Learning about Relationships from Dating Programs

FEATURE

From I Am Solo to Transit Love, the Era of Dating Programs

2023.01.11

Credit

Article. Lee Yejin

Photo Credit. SBS Plus, TVING

“People used to describe their ideal match by giving a character from a TV drama as an example,” Park Sugyeong, CEO of matchmaking company Duo, said, “but nowadays they ask to be set up with someone like Yeongsuk from I Am Solo.” It’s clear that dating shows are increasingly popular with unmarried adults these days. In 2022, dating programs were the new soap opera. The trend started in early 2022 after Single’s Inferno was first released by Netflix on December 18, 2021 and moved onto the second season of EXchange (also known as Transit Love) on TVING from there in July. MMTG even put out a special viewing party episode for the EXchange finale. Now there’s so much buzz around I Am Solo that the show’s become a standard point of reference for matchmaking companies, as Park mentioned. The show consistently ranks high on GOODDATA Corporation’s chart for the top-ten TV shows excluding drama. This past December alone, three new dating shows came out: Love Alarm: Clap Clap Clap! (Waave), the second season of Single’s Inferno and The Skip Dating (tvN).

©️ Each program’s respective distributor.

According to Statistics Korea, 193,000 Koreans got married in 2021—21,000 fewer, or 9.8% less, than in 2020, and the lowest figure since statistics were first gathered in the 1970s. The greatest drop was seen among women in their late 20s and men in their early 30s. While it’s difficult to provide statistics for the number of people dating, it’s likely that figure has decreased as well. It’s here that it’s easy to see why dating shows have risen in popularity as a sort of vicarious satisfaction. Single’s Inferno draws in viewers dealing with winter through its tropical vacation destination and attractive cast of eligible singles, while Love Alarm is based on the popular webtoon of the same name and revolves around the concept that you receive a notification when someone who likes you steps within 10 meters, allowing the cartoon love story to play out in real life. Every episode of EXchange opens like a scripted TV show, complete with close-ups of the singles and their names set against the theme song. In a time when marriage and even dating can be tricky, watching others navigate love in almost fantasy-like settings provides a vicarious form of entertainment.

But just as with love and marriage, the full reason behind why these shows are so popular now is rooted in the complexities of modern life. In the six months after the COVID-19 pandemic began in January 2020, the number of users of Match Korea, a dating app run by marriage matchmaking company Gayeon, more than doubled (The Korea Economic Daily). According to a survey Duo conducted in 2020 of 500 men and women, 53% of respondents said it was difficult to meet someone of the opposite sex during COVID-19, while 29.8% of all respondents said their method of finding someone new included being set up by someone they know, social or hobby clubs and other meetings, or through services like matchmaking companies and dating apps. While the number of relationships and marriages have gone down, people who are actively looking are turning more and more to services that can help them find someone. Duo CEO Park said business is booming for companies like hers. “If we assume there were 300,000 marriages in the past, and 10% of people were using matchmaking services, now that number has gone down to 200,000, the number of people using matchmaking services has reached 20% as a result,” she said. In Korea, it seems, the number of people waiting to meet someone naturally or passively is going down, while the number actively seeking, or being set up, is on the rise. As dating and marriage rates decrease, people are using more discretion than before when it comes to meeting someone new, and the pandemic has changed the way we meet people entirely.

Other than the fact that they’re broadcast on TV, dating shows are just another way for singles to come together and actively look for a date or a future spouse. The show I Am Solo is “ultimately a record of what happens in that confined space over a short period of time,” according to the show’s producer, Nam Gyuhong. But this idea of capturing the intimate process of finding love for all to see makes this form of entertainment controversial. The people who appear on these shows aren’t actors going through the motions laid out for them in a script; choosing someone in such a short time inevitably leads to conflict and intense pressure. “We try to give an undistorted view of all the typical things that arise as a result of these people forming connections, and I think it would be more problematic not to,” Nam said in response. “Because those actions and emotions arise out of love, they’re an important part of a show that’s aiming to be all about affection.” Similarly, the people on I Am Solo maintain an open attitude toward anything so long as it’s “aiming to be all about affection.” On their second day together, they reveal all their personal information, including their jobs, annual income, where they live and whether they have any pets. In some cases, they even tell others about their current investments and whether they own or rent their home. Nam said the singles are selected based on “allure—their character and being honest about their social status. They have to be crystal clear.” Thanks to this careful vetting process, the people on the show can get together and quickly judge for themselves the feasibility of dating each person. “Young people these days have a lot of experience receiving help from qualified people from the time they’re young, so they think they should seek consultation for marriage, too, since it’s an incredibly important part of life,” Park said to help explain why twenty- and thirty-somethings are increasingly turning to matchmaking services. “I think they look at how cost-effective it is by weighing what they get against the price,” adding, “Maybe it’s because marriage is now looked at as an option with potential rather than an absolute requirement, but they don’t think they should go about it just any old which-way. They say they now feel they’ll want to marry someone who has everything they’re looking for.” There’s a lot you need to know about a person before you marry or even just date them, and it can take a long time for that reason. Dating shows demonstrate a heavily compressed version of this active process. Viewers enjoy the experience from a distance but also end up seeing that, even when you can check out every little condition and weigh every emotion, deriving happiness from the ever more involved fantasy of love and marriage is no easy task. Even on I Am Solo, plenty of people can’t find a date because they aren’t popular despite their job or high income, or simply choose no one in the end because they can’t find anyone they could see themselves with.

