Pop Culture Confessions: 90 Day Fiancé

TLC, I'm not done with you yet.

OG consumers of my Pop Culture Confessions series might ask themselves if all of my guilty pleasures call TLC home.

Technically, no. Over the years, I’ve written about other kinds of content and content that lives on other platforms. Then again, both Welcome to Plathville and Sister Wives have claimed center stage in the not-so-distant past, so the question is a fair one.

But let’s be serious: isn’t this kind of what TLC wants? You don’t put this kind of stuff on television year in and year out if you’re not at least kind of on board with being the sort of network that people love to hate, hate to love, and everything in between. I guess I’m playing right into their hands.

Today, let’s take a journey—an international one, perhaps—into 90 Day Fiancé territory.

The first episode of 90 Day Fiancé aired in January of 2014, and I’m not brand new to it. Throughout the show’s first couple of years, I would periodically get sucked into various seasons, and when it would occasionally appear on one of the streamers, I might binge it for a while. My last deep dive into the show happened in 2019—and I know this because (ironically!) it came to a screeching halt when I learned on a trip to Thailand that it wasn’t available to stream overseas.

Since then, I’ve seen plenty of online discourse about the 90 Day universe, which has grown to include a handful of spin-offs that seem to have some major rabbit hole potential. It’s only been in the last few weeks, though, that I’ve started revisiting the last few seasons myself and…. woah. I kind of can’t stop thinking about it? And that means that a Pop Culture Confession is in order.

Pop Culture Confessions is a place where I break down the media I love but feel weird (or worse) about. I’ll give myself the space to fangirl while also being transparent about my ambivalence (or worse) and how I might be able to untangle it. You can check out the last installment in the series HERE.

As always with the Pop Culture Confessions series, let me share some quick facts and a brief history lesson about the subject at hand…

We’ve already established that the first season of the show premiered in early 2014. Season 11 is currently airing. Surprisingly (or not?), there’s not a ton of information out there about the people behind the show, but whoever they are, I’m sure they’re thriving. The main series has produced over 130 episodes over the last decade and there are prologue and epilogue spin-offs, as well as something new called 90 Day: The Last Resort that I don’t quite understand but will probably have to investigate at some point…

Central to the entire 90 Day Fiancé universe is something called a K-1 visa. Historically, people from outside the U.S. have been able to apply to enter the country with a K-1 after becoming engaged to an American citizen. As I understand it, the K-1 process is an extensive and expensive one that’s designed to ensure that only “real” couples are pursuing the path to citizenship. Through a series of interviews and lots of paperwork, authorities screen hopeful immigrants to identify anyone who might be faking a relationship for the sake of a trip to the U.S. (Enter one of my all-time favorite movies, The Proposal.) This is, of course, a subject for another day, but I think it’s worth noting here that the future of the K-1 visa—along with so many other things—might certainly be up in the air thanks to the current administration. I wonder if the producers of 90 Day Fiancé are nervous.

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Currently Reading: Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV by Emily Nussbaum

I’m always in search of non-fiction to fall in love with! I mentioned this to a bookseller at a local indie when I had a birthday coupon last fall, and she immediately suggested this book, which was written by a Pulitzer-Prize winner about one of my favorite subjects: reality TV. (So appropriate for this post!) Cue the Sun! is extremely readable and moves quickly, and I really appreciate Nussbaum’s approach, which blends a journalistic, academic sensibility with a fresh, cool voice.

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The show documents each couple’s K1 experience. In some cases, the crew finds them as they’re waiting to be approved for travel. In others, audiences drop in just after they’ve been reunited on American soil. In every case, there’s a major countdown clock that starts as soon as the plane lands, since a legal wedding has to take place within 90 days. If not, the non-American must go back to their home country. In the meantime, cultural differences come to the surface, loved ones have big feelings, and lots of second guessing happens.

Just like I do on every installment of Pop Culture Confessions, I want to examine my recent obsession with 90 Day Fiancé from a couple of sides. I think guilty pleasures are totally okay and I don’t actually think we should feel guilty about them. Still, if something feels questionable, I also think that some investigation is allowed—and since this show is one that engages with the world at large during an extremely complicated time, I wonder if it deserves some extra careful thought.

Here are the (superficial and more meaningful) reasons I love 90 Day Fiancé…

• It’s juicy! Duh. It’s hardly a secret that I’m a sucker for reality TV in all of its forms, especially when it falls in the general category of docuseries. It’s fascinating and (mostly) fun to watch these stories unfold, whether they come off as true romances or potential train wrecks.