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153th episode host | pan wenjie

written by: intern reporter li yutong

the seventh season of the reality show "signal of love" was recently launched, and the "strong" performance of the guests has become the focus of public opinion. in order to create an elite image, the guests on the show are too deliberate in their words and deeds. they either mix a few english words in their speech or frequently mention their overseas alma mater to show their elite status. the love of highly educated people has become one of the audience's complaints, and some netizens even shouted "a second-tier college love show has fallen from the sky."

it is understandable that workplace variety shows require academic qualifications, but why do dating variety shows also require academic qualifications? in the past, there were many dating variety shows for ordinary people. since the launch of "tv matchmaker" in 1988, china's marriage and love programs have experienced more than 30 years of development. "ordinary people have happiness" and "winning by dating" are all the most down-to-earth ordinary people, with a large number of guests with average conditions but full of confidence. "if you are the one" has greatly increased the ratings of jiangsu satellite tv through speed matching sessions such as self-introduction and game talent show.

the current popular love observation variety shows started with heart signal, which premiered on channel a in south korea in 2017. this program model was later introduced by tencent video, which launched the chinese version of "heart signal" in 2018. these programs add the element of reasoning in addition to the love plot, allowing guests to guess the direction of the relationship between amateurs. the differentiation of guests and the theme of the program are the key to attracting attention.in terms of the differentiation of guests, the programs have guests from different life stages. for example, south korea's "boys and girls in love" features high school students as the protagonists, china's "i have never been in love" focuses on "single" love, "half-ripe lovers" focuses on the love of people aged 30+, and "when we met you" focuses on the plight of divorced middle-aged and elderly singles.

korean love variety shows are very good at using theme settings. for example, "love in transit" is centered on ex-lovers, bringing together couples who have broken up, looking back on past relationships, and facing new relationships. "single is hell" sets a scenario where handsome men and beautiful women are trapped on a hell island, and there is only one way to escape, which is to become a couple with someone every night. "obsessed love" uses love variety shows plusfortune tellingway to attract the audience.

01 where does the “strong” feeling of the dating variety show guests come from?

the article mentioned eva iros's point that there are two cultural structures at work in modern love, one is based on a rational model of emotional self-regulation and optimal choice, and the other is based on a powerful fantasy of emotional fusion.on the one hand, love has been demystified, and many people realize that it is essentially a relationship that follows economic relations and exchange logic. on the other hand, everyone wants to believe in the sincere and pure part of love, and believe in "unreasonable love."

we have been living in this eternal paradox, and dating variety shows also show this paradox and the game of paradoxes. but sometimes it will highlight the former, making the audience feel particularly uncomfortable and angry about how love can be so materialistic. on the one hand, there have been very popular dating variety shows both at home and abroad in the past two years, and this capital game has been pushed to more people; on the other hand, content showing off wealth has become less and less popular. what is popular now may be content like ordinary people like yu wenliang that highlights the details of daily life, rather than "keeping up with the kardashians". we don't expect ourselves to become rich, nor do we think that rich people have much to do with our lives.

ding xinyu (intern reporter): the reason why netizens complained about "strong" may also be that they glimpsed a temperament that clearly pointed to social status from the guests' behavioral style. this temperament was called "taste" by sociologist bourdieu.heit is believed that any participation in cultural practice is colored by class attributes.a person's aesthetic taste is rooted in social status related to class upbringing and education.this includes both the inequality of birth and the possibility that education will widen this imbalance in the future.，individual accumulated cultural capitalat onceit has a distinct hierarchy. through consumption, the symbolic value of capital will be displayed.it conveys the existence of a social hierarchy and becomes a symbol of separation between the masses and the elite.。

there is achain of contempt,elite culture is usually considered noble and elegant, while popular culture is often associated with low-level, rough, and vulgar.describes hooks, which can easily cause dissatisfaction.numberthe scarcity of symbolsoflong-term monopolyatdoesn't exist in thissystempeople insidegroupruthless exclusion makes the middle classrealachieving class advancementdifficultyfeeling anxious.

