Psychotic Entertainment on TLC

I don’t usually comment on TV shows, since watching a TV show is optional and if you don’t like it, you can press the off button. But there is a TV program my husband and I have followed for years, hoping to perhaps understand the human mind better. We are both very interested in the human mind and how other couples solve their issues and life riddles.

Before I delve further in to the show at hand, I would like to back track a little bit. To 1986, when I had finished a year in a post gymnasium (lycee) journalism program. I knew at this point that I wanted to pursue journalism and had applied to the University program. But so had half of Sweden, because I did not get one of the few seats available in Gothenburg nor in Stockholm. And what do you do then? When your dreams have been crushed? You desperately come up with another plan to give yourself some time to think.

I applied to a US University, not knowing anything about the US education system and if it was compatible with the Swedish one. I was awarded a scholarship and with a student visa in my hand, I took off. Only to arrive at said University and finding out that an undergraduate degree is basically the same thing as our gymnasium. But I had said goodbye to my family, friends and did not feel like I could stomach coming right back with my tail between my legs.

After my first winter term my bank account had taken a big dent, due to me not understanding that the scholarship only covered tuition. Nothing else. And only for two terms. What was I supposed to do from April to September? Not being allowed to work and no courses on offer that would fit my ambitions. I took to ballroom dancing and met a young man who became my best friend. And later that year, we married.

Did we know each other as well as we should? No, not at all. Our religion does not permit co-habitation nor sex or intimacy of any kind, before marriage. Perhaps it is that day-to-day life that really show you whether you are suited for each other or not? Or like the saying goes, time will tell?

What does time will tell mean though? It means that your relationship changes with the years that passes. It was not as bad for my husband and I, as it was for Tevje and Golde in Fiddler on the Roof. They met on their wedding day. 25 years later, Tevje asks Golde if she loves him. And she thinks the question is ridiculous. Because for 25 years they have worked side by side and faced life’s struggles. If that is not love, what is?

Last year, my husband and I watched married at first sight. One of the couple’s which did not work out in the end, was a doctor and a nurse. The deal breaker seems to have been the fact that he, the doctor, would not say I love you before he knew her better. He desperately tried to explain to her that you can’t say that you love a person, when you don’t know them well enough. Love is something deeply felt and you should not throw that word around without deep thought behind it. Then it comes to mean nothing. She could not accept that. But I am in total agreement with him. Only time will tell if a relationship is built on true love or something else.

A relationship can start from anything. Lust. Physical attraction. Desperation to have someone in your life. Friendship. But it can not stop there, if it is going to survive. A relationship has to develop for it to grow in to love and last. Some people might want to get to that point in their relationship, but will need help from professionals. Others refuse to see the truth that there is nothing to build on. And this is where TLCs 90 Day Fiancée comes in.

Yes, I have finally come to what I want to chat about today. For years, we took our three youngest sons to a habilitation swimming pool on Friday evenings. After an hour in that hot pool, we all felt exhausted. An entire week of stress finally caught up with us and coming home from the pool, my husband and I collapsed on a sofa each. The only thing on TV, was 90 Day Fiancée and because we have been in a somewhat similar situation, we started watching the series.

As I said, I went to the US Christmas 1986, on a student visa. The following year I married and two years later, I was pregnant with our first son. A pregnancy from hell. Vomiting around the clock, vitamin B6 shots in my buttocks every five days to prevent some of the vomiting, pregnancy dermatitis that had me awake, itching around the clock. I could not study full time when I itched so bad and could not keep things down. So we had to apply for a green card.

We had to prove that I was not in the US for a green card though. By telling our story to a grim faced immigration officer. We also had to prove that we had bought three items on credit together. So we came with receipts for a sofa, a sewing machine and a crib for the baby. Eight months pregnant I sat there and swore that I was not in the US for a green card. Our son was born 25 months after our wedding and when he was 25 months old, we left the US never to return. (My husband of course going back for visits to his mother.)