EXchange seems to take the complete opposite approach from I Am Solo. The people on EXchange carry out their everyday lives while all sharing a large home with their ex. Naturally, some of them fall for other people’s exes, and they all tend to be attractive. Speaking to fol:in, Lee Jinjoo, the show’s producer, called it a “virtual world” specifically built to allow people to find the right person for them in an environment filled with “bygone love.” In this way, the show provides a normally impossible setting in which the people involved can focus their attention solely on the feelings of others. As soon as everyone meets in the first episode, however, they immediately jump to asking about one another’s MBTI, and as the show unfolds, the realities of their lives outside the “virtual world” of the set, like their jobs and ages, are revealed bit by bit. Each new piece of information changes the way they act and feel, with such details altering the sense of hierarchy and closeness between them. Whereas the pursuit of marriage in I Am Solo is set up with all details laid out beforehand and encourages an open discussion of feelings, EXchange, where people who have lingering feelings for their exes may end up forming new relationships, starts with an exchange of emotions based on appearance, style and manner of speaking, and only then reveals details like their jobs. But even if the singles on EXchange feel a match with someone based on their appearance, style, MBTI, age, job and personality, the presence of the exes makes dating tricky. Everyone is left in the dark about who is who’s ex, so even when they feel someone coming onto them, they can’t help but be suspicious that that person may still have feelings for their former lover, all the while potentially still harboring feelings for their ex themselves. It’s hard to know what someone else is thinking and feeling—or, moreover, how you feel—even when things seem to be going smoothly.

I Am Solo producer Nam says his show is “the most accurate portrayal of love in Korea these days,” and that, “essentially, if you want to check out love in Korea and what Koreans look like when it comes to love, and especially about how men and women relate and act and feel towards each other, you can see exactly that by watching I Am Solo.” But whether it’s I Am Solo, EXchange or otherwise, today’s dating shows in Korea demonstrate just how much forethought it takes to meet someone new and how involved the process has become. These shows present a compressed, vicarious fantasy version of the process, but they also reveal how complicated and challenging the process through which those people are brought together and fall for each other can be. Armed with a better sense of the realities of today, viewers are gradually coming around to the truth of the matter: that more actively seeking a new partner increases your/their chances of success in the dating world. I Am Solo follows marriage hopefuls to show that you can’t ignore a person’s age, job or salary when it comes to marriage, but at the same time gives a frank look at how exhausting it can be picking up on someone’s minor eating habits and deciding whether a long-distance relationship would work or not. EXchange, meanwhile, shows just how much the youth of today have to grapple with, even psychologically, just to find love, despite taking place in a setting that borders on fantasy.

The producers behind EXchange make sure emotions continuously run high on set. After gathering all the singles together, they each read letters of introduction written about them by their exes, and the show reveals when a text on someone’s phone expressing interest in that person was sent from their ex. Whenever an ex is revealed, viewers are treated to interviews about why those two people were attracted to their ex, what their relationship was like and the reason for their breakup. Throughout the interview, photos and more from the happy times they spent together show up on screen. Where other dating shows focus on people meeting new partners, EXchange mixes this with their relationship histories and the stories they build up between themselves and new people. They had relationships that were good, comfortable and reasonably stable, but now they have potential relationships that, while good and new, are less certain. The presence of the exes in the show makes for the kind of drama you come to expect from reality TV, a sense of mystery from guessing who the exes are and also elements of a psychological thriller when, after those exes are revealed, you nervously await to see how feelings might shift. I Am Solo is a documentary; EXchange is one of the best nonfiction reality shows of 2022. Dating someone new means more than just starting a new relationship—the fact is, it also involves letting go of the psychological weight you’ve been carrying around and the problems that came with it. Even though you know how much work it takes, how emotionally consuming it is and the challenges that lie ahead, you’re still compelled to meet someone new. You might also decide you want to get a fresh start with the person you already have so many memories with or can’t help falling back into what’s familiar. In EXchange, it’s less likely that the exes or new love interests will get in the way of someone’s happiness as the singles will get in the way of themselves. People actively seeking new relationships are looking to find someone new whose attributes suit them and who they feel a connection with. But, at the end of the day, you have to know what you really want. Maybe that’s why so many people want to learn and discuss dating by watching shows rather than actually dating someone themselves. Dating has become more complicated and challenging than it was before the pandemic, and there’s plenty of TV on the subject to enjoy if you’re not ready to get out there yourself.