Are You The One? That’s the name of a TV dating show (非诚勿扰 in Chinese) which has exploded in popularity on Chinese TV. Lest you think this is totally offline, the rhetoric and the controversy surrounding this show have gone online and have earnt it the attention of the censors based at the Chinese State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT). It’s early to say that this sounds a death knell for that show itself, but with the show taking on an übercapitalist stance (girls going: “only my boyfriend can hold my hand; for everyone else, it’s CNY 200,000 every time you touch it), the censors are honing in this show and other TV dating shows like vultures zeroing in on their prey.

Worse, a fair number of these people on the dating shows are in the so-called 90s generation (90 后), a generation that many people prefer not to associate themselves with. Whereas the market economy “stunned” those a decade ahead (those born in the 1980s; the 80s generation or 80 后), making them the rather “lost” generation, the generation a decade later has grown up to be not only Web-centric, but downright arrogant, vain, selfish to the extent that they believe that feeding off their parents for as long as possible is considered “an honor” and “the norm”.

But to fully “tick these shows off”, so to speak, would also not be a good idea — at least it wouldn’t give folks an objective view of Chinese society (especially with the youths) this day and age. The show features one bachelor in front of 24 girls, who decide whether or not she wants to go out with him by pressing a switch; lights change from neon blue to pink if a girl disapproves of the bachelor, to the tune of one of the weirdest sound effects ever. These votes of confidence (or no confidence, rather) showcase a China where “things” matter more to singles than “pure love”. Girls exclaiming that they would rather cry in a boy’s BMW than be taken on a bike ride reveal the unfettered arrogance of the Chinese youth today.

These shows can, indeed, be censored — for promoting materialism in a nominally communist society (ideologically) or for showing the “bad / money first” side of Chinese society (in reality). But what can’t be censored is the problems that these stories (chock-full of arrogant language, more often than not) speak of — in the real world in China this day and age. At least, there’s one silver lining to all this: uncensored in those shows are the increasing presence of materialism and consumerism in today’s China.