the most criticized episode of this season of "heart signal"bridge segment,yesseveralwhen discussing their favorite british cities, the guests had already spoken in chinese, but then changed to english names. however, since there were guests from hong kong, china, on the show, there were differences in the translation systems between the mainland and hong kong.the chinese translation of the same english word is also different. if they both know the meaning of an english word,speaking english can actually save the translation process and is a more efficient way of communication.

wang pengkai (intern reporter): i feel the same way. when i was communicating in hong kong, my roommate was from macau. his mandarin was not very good, but i didn't speak cantonese, so when we communicated, we would use some common english words to make each other understand each other. i feel that in hong kong, everyone assumes that their mother tongues are different, so it is easier to communicate in english. this scene in "signal of love" should not be deliberately showing off.

dong ziqi: in dating situations, language is quite important and will affect the other person's first impression of you.

ding xinyu: although hong kong people have spokenfolderenglish habits, but they also take mandarin courses on a daily basis. the two hong kong guests in the love variety showi have a relatively good understanding of the language used by mainland people in daily communication. the process of selecting vocabulary is to make choices based on different identities.cultural historian warren sussman believes that in the 19th century, the "self" was presented as a holistic personality concept, but since the early 20th century,there has been a major shift in the way the self is negotiated and presented.for the first time in history, the "self" has become something that can be assembled and manipulated in order to make a good impression on others or to facilitate the management of one's own image.consumer culture and the fashion industry have contributed greatly to the emphasis on deliberate self-management and image-building in order to please and attract others.the "self" needs to be able to develop a keen sense of different social environments.accordinglyplay different roles to cope with the situation。inat onceit involves conscious selection and coordination of one's body, speech patterns, manners, and clothing.

the dating show guests switched from chinese to englishofthe act itselfmaybeconsidering the current context, i think it would be more appropriate to use english at this time, or it could highlight an identity and show sexual capital.interpretationdo“strong”, the epitome of the social mentality represented by the audience is also worth studying.

pan wenjie: i saw a piece of news a few days ago, saying that the number of graduate students in many universities now exceeds that of undergraduates, and a phenomenon of undergraduate-graduate inversion has emerged. with such a serious inflation of academic qualifications, the status of highly educated elites does not seem to have the same value as in the past, and the evaluation of them in society has gradually evolved from affirmation and admiration to doubt.

wang pengkai: the audience has basically become desensitized to the highly educated elite characters in dating variety shows.some people even laugh at those british students who study abroad as "one year of english master's degree, a lifetime of love for england”but i also noticed that several guests in "signal of love"family backgroundrich indeed.，the audience's evaluation of them will be different from that of the highly educated guests.reflects thatthe audience no longer expects to become an elite through studying or high education in exchange for class advancement and wealth accumulation, but instead will admire the existing wealth accumulation from the family.

yin qinglu: nowadays, international students call themselves "liuzi". this name seems to contain a lot of derogatory meanings and is not worth mentioning.

dong ziqi: but when a person calls himself a "student who studied abroad", others will still feel that he is being "versailles", because most people do not have the opportunity or conditions to study abroad and become a "student who studied abroad".

02 is “disposable” the fate of dating variety show stars?

dong ziqi: i have watched many episodes of if you are the one in the past. before that, i also watched incomparable men and women when i was a child. it is an old dating variety show from taiwan, china, introduced by phoenix tv.if you are the onethe speed matching mode is adopted, and the pace is very fast. first, the emotional experience of the male and female guests is played on vcr, and then it is seen what each person requires. finally, if they are attracted to each other and have the same values, it can be considered that the hand-holding is successful.

