We met in the strangest way and now we’re engaged — and it all started with a balloon
By Taylor Knight
Published Aug. 16, 2024, 9:41 a.m. ET
Love is a game, and these singles are ready to play.
Tired of passively swiping on apps, millennials are going to extremes to find their perfect match — even if that means traveling across the country to Phoenix, Arizona, for a game show involving balloons.
Singletons from California, Rhode Island, Louisiana and New York have flown out of state to participate in the popular YouTube dating series, “Pop the Balloon or Find Love,” and at least one couple has gotten engaged.
New Yorker Shawn Smith flew over 2,400 miles to the West Coast to find love, believing his future partner couldn’t be in the Big Apple. The Hempstead, New York, resident was open to flying across the country because women on the West Coast are “friendlier” and “a breath of fresh air“ compared to NYC’s single ladies.
“I wanted to elevate my dating game by attending the show and to be able to find a match,” Smith, a 27-year-old content creator, told The Post.

Shawn Smith, 27, met his girlfriend Taylor on the popular YouTube Series called “Pop the Balloon or Find Love.”
Luckily for him, spending $600 for a flight was not for nothing. Smith matched on the show with his now-girlfriend Taylor, who traveled from Las Vegas, Nevada, to seek a serious relationship.
“The connection felt very genuine,” Smith shared about his one-month love story. “It felt like a love, and it was just something that I couldn’t believe this was a reality.”
He’s just one of the 5,000 singletons aged 27 to 42 who are opting out of traditional dating methods and submitting applications to be contestants on the viral YouTube series hosted by Arizona resident Arlette Amuli, 28, and produced by her husband Bolia Matundu, 31.
Filmed in Phoenix, each 90-minute episode sees contestants lined up holding a red balloon for rounds of speed dating with a bachelor or bachelorette. If either party doesn’t like what the other person says, they can pop the balloon to express they aren’t interested.
“I have two kids — two boys,” a 30-year-old hopeful single said in a recent episode while introducing herself. And before she could go on, an uninterested date dramatically popped the red balloon.
“I popped it on the two kids because two is too many,” the 37-year-old explained in his interview afterward.

Arizona residents Arlette Amuli, 28, and her husband Bolia Matundu, 31, upload weekly videos about singles looking for love on the dating show.

The couple realized more women were submitting applications compared to men.
Most online dating shows focus on finding love for Gen-Zers, but Matundu and Amuli wanted to help singles in their late 20s, 30s and 40s — many of whom are already parents and looking for love. The pair, who got married in 2021, believe their generation deserves romance, especially since research has shown that two-thirds of millennials desire to get married.
And while they know their show isn’t a new concept, it prioritizes casting working-class people with 9-to-5 jobs and children looking for a lifetime partner.
“It started with people saying why do these old people go on the show … but now everybody wants to be on the show,“ Matundu, who is a musician, said.
Among the 5,000 applicants Matundu and Amuli reviewed, it was mainly women in their late 30s and men in their late 20s.
“We have more women applying. It would be about eight girls and two guys in a ratio,” Matundu said, noting they get upwards of 60 applications a day.

Amuli and Matundu got married in 2021. Many singles take the YouTube dating show seriously because a married couple is backing the production.Matt Le/Luxium Weddings

They have received over 5,000 applications from singles in New York, Rhode Island and Louisiana.Matt Le/Luxium Weddings
But they noticed candidates