Why We Are So Obsessed with Reality TV - Especially MAFS
The Greatness Guide | 5th April
There’s something oddly hypnotic about watching strangers get married on television.
It’s a premise so absurd it should have stopped us in our tracks years ago. And yet Married at First Sight is one of the most popular shows on TV, again. Each season, we line up with popcorn and primal curiosity to watch a group of strangers tie the knot with people they've never met, hoping (or pretending?) that love will somehow bloom in the strangest of soil.
But maybe the real question isn’t why do they do it?
Maybe it’s why do we keep watching?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, why we’re so collectively fascinated by reality TV, particularly the kind that plays in the murky waters of relationships, vulnerability, and public performance. There’s the surface-level appeal, of course: drama, conflict, pretty people in glossy packages, the awkwardness of intimacy between strangers. But beneath that, there’s something deeper happening.
We watch because we want to understand ourselves.
There’s a strange kind of emotional anthropology playing out on our screens. Reality TV gives us a front-row seat to the messiness of being human, our desperate longing to be chosen, our fear of rejection, the way we sabotage love when it gets too close. It’s everything we think we’ve buried beneath years of personal development and polished Instagram feeds.
Married at First Sight is especially fascinating because it blends two primal themes: love and fate. The idea that someone else, a panel of psychologists, producers, or perhaps the universe itself, could choose the person you’re “meant to be with” appeals to something very old in us. A longing to be matched. To be seen. To be told: This is your person.
So we watch. And we judge. And we empathise.
Because in a strange way, these shows become mirrors. Not always flattering, but revealing. They reflect back the parts of us we don’t always want to admit still live in us, the jealousy, the neediness, the wounds we thought we’d healed. And also: our capacity to hope. To love again. To believe in the wild, unpredictable timing of life.
Maybe that’s why we keep coming back.
It’s not just about the drama. It’s about the yearning.
And that’s something we all understand.
For a deeper exploration of why Married At First Sight holds such a powerful grip on us, LISTEN HERE.
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