i am more interested in the text about love in the show. in the final selection session, the male and female guests will ask each other some questions. for example, the male guest may ask the female guest "do you mind living with my mother?", and the female guest may ask the male guest "can i live with you long distance?" these questions seem very simple. nowadays, love variety shows seem to tend to slowly show what each person has experienced and what is special about them. the part where both parties get to know each other seems to have slowed down.

i also watched a program called "chinese style blind date". the format of the program is that parents choose and children watch in the spectator room. after the parents have chosen, the children come out to express their opinions. in the past speed-matching blind date programs, i didn't think that education was a very important factor. it seemed that few people mentioned this issue at that time.

xu luqing: i have also watched "chinese style blind date". the parents' evaluation criteria are physical health, whether they look good, and age. the girl should be as young as possible. once i was bored in a hotel and turned on the tv. i happened to see a local tv blind date show. the mechanism wasthe man chooses the one who lights up the lights from several women, and the last stage is left to the man's parents to make the choice. the parents will sit on the most important soft leather sofa and occasionally interject a few words to comment on the women. i watched this show for a long time that night and felt angry but also funny.

dong ziqi："happy trio" is a variety show about the relationship between husband and wife.rightparticipate, now there are tworightthey are both divorced. i thought the most boring couple was ai fukuhara, because they were always showing off their affection, like collecting 100 kisses. there was no plot, and it was much more interesting when they quarreled. dating variety shows seem to provide us with a way to enter the lives of celebrities. this kind of entryapproachit is something that everyone can choose.

during the period when love songs from hong kong and taiwan were popular, music was a way to imagine love. angela chang's songs were about campus love, jolin tsai's "prague square" was about transnational love, and "love in bc" was about love that traveled through time and space. a book i read before talked about the relationship between the lyrics and the singer's image. for example, lin xi's lyrics and faye wong's were mutually beneficial, and faye wong's image fit the lyrics very well; some songs were specially created for anita mui, because only she could interpret this kind of charming and lonely urban female image. during this period, people may have imagined other people's love through these songs, put themselves in the right position, and let women have a space for self-expression.

in "happy trio", the camera will directly shoot the guests' beds, which is a very close revelation. variety shows are exciting because they are real people and real stories, but when the camera is too close, it will also consume the aura, feelings, personality and the beauty of love.

pan wenjie：the book "a short history of entertainment news" talks about the economics of reality show stars. the author explains that the growth cycle of traditional celebrities is relatively long and the cost is very high. the film and television industry needs a cheap substitute for traditional celebrities, so civilian celebrities have emerged, including reality show stars. reality show stars have several characteristics. one is that they are ordinary. these stars do not need to have the talent,skilland achievement; the second is similarity; the third is transience,themthey cannot survive for long because they are highly similar to each other and can easily replace each other.quickconsumer goods, not durable goods, are accessories to the celebrity industry, and their manufacturing process includes planned obsolescence.oflink.

many discussions about love variety shows are about the female lead and the male lead, and the names of the amateurs are not remembered. for these amateurs, they can become famous for a short time and make money.、being made fun of, becoming a symbol for discussion. the direct reason for producing reality shows is that the industry needs to cut costs, and the appearance fees of ordinary people are often relatively low. in addition, reality show stars are fast-moving consumer goods, so several dating shows can be launched in a year. the guests of dating shows are in a rather awkward position.

yin qinglu: aren’t these celebrities just interns in the entertainment industry? use them and throw them away.

