescents' loneliness reek of desperation.
Don’t get me wrong. I know Pop the Balloon… periodically traffics in mess, but a little mess won’t crumble the culture. Anyone who appears on the show risks getting clowned in front of hundreds of thousands, and I respect that kind of risk-taking at a time when we can all come up with a million reasons not to seek connection. As long as real people go on real dates and enter real relationships, I see no issue.
The first episode I watched happened to have several parents of adults (some were grandmas in their 40s) and that surprised me. I had assumed the people being cast would always be in their 20s. Arlette is great at having the right amount of presence to get conversation going, and just enough space to give folks opportunities to air themselves out. Even as a religious person, I was caught off guard by the very narrow performance of religiosity happening among the people appearing on that show. And how is it that women from their 20s to their 40s talk about locs so derisively, calling people “dreadhead”? I’ve heard that used here and there, but wouldn’t expect people older than me AND people young enough to be my child, using “dreadhead” in the same way. Is there an etymologist out here that can answer this for me? Is it an Arizona-specific thing??
it’s wild how queer experiences always seem to get overlooked in stuff like this. i know that’s not the main point here, but it popped into my head while reading the AIBM's article about gen z’s "romance gap."
https://aibm.org/commentary/gen-zs-romance-gap-why-nearly-half-of-young-men-arent-dating/
the idea that teen romance is this big “chance to learn life skills” doesn’t really match up with what a lot of queer millennial guys went through. for us, being teens often meant hiding in the closet, sneaking around with older guys or dealing with way worse things like assault.
but gen z and gen alpha are really the first generations with openly queer teens on a bigger scale, and i feel like that could change the story when it comes to teenage romance in queer communities.