This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s fall editorial intern Alayna Thomas. Find her on Instagram at @ratatoolie. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
Dating content has been and will forever be popular on social media. We will never face a shortage of people giving advice, talking about dates, or shows where people try to find their match. One popular channel on YouTube is The Cut. I remember when their series, The Button, was popular among reactor channels. Meme accounts would clip funny segments from episodes, creating a little bit of clout for contestants. However, there is more to this world of ‘dating shows’ on YouTube. The Black community specifically has found an… interesting niche with this content.
Enter pop the balloon videos. In these videos, you will have a row of contestants line up with balloons. There will be one lone contestant called up to be judged by those with the balloon. Based on first impressions, the row of contestants can either pop their balloon or leave it unpopped. After that, the host will ask why someone popped their balloon. After that, the lone contestants can ask those who didn’t pop their balloon a question, and based on their response the lone contestant has to choose which balloon they will pop. This process goes back and forth until there is one person left with a balloon. Now they live happily ever after!
A close cousin of these videos are 20v1 videos. In these videos, one person has to choose between 20 contestants to go out on a date with. These contestants walk up one by one to essentially be judged by the main contestant. This functions more like Tinder in real life, as they ‘go left’ or ‘go right’ on the people they want to keep. These contestants will also ask each other questions during each round to eliminate them until there’s one person left. And they will also live happily ever after.
Of course, these videos have created a myriad of moments that went viral on TikTok and on Black Twitter. Some of these people also gained minor attention, and continued their shenanigans
I can’t lie, whenever I see these videos pop up on my ‘for you’ page, I will stop scrolling. I always stop on the pop the balloon videos; the host is messy. I’m always so curious to see what crazy reason was given for people being rejected. It can be something that I would deem understandable, such as an age gap, or something completely stupid, such as someone having tight pants.
As entertaining as these videos are, there is something that doesn’t sit right with me about them. Even though the goal is for contestants to find their perfect match, I rarely see this happen. Maybe back when these videos first started gaining popularity people had genuine intentions, but that is not the case anymore. It seems clear to me that now contestants join these shows just to embarrass and bully each other. They want to have the snappiest comebacks or most unreasonable demands for virality.
One recent episode that went viral was one where a man was repeatedly asking the female contestants if they had any children. If they responded yes, he asked how many they had and if they were all by the same father. The catch is that he himself had fathered a child out of wedlock as well.
Another viral clip that went around showed a woman having a balloon popped on her because the man claimed that he could see the bumps from her braids under her wig. She then proceeded to remove the wig to show him her super cute buzz cut. There was no braid in sight.
These two examples illustrate why these videos can be so harmful. Contestants are not looking for love, they just want to degrade other people, especially Black women. It’s similar to the incel concept of negging. Contestants will put each other down just to turn around and try to convince them to go out on a date.
Another thing that these videos highlight is the unrealistic standards that many men have for women. While writing this article I had a conversation with a friend about how these videos somewhat normalize these unrealistic standards. Oftentimes, men on these shows will say that they want a woman with a job and her own business… but she cannot be too busy to cook dinner for him after work. They want a woman who is fit and beautiful, but she cannot wear makeup and be too concerned with her figure. The troubling part is that there will sometimes be a female contestant who is so desperate for male attention, she will bend over backwards to try to fit his ideal type.
It’s troubling that we are still pushing these harmful and antiquated ideals as a community. It’s especially troubling due to the popularity of the videos. I have seen older adults in their 50’s and 60’s partake in popping the balloon, and I have seen children as young as 10 line up for a 20v1. Additionally, there are queer versions of these videos. ‘Stud’ pop the balloon, which focuses on masculine Black lesbians has seen its rounds on social media as well. These videos are not much different from their straight counterparts, with many of the contestants mostly focused on roasting each other rather than finding love.
These videos speak to how much people enjoy watching negative content. Yes, watching a couple fall in love and start a family is great. But it is much more entertaining to watch people go back and forth because a man told a woman that her feet look crusty. It makes me feel bad for the contestants who joined the show because they actually thought they would find someone.
These videos also make me think about the gamification of dating. Many people talk about how we are going through a loneliness epidemic and how dating nowadays is hard. Many people are giving up on dating apps and are having trouble with traditional ways of finding dates, so dating shows like these are becoming more and more popular with young people. Even while I was in college, I remember a number of student orgs putting on dating shows. One of my friends participated in our school’s version of Love Is Blind.
So, even though these videos give me a chuckle here and there, I try not to take them too seriously or watch them too much due to the negativity they portray. I also certainly will not ever participate in one of these shows. If I walk out and everyone pops their balloon, there will be a problem.
Do you like pop the balloon videos or 20v1 videos? Would you ever participate? Do you think they can cause harm? Let us know in the comments!
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