lauren tsai is froma famous amateur from the dating variety show terrace house.she is very beautiful and is an illustrator and a model.her growth path can be said to have broken the law of planned obsolescence of amateur stars to a certain extent. many dating shows end up with couples who become famous and have their own cp fans. but cp binding is unstable, and fans will also be lost after a breakup.but lauren is smarter.at the beginning of the show, she also tried to pair up with the boy she liked, but the boy might not like her very much, so lauren tsai basically didn't bother too much with dating. she just painted in her room, turning the dating show into a platform to show her painting skills. later, she became a little famous and received more orders for illustrations or exhibitions from bigger brands, including vogue, which often invited her to do photo shoots. she may have broken the curse of planned obsolescence, which is very interesting.。

this example also shows thatromance variety shows or amateur variety showsthe meaning of this space is fluid., will deviate in various ways depending on the performance of amateur stars or participating guests，the guests need to find their own way to win. dating variety shows are very different from filming. in variety shows, the boundary between acting and reality is very blurred. we don’t know whether the guests are establishing their own persona or showing their true character.but we know that filming is all about acting, and actors are not responsible for the characters in the play.

so,if the character in the variety show is very different from the real life, the collapse of the reputation will be more complete. song ji-ah's reputation was completely destroyed after she was exposed to be wearing fake chanel, because her previous character that attracted fans was a rich girl. but lauren tsai has a skill to rely on, and she is not "strong" enough to pile up a lot of academic qualifications and identities, so her fans are still relatively reliable.

wang pengkai: i am not a fan of traditional romance shows.i have only watched another love show "spring day departure" produced by the "goodbye lover" team before. this show mainly presentseight single men and women who have not yet come out of their previous failed marriages travel together and regain the courage to fall in love in the process of companionship.everyone has a lot of time to talk about past emotional traumas and experiences.it also includes my own personal growth process.they will care for each other and heal each other. the whole show has a slow pace and no one is in a hurry to form a couple.

this time watching "signal of love", i felt that the pace was really fast. they hadn't been together for a few days, but they had already basically determined who was a couple. maybe the current dating variety shows have slowed down the pace compared to traditional dating variety shows like "if you are the one", but i feel that it is speeding up compared to the amateur dating variety shows of the past two years.

yin qinglu: i also feel that it is very awkward. how can you really fall in love with someone after just knowing them for a day or two? the show "heart signal" i watched before seems to be the same. if the guest does not match up with others in time after entering the show, he/she will lose in the survival game. the later show "single is hell" also uses this as a selling point.

there are some points in the dating variety show that really poke the audience, such as someone will be very anxious to match up after the show starts, and the audience will wonder why this person is so anxious. i remember there was a girl named jiang suyan in "single is hell". she was quite anxious. for example, she was paired with this boy on the first night, and she would rely on this boy for the next few nights. but the rule of this dating variety show is to constantly update the pairings and re-form new pairs. she seems to have become the one who has not learned the game of love. instead, people like song ji-ah who don't care who they are paired with stand at the top of the food chain, and someone pairs with her every night. a lot of things related to human nature can also be seen here.

03 love mentor cansolve all problems in intimate relationships?

ding xinyu：the "heart signal" series focuses more on the reasoning of clues in interpersonal communication.，so it is called "signal”, often justrelatively ambiguousclue,not completelysubstanceclearofemotion.

there are alsoadd flower charactershabit，i noticed that in this season of "signal of love", peng gao saw weng qingyawill be nervous and talkhesitate,audienceobviously cani can see it, but the show must add the fancy words "stuttering" and "nervous"to mark. peng gao is talking toqingyawhen you laugheven though all the audience could see that he was laughing, the production teamalso wantin additionadd the floral character for “笑”.romancei want to invite guestsallaction details are added byflower characterto magnify and make the audience feelevery move, smile and frown of the guests are full of emotions., thisdeliberateover-interpretation of the practicesuspect。

pan wenjie: "speed ​​society" talks about how people don't want things that they can't understand. using flowery words to directly tell the audience what happened also echoes the message.right nowthe need of time.

i saw a hot search on weibo about "signal of love", which was about "jerry yan reveals the girl he likes". off-site guests can also gain corresponding traffic and attention by sharing their love experiences. this kind of love variety show seems to have created a win-win structure. on the one hand, ordinary people get attention, and on the other hand, traffic stars who are off-site guests can stir up another topic.