I am not sure which season we started watching 90 days. But over the years, the TV program definitely have changed. Perhaps it is a sign of the times we are living in? That anything goes now? Or is it that the screening is totally lacking? That TLC on purpose is looking for the most dysfunctional persons they can find? Because they think that the audience is attracted to watching psychos?

I am an HSP. Highly Sensitive Person. I have INFJ personality. What I see and hear stays with me. I think about it, try to solve problems for others and I get upset. Really, truly upset about things. And 90 Day Fiancée has me worked up in a bad way on several levels.

My first issue is with the TV channel TLC. I used to watch a show where people with bad clothing taste were brought in and taught how to dress to look their best. I actually learned a lot from that show! My daughter sat and watched a baking show, which gave her ideas for baking and presentation. So in the past, we have been happy with the channel. It was happy ending programs that left one feeling good. But noone can say that anymore.

This year, media has been all about Johnny Depp and his ex. Abuse has been discussed backwards and forwards, not just in the court room but in news media and among youths, who worship Captain Jack Sparrow and Grindelwald. I did not follow any of the media coverage because I suspect that it all boils down to money. And with a war going on in Ukraine where millions are on the run and inflation making it difficult to put food on our table, this couple’s squabbles seem ridiculous.

But if there truly has been abuse, that is unacceptable. Or? Because what do we really think about abuse these days? TLC is showing us twice a week now, that abuse is completely acceptable and is even classified as entertainment! This morning, google recommended I read an article which divulged which couples will be on the new season of 90 Days Happily Ever After. And two couples have an abusive relationship. Or should I say contain abusive persons?

I read the comments, after I read the article, and the first person who had commented said that it will be a great season with lots of drama. In other words, he/she enjoys watching abuse on TV. How have we got to this point? How can TLC decide to continue putting people on their channel, who should never ever have been given media attention? People who is earning big money on being abusive!

Of all the people I have watched on any 90 Day Fiancée program, including the spin offs, Angela Deem is the most appalling person imaginable. Yes, as Christians we are supposed to love our neighbour and fellow human beings. But what comes out of that woman’s mouth, all the time, is beyond foul. Most people laugh at her because she does not realize herself, how idiotic she comes off. She not only has given Americans a bad name, but she has also become the face of the Trump administration. SHE alone is the reason why noone should even consider moving to the US. Because you could get an Angela Deem as your neighbour!

But not only have TLC given this attention seeking abusive narcissist media coverage for years, they have also created a monster of their own making. TLC is walking at the forefront with placards saying: ”Life is all about plastic surgery and staying young forever”.

If you have been following 90 Day Fiancée or any of the spinoffs, you will have noticed the following:

1. All the women who arrive to the US on a fiancée visa come with the intention of having plastic surgery. Unless they have not already had it done beforehand, all paid by their US fiancées. Gino paid for Jasmine’s breasts and everything else. Ximena wanted Mike to pay for hers. Larissa had several men pay for hers. The list just goes on and on. A majority of the women has this as their first goal and some has the second goal as selling themselves on porn sites. What a life goal to have?! But more over, what is all this plastic surgery telling young women of today? That you are not good enough the way you were born. Everyone has to look like a clone. With big bottoms, wasp waists, water melon breasts and big fish lips. Forget about women’s lib. A woman is supposed to wake lust in a man, according to TLC. Because that is the message that is broadcast!

2. There are no therapists on the set nor on the team which choose the couples to appear on the show. Because if there were therapists on the set, they would take several of the couples to the side and tell them that noone in their right mind falls in love with someone 30 years their senior. Such a relationship is doomed from the start and will bring heart ache for the old person. The young person ALWAYS has an agenda. And no plastic surgery or youthful clothing, will make you 30 years younger!

I think that what bothers me the most with TLCs choice of couples, is that they encourage pedophilia. Because even if Mahogny is 22 years old, it is pedophilia. Benjamin is 52 years old. When he was 30, she was laying newborn in her mother’s arms! When Angela was 23 years old and probably having her own kids, Michael was a newborn.

