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None of my friends believe me when I say I was offered my first job at a tabloid newspaper because of my impeccable Love Island knowledge.
In 2019, I could, on demand, name every cast member, coupling and winner from every previous season – and my reality TV stan status spanned further than Mallorca. A few years ago, another of my proudest achievements was bingeing 240 episodes, each 45 minutes long, of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills over the Christmas break, and I've also been known to catch up on two weeks' worth of Married At First Sight (MAFS) overnight, in order to join the debrief with my coworkers post-holiday.
The pull? I enjoyed looking through the peephole, discovering how real-ish people lived. My free evenings were spent devouring every episode and reunion I could; every commute spent keeping tabs on the faceless debates around cast and plot lines on X.
But there’s been a shift in how I view these fly-on-the-wall shows — from an acceptable form of voyeurism… to something like emotional violence.
Let’s take Jack Dunkley, my personal villain of series 11 of MAFS Australia — a 38-part series in which couples meet at the altar before spending eight weeks road-testing their relationship. While he, in a recent Instagram post, claimed he was the victim of ‘manipulation’ and ‘corruption’, I’m not sure you can force the phrase “muzzle your woman“ to fall out of someone’s mouth.
Previously, I may have labelled him a toxic person — even though I'm aware his presentation was carefully crafted by a team of producers whose purpose was to evoke emotion and entertain. However, what if his behaviour was actually a response to being triggered for weeks on end?
He himself admits to just that: “That was a man at breaking point,” said Jack, speaking on Australian radio in February 2024. "I broke, I snapped, I said some dumb sh*t. And that’s what you saw on TV. I was disgusted.”
Of course, his misogynistic comment wasn't acceptable. I doubt (read: hope) it's the kind of phrase he'd let slip day to day, but what I once deemed a form of fairly harmless entertainment (you know, aside from some light trolling and the pressures of being in the public eye), I now view as slow mental torture.
Volunteers, some of whom didn’t even want a fast route to fame but rather to meet the love of their life (Love is Blind UK) or to have the experience of a lifetime (Big Brother?), end up having their biggest insecurities and triggers tested again and again. And then again, once their season airs.
As a new set of singles get engaged ‘sight unseen,’ the show shines a light on cultural pressures in love.
Forgive the airing of my own emotional baggage, but case in point: a fairly common, but unfounded fear of mine is my partner leaving me for something ‘better’. Stick me in an apartment block with eight other women, all of whom I might deem to be sexier and/or more accomplished than I, and then ask my partner to rank them in order of attractiveness? Yeah, that might prompt an irrational response I'm not super proud of.
We're seeing it playing out again in this current season of MAFS UK. Take Dean, a team building host from Feltham, who in episode one opened up about his journey with his weight, ending in a revelation that he has never been happier than he is now. His wife, Sarah, has mentioned how looks are vital to her feeling a connection — and let's just say, Dean isn't her usual tattooed type.
Is this match not designed to trigger them both? Dean has had to learn, 12 episodes in, that his wife has badmouthed him, while Sarah can't have enjoyed having to state how she feels about his physical appearance.
Four couples have been matched so far.
“For years, television has thrived on extremes,” says therapist Katie Callaghan. “Shows like The Biggest Loser focused on fat-shaming, others highlighted age gap relationships, and programmes such as Geordie Shore glamorised heavy drinking.
“The format relies on exaggerating behaviour for attention, but it often leaves behind damaging messages. These shows aren’t automatically toxic, but they do carry responsibility. Entertainment should never come at the cost of people’s well-being.”
And it seems Jack might agree too. “MAFS (we thank you),” wrote Dunkley over a reel of him and his ex TV wife, Tori Leigh Adams. “Thank you for the corruption. Thank you for the manipulation. Thank you for the psychological toxicity.”
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To reiterate, Jack hasn't been promoted to my star of the season – but I am keen to give him a little more grace than I would have this time last year.
So what's the solution? Rather than asking the nine couples of MAFS UK to rank each other in terms of attractiveness, do we ask Sarah, Dean, Davide, Keye and the like to open up about their relationship insecurities? Wouldn't that make boring telly?
How about we gamify reality TV, which, in the case of The Traitors, leaves minimal downtime and therefore little opportunity for self-advertisement or days-long displays of artificial, rage-bait behaviour. Plus, it goes without saying, really, but the tasks on this show aren't designed to trigger but to test their physical strength, memory and problem-solving capabilities.
Neither is a foolproof solution — but are there producers willing to find one? Are there those keen to skip over the insecurity seeking and provocation that come with these programmes? I’m not sure I'm willing to wait and see.