ding xinyu: goodbye, loveit is another marriage documentary observation reality show,itdeliberately explorein an intimate relationshipexposurethe problemand intractable contradictionsin the show, the main content isdivorced guests or guests on the verge of divorcetravel together, off-sitealso featuresobservation room, in the observation roomstarmost of the guests have different marriage and love backgrounds.there are divorced people and people with happy families. in addition, the program will also invite public figures with sociology and other knowledge backgrounds to speak.observer, around the showintimate relationshipsissuesharing.

dong ziqi: it turns out that there are sociology teachers in if you are the one, who comment from a professional perspective or give some advice to the male and female guests. these suggestions sound very solid, such as enhancing mutual understanding, communicating better with each other, and working together in life. sometimes they play the role of a wise man, helping the guests to find the "love maze". at that time, i thought the advice they gave was very reasonable, but now i also doubt whether they can really solve all the problems in intimate relationships?

this kind of mentor image has also been reflected in the dating variety shows in recent years. for example, in "my daughter" and "my son", the program has set up some observer roles. they will make some suggestions or comments from the perspective of their daily lives. the image of a wise man originally undertaken by one person is evenly divided among these four or five people. this makes me feel as if the audience needs to rely on the opinions of these "emotional mentors" to confirm whether their understanding of the guests on the scene is correct when watching a dating variety show. their opinions can often easily guide the public's views.for example, "as expected, you can't trust others too much", "as expected, you can't entrust everything to others", "as expected, you have to keep some things in reserve" feel very much like the art of emotional thick black.

xu luqing: my earliest impression of emotional observers was le jia in if you are the one. later, i saw that the role of observers accounted for a large proportion in goodbye, my love. shen yifei became well-known to the public because of this. she is a sociologist who specializes in love and marriage. with a psychologist, it seems that she can analyze more and more thoroughly than ordinary viewers. if i were a person in the program, i would definitely be super nervous. every move would be analyzed by four or five people around my subconscious and original family. that kind of analysis and explanation made me very tired for a while, as if emotional expression had become a pathological analysis object.

ding xinyu: "heart signal"alsohavegeographicalfeatures, every seasonmetropolisrecording in different regions, previously in shanghai, beijing, shenzhen, this time in the greater bay area. in the greater bay area, people live at a fast pace, especiallyexisthong kong-zhuhai-macao bridge completedopen to trafficback,greater bay area residentsonly 1.5 is needed-2we can meet in an hour.the shortened time almost eliminated the distance barriers that were previously caused by the distance. the fast pace of this season's program alsomaybe it’s to keep up with the pace of life in this urban cluster.

the most impressive and never-ending part is probably the love at first sight scene when they first meet. for example, in the fourth season of "signal of love", chen siming showed his interest in fang binhan from the very beginning, and in this season, peng gao immediately made his feelings clear after seeing qingya for the first time and started to "play straight".love at first sightindeedis onea very unique and wonderful emotion that fits the concept of romantic love very well.the origin is not based onto othersany cumulative understanding is irrational、there is no way to explain it. it identifies others as special and unique beings, and even has an intuitive grasp of their personalities, and trusts this intuition.

but it was also while watching this season that i suddenly felt something was wrong.officially met in penggaogreenbefore the show, many viewers had already started to support the two of them based on their looks, personalities and other qualities.broadcast tonewfemale guestwang qistay at the heart-beating houserao xueman in the observation room immediately felt that she was a good match for a hong kong male guest named tomo.，directly put the cp of two people“lock”。i suddenly felt like i was out of the play, because i realized thatthissimilarbehind the destined romantic plot,actually, it’s the program groupin the vast internetbotherevaluateanda series of selection processes.the casting director had already considered in advance whether the guests were well matched and whether their interactions would produce the chemistry that the audience expected. finally, based on the presupposition of the probability of their romantic love, the guest selection was finalized. the love that seemed very natural and divine to me actually had a god's perspective hidden, which was the rational calculation of the program team.