Years ago, I was talking to a lady who had married her lover. He had left his wife for her and the age difference was around the above mentioned couples. At first, she thought it was great. A man of the world, money to spoil her, already settled in career and financially. But soon he started ageing. And when he had a stroke and she was forced to wipe his bottom and change his nappies, then the romance was dead. She became bitter, asking herself how she could have been so stupid. She was not ready to sit at home with an old fart. All she wanted was for him to die as soon as possible so she could be free and start living again.

Those who say age is just a number, that age does not matter, are just fooling themselves. Of course age matters. Of course it is more than a number. Why do you think that people are made to retire at 65? Because not only are their brains not as sharp anymore, they can not keep up physically. There is a reason why women no longer can become mothers in their upper 50s. Why men loose their stamina in bed. As a science program said many years ago: Humans are just like the animals. We are here to breed. When we no longer can breed, the body will break itself down and we die. One way or the other, earth will get rid of us.

Angela Deem thinks that spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on cutting off fat, straightening wrinkles, pumping in chemicals in select places etc will make her 23 years younger. And TLC makes us watch this, telling all women above 50 that we should be ashamed of the way we look, that we must make ourselves look younger, even if it empties the family bank account. And if you can’t do this, if you don’t get thousands of followers on Instagram thanks to a TV show, which will pay for all that surgery, then you are not worth anything.

To be perfectly honest, Angela actually looks older after her surgery, not younger. She blames it on Michael. But as this woman says in Midsomer Murders when her friend has just found out that her younger husband cheeted on her their entire marriage: What do you expect when you marry someone younger? You have affairs with younger men, you don’t marry them. (I did not put it in citation marks since I might have the word order wrong.)

Because the fact is, that if you look at historical statistics, you will find that on an average women were 21 years old when they got married and 22 when they had their first child. The men were 25 years old when they married and 26 when they first became a father. The age difference almost always being no more than four years. I have seen this in all my genealogy for all countries in the western world. And to be frank. It is not a coincidence.

The 20s are the most fertile years in a woman and when a man has the most sexual appetite. Nature has made it this way, just as it has in animals. Never in my genealogy have I seen an age difference of 20-30 years. Because one is at two completely different stages in life then.

Today, I am 57 years old. And I think that I have a pretty young mind. I love to learn. Start new projects. My heart still beats faster if I see a pretty Barbie doll or Hello Kitty stationery. I am drawn to the same fashion as my daughter. I read Harry Potter, collect Funko Pop figures and find Legolas in the LOTR films most attractive. But as my mother said, in one’s mind, we do not age. What we like, we like no matter what age. We don’t feel old in that respect.

And yet. I have hypothyroid, Hashimoto’s, high blood pressure and arthritis in my right hip. Most of these things does not start when you are 21! And my body? After seven children, I might still have been able to keep somewhat slender. Had I not had to give birth three times with C-section. It leaves your belly without muscle support so that it eventually hangs like a bag. And when menopause set in, loosing weight became a loosing battle. The hips and bottom expanded as did the breasts. Like a nurse said at mammography ”When we don’t need them anymore, then we get the big breasts.” And yes, I had tiny breasts till meanopause. 70A bra size. And now I stand and look at my breasts wondering WHY? None of the clothes fitting anymore, nor my pretty bras.

I don’t want to grow old. It is not fun to look ugly and invinsible. Noone finding you attractive. And people treating you like you are less knowing. But it can not be stopped. No matter how much we want to turn the clock back. And we have to make the best of the situation. Support each other as women. Finding our new place in society.

TLC has the power to help with this. To build and support women and men alike. To show role models that can inspire. But instead they really have walked down the devil’s route. Benjamin walking in to a clothing shop with his same age friend, asking her to help him look young and not like a father of four. I loved her answer ”But you are a father of four!”. We applauded here at home when she walked out of the store because she wanted no part in him chasing after a 20-year-old. How refreshing it was to see that the entire world has not gone mad.

