Weiss points to a 2014 Pew poll finding that although a record-high percentage of adults under 30 are unmarried, 66% of those that are unmarried say they want to get married someday. If anything, Weiss claims, even shows as crassly named as FBOY Island manufacture storylines to reinforce these “strikingly conservative” existing social norms: “that monogamous love is far preferable to the unsatisfying treadmill of endless hookups and rotating partners.”

I’ve never watched a single second of any of these shows, so I’ll have to take Weiss’s word on the underlying message of the programming. But I was surprised she never mentioned the glaring gender gap of the genre’s audience — somewhere north of 75% female — or the divergent reasons the two genders give when they explain why they are still single.

For example, that same Pew poll Weiss links to also shows that almost 8 in 10 never-married women (78%) say it’s very important that a prospective spouse have a steady job. Not even half (46%) of never-married men list this as a priority in a spouse.

More recently, a 2019 Pew poll found that although 67% of single men and 61% of single women age 18-39 were looking for a romantic partner, the two groups identified very different reasons they hadn’t found said partner.