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A new dating show on Netflix attempts to capture what romance was like before smartphones changed everything. In Offline Love, 10 young Japanese adults travel to Nice, France, where they are asked to lock their phones away and see what transpires over 10 days.
The low stakes romance reality show carries a similar seemingly unstructured quality that made previous East Asian reality series like Terrace House, The Boyfriend, and most recently, Single’s Inferno, such international hits. Unlike The Bachelor or Love Is Blind, where participants are focused solely on finding everlasting love, Offline Love is more interested in simply following the journey of its cast as it unfolds.
For viewers who never experienced life before smartphones, the series is a fascinating look at what happens when we let go of the things we think we need. For those of who do remember life pre-smartphone, it is an invitation to reflect on what was, if not a simpler time, then a much less digitally demanding one.
What happens in Offline Love?
In terms of escapism, it helps that Offline Love‘s constructed reality is a heavily romanticized one. Over 10 episodes, the Japanese men and women who agree to go to Nice without smartphones are not asked to make it to a job or to maintain other duties. They just have to experience life in a beautiful foreign city, and stay open to the possibility of running into and forming connections with the other cast members. The possibility of no one ever meeting is played up for effect, but the cast almost immediately starts running into one another. They are all staying within a relatively small radius—some of them are even at the same hotel. Each person is given the same show-crafted guidebook with suggestions for local sites, eateries, and shops, which leads to them visiting many of the same locations. And, if they don’t organically run into one another, they can arrange dates through mailboxes assigned to…
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