If you threw Blind Date, the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan and the auction block into a blender, what you’d get is Pop the Balloon or Find Love, a weekly hour-long Black dating show on YouTube.
The show was created by Arlette Amuli, an African American of Congolese origins, and her husband, Bolia “BM” Matundu, a Black Brit also of Congolese descent (he had a previous life as a UK rapper and then as a Ndombolo musician). It has become an international sensation in an age where our fried attention spans have us addicted to short videos. The format is minimalist to the point of brilliance: each week, a line of eight or so balloon-clutching love hunters line up to court and be courted by a singleton of the opposite sex they have never met before.
