"I'm on the side of Hyeonseung (the name of the cast of <Solo Hell>)" It is said that for a while, a female office worker, A, replaced her work greetings with her colleagues with the chatter of a romantic entertainment she watched yesterday. "What did Freesia do?" Today, when I open my eyes, everyone is talking about it. Even after the Netflix romantic entertainment program <Solo Hell> ended, it is on the rise every day. It is the number one topic.
Overseas grades are still good. Netflix members around the world watched <Solo Hell> for over 19.25 million hours. You have surpassed <Squid Game>. As of January, it ranked 4th in the world among non-English TV content on Netflix.
Even if it is not <Solo Hell>, the love reality released by terrestrial and cable channels as well as various OTTs boasts an excellent win rate (?) in the ruthless content market. From <I'm Solo>, <Transfer Romance>, <Doll Singles>, and <Change Days> to <Heart Signal> a few years back.
In this <Somehow> news, we dealt with how romantic reality, which is occupying the top spot in the topic day after day, has captured the hearts of people. In fact, the romance of 'children these days' is falling apart, but how did other people's relationships become such a heyday?
Before discussing the factors of popularity, let's start with the history. The history of 'mating programs' is long. In the 2000s, reality shows began to boom around the world. Starting with <Britain's Got Talent> of British ITV and <American Idol> of US Fox TV, various contest programs began to appear in Korea as well.
'Love' also naturally melted into the contest program. <The Bachelor>, which started airing on ABC, the American terrestrial broadcaster, in 2002, is a survival program in which 25 or so single women compete against one single man and receive a score. It has been consistently popular enough to repeat its 25th season this year.
In Korea, before the contest program craze started in earnest, there was MBC's <Studio of Love>. This program, which is the ancestral bird of domestic romantic entertainment, was broadcast for a long period of seven years from 1994. In the indoor studio of a broadcasting station, ordinary young men and women who want to get married stand up and blow 'sticks' at each other. In fact, it became a hot topic when a man and a woman met on the program succeeded in getting married.
In fact, it was KBS's <Cottage Meeting: War of the Roses>, which aired since 2002, that showed the possibility of a full-fledged 'reality' as a romantic entertainment outside the studio, the stage for the 'couple matching show'.Male celebrities and ordinary female college students (although most of them were actually aspiring celebrities) dance a courtship dance for each other and throw out meaningful words to create a couple.
After <The Mountain Lodge Meeting>, which gave birth to many stars as a gateway to the entertainment industry, programs with a similar format continued to come and go. With the addition of observational entertainment, stars are invited to virtual marriages for viewers who are not satisfied with romance (<We Got Married>), or real couples or couples in the entertainment industry appear to change their lives (at least half of them). ), a program that gives you a glimpse of it has appeared.
While reality entertainment, which fills the entertainment space with well-known celebrities appearing in the lead roles, dominates the times, it is now 2011. A program that can be said to be the origin of many popular dating reality programs that has been talked about recently appears. Doom. This is SBS's 'Current Current Affairs Program' <Pair>, which came out with a shocking format called a love documentary.
Since then, the 'trend' of dating reality has changed dramatically. The sincerity and sincerity of the performers (for love and marriage) became the content that determines the character of the program. The power of 'true stories' has grown. Factors to deliberately exclude aspiring entertainers who just 'appear to appear' become a big concept that encompasses the program. In fact, it is said that in <I Am Solo>, a pseudonym is used as a rule, and applicants who are not desperate for marriage are filtered out in the preliminary interview.
However, this does not mean that every move of the cast as a natural person is exhibited. An elaborately designed laboratory is provided to focus on the act of 'love'. Whether the space is a 'love village', a wonderful 'penthouse' with a view of the Han River, 'heaven' or 'hell'. In a situation intended to be immersive, the viewer watches what choices each individual makes and what words, actions, moods and atmospheres influence those choices.
<Transferring Romance> is a case in which real ex-lovers were recruited to acquire a pep-jinseong that was not available before. It is considered to be the number one contributor to the 256% increase in paid subscribers of Tving in 2021 compared to the previous year.
After creating materials that are easy to sympathize with the universal emotion of love, the agility of the production team, who set up a situation that would be difficult to happen in real life, and made people look at the characters trapped in it, shined. Some people have a so-called 'sympathetic debate' about various events taking place in this laboratory, "Is this normal?", while others reflect on their past relationship and fall into thoughts of "what would it be like if it were me?"
An official who participated in the production of the program also mentions the word 'experiment'. “I think we can look at the program in the broad framework of social experimentation entertainment. The desire to observe what other people make in a specific situation and atmosphere rather than simply watching the audience to satisfy their romantic feelings is a love affair. I think it is the basic framework of reality.”
The anonymous producers interviewed also cited the factor of 'this state of affairs' as the reason for the recent emergence of dating reality in the entertainment market. In a limited environment that is relatively easy to manage from infection, it is an observational entertainment featuring ordinary performers with characteristics that can attract the public's attention. It is said that it is not difficult to recruit performers with a story in these days, when everyone actively promotes self-PR.
'Dating like I would' and 'People who would have been me' are good marketing tools to lower the threshold of empathy, but we cannot neglect to provide a 'fantastic atmosphere' that can maximize emotions. It only takes a long time to find a filming location that will become a hot topic as 'the cafe from which program'. While providing a reasonable sense of reality, the 'love' that unfolds within it shouldn't be seen as sarcastic. This is the reason why the camera angle that reflects the cast gradually becomes 'difficult'.
The main target audience for these fantasies is usually women, especially women in their 20s and 30s, who, according to officials, can be an important goal in life. However, dating in real life is not so easy.
In a survey conducted by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs last year on 2,000 adults between 25 and 29 years old, 78.1% of single singles answered that they had never met or been introduced to a new person in the past year. After the corona crisis, 10.9% of men and 20.7% of women said they did not want to get married more. In a survey of 500 people conducted by the marriage information company Duo, 41.8% of single men and women who had not been in a relationship in the past year were found.
There is also an interesting study on heterosexual relationships among unmarried young people. According to a 2018 survey of 3002 unmarried men and women between the ages of 25 and 39 by the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, so-called 'conditions' such as the expected income, occupation, and educational background expected from the partner for dating and marriage were previously male. It was applied more significantly to women, but as time goes on, it is similarly applied to women.
It is also interesting to note that the higher the expectations of the partner, the lower the intention to marry or the probability of heterosexual dating. The researchers conclude, "Women are more likely not to choose marriage if they are not confident that marriage will make their lives better, and our findings reflect some of that."
In reality, even if I fall asleep without washing after finishing overtime work and worrying about soaring house prices, I watch TV, tablet PC, and mobile phone with the hope that ‘love’, which is a ping-pong game over charm, is still valuable and beautiful. Turn on and watch reality. The 'age of love without love' is still hot.
■ References
<Changes in Romance, Marriage, and Childbirth during the Corona 19 Period>, Seulgi Choi and Bong-oh Gye, Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs-Korea Population Society Population Forum Co-hosted by the Population Changes and Policy Implications during Corona 19, 2021.
<Sex dating and marriage of the unmarried population Analysis of Factors Affecting Intention>, Jo Seong-ho and Byun-jeong Byun, 2020.
<The narrative, discourse, and implications of the format of reality TV programs>, Dong-hoon Kim and Seon-ki Baek, 2017.
** You about ‘these days’ that are difficult to understand We look forward to your report.
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