pan wenjie: despite all the preparations, many amateurs still failed to make it on dating shows. i saw a report saying that the amateur failures on dating shows have become a process. the report was about a dating show in 2022 called "20 years old".known as "announced in the morning, debuted at noon, and retired in the evening”, creating the fastest record of collapse in the history of amateur love variety shows。there are also many cases of failure in other dating shows, such as "i have never been in love",existwhen the show was about to be broadcast, it was revealed on the internetthe man insidei have dated three girlfriends. the authenticity of dating shows is really worrying.

dong ziqi: in reality, we will not travel around the world and exhaust all kinds of information to find the so-called "most suitable person for me in the world". the most wonderful relationship is like what jane austen wrote in her novels, when a person comes to the manor next door. this kind of opportunity is created by nature.

the manipulation of amateurs in the romance drama script is very risky, because people are complicated and may not conform to theothersenvision andthoughts。

yin qinglu：i used to have a point of view that for those who have a fixed partner, if they meet their partner on social software, then it is very likely that ta does not meet their own standards for mate selection, appearance, etc. only when you meet in real life can you fall in love.

pan wenjie: there is a report titled "behind the popularity of korean dating variety shows is the prevalence of single people", which talks about the fact that although there are more and more dating variety shows, at the same time, the comprehensive fertility of most viewers has hit a record low, and there are more and more single people. this seems to be a completely opposite social phenomenon.

yin qinglu：the same is true for dream girl. i saw someone ask, "does dream girl have someone she likes or a partner in real life?" dream girl replied that if you really dreamed of such a perfect person, you would not be interested in these real men at all.

ding xinyu: british sociologist anthony giddens wrote in "the transformation of intimate relationships" that the fanatical consumption of romantic novels and love stories is in some sense a testimony to negativity.in dreams and hallucinations, individuals pursue things that are denied and unattainable in the everyday world.

for viewers who like to watch love variety shows, they may not have the energy and leisure to establish, develop and manage an intimate relationship after get off work every day, nor do they have the opportunity to live together with many strangers and interact with each other in a concentrated manner. these are a lack of conditions for the existence of intimate relationships. but more importantly, does romantic love really exist, and what is the probability that it will come to those who yearn for and expect it? most people may feel the vanity of ideal love in the frustration of reality, so before a real relationship begins, they often show retreat and cowardice. at this time, watching others fall in love is a compensation mechanism that can experience sweet emotions without pain.

the emergence of dating variety shows in china also means that they may have positive social value and are in line with the current policy transformation. in an era when more and more people are delaying their marriage age and the marriage rate has also declined, dating variety shows are eager to use the power of role models to make the audience believe in love. however, if it is found that the reason why people like to watch dating variety shows is because they don’t want to or dare not to fall in love themselves, it will feel a bit ironic and paradoxical.

wang pengkai: sociologist eva irothinkthere are several books on the capitalism of emotions, and she has an untranslated collection of essaysit's called "emotion as a commodity"Emotions as Commodities), in the bookshe further discussed this topic. she believes that the specific manifestation of emotional capitalism is that emotions are treated as a commodity, which is actually a performance process. in emotional relationships, people will buy things to get the corresponding emotional experience, and they will also sell some emotional experiences as commodities. for example, in the gift-giving segment of the guests in the dating variety show, giving gifts is not a good thing.at onceit is a typical process of conveying emotional experience through commodities.

yiluoi think,in this process, what people pursue is authenticity, which can be translated as "authenticity". in fact, people who watch dating shows are also pursuing "authenticity". although reality shows emphasize "truth"，but this "truth" is actually performed, and it is only a "truth" that can be felt emotionally. it is achieved through a series of behaviors, such as the purchase of goods, the establishment of personalities, and some expressions of popular culture.placein this context, the collapse of the dating show guests will appear very fragile because they break the audience's expectations and emotional projection of them.