Because while Benjamin thinks that clothes and lifting weights will make him young, while Angela thinks plastic surgery all over will make her young and sexy, they fail to see the picture. Age really is more than looks. My husband and I fit the statistics perfectly. Four years apart. So did my parents, my grandparents and all my ancestors. It means that we have similar experiences from growing up. Our reference frames are very similar despite growing up in different countries and with different family constellations.

We are enough different to always discovering new things about each other and being able to learn from each other. But we are also enough similar that we can laugh about the same things and share similar experiences. Sometimes my husband do get surprised when he hears that I never have heard this or that song, because he is four years older than me. But we grew up in the same world with the same cars, fashion, films, hair dos, political events…

To some people on the 90 day show, sex, looking like the Kardashians, doing reels on Instagram to earn a living, seem to be what marriage is all about. And a green card. But that is so off the wall. To have a successful marriage, you need a similar background to build on. With time, you will be faced with hardships like miscarriages, loosing your job, getting sick, struggle financially. Those are the things that will test a couple’s relationship. This is when you truly can say that you love your spouse. When you go through life together and come out on the other side of hardships stronger.

Noone can therefore say that they love someone whom they have just spent a couple of days with at a holiday resort. That is and will always be a holiday fling. Noone can say that they love a person that they have only messaged with on a dating site, facebook or instagram.

I can fully understand that a couple might meet at either of these venues and would like to get to know each other better. Who knows what something can grow in to? But there must be another way of portraying all of this on TLC! If TLC really wants to show how two people who don’t know each other at all, have 90 days to figure out if they should go for it and hope for an everlasting marriage or not, then I really feel that they need to take responsibility for what they are showing.

The first thing that should be done, is hire a detective, or as many detectives as are needed, to screen the applicants. People with a criminal conviction or a police record should not be able to get the job! For heavens sake, one of the shows’ participants was awaiting trial for abuse and kidnapping! And is now in prison for years to come. Another one was trafficking drugs!

The next thing that really ought to be done to everyone applying, is making them talk to a therapist and taking psychological tests. There is no screening or we would not have had to watch one nutter after the next on these shows. And in certain cases, it really has made me ill at ease.

If Steven’s parents have never had him tested for ADHD and autism, then he needs to be tested now. Alina should have been informed that his behaviour is not strange, it is classic for someone with an NPF diagnosis. Her mother and grandmother likewise, so that they can support Alina when she can not handle things anymore. His sexual addiction adds to the problems and to be frank, where is TLCs moral duty? They could have helped when they saw that things were not quite the way they should be. They should have sent in a psychologist to help. And that would have sent a message to the audience that there is always help to get. But also the message that it is very important to find out family history BEFORE you committ yourself to someone.

The same goes with this season’s Mike. He has ADHD and I suspect he has autism as well. He should have been screened by a psychologist and told how stressful it would be to be on TV. But the psychologist should also have talked to him about the dangers of thinking that a sexual worker, from a poor country, would have any true feelings for you. That love can not be bought.

And Gino. Poor Gino who is so desperate for love, that he is giving away his money to a woman who is clearly mentally disturbed. A psychologist should have been there telling him that it is not love to let someone walk on you. It is not love when you are afraid of someone or afraid of opening your mouth. That it is not normal to behave the way Jasmine does, that she needs to be medicated and be in therapy. Not getting married to someone who is frightened of her.

What we are watching on these shows is not entertainment. It is tragedy playing out in front of our eyes and a TV company making money on psychologically ill people. Miona lives in a fantasy world where she thinks she is a Kardashian. Kimberly the groupie, thinks that her toyboy singer loves her, when all she has done is buying sex.

I have no hope for the future or the world, if this is what it has come to. Filters, plastic surgery, men going after girls that could almost be their granddaughters, menopausal women desperately trying to defy nature and having babies to keep their toyboys… And worse of all, verbal abuse of another human being, becoming prime time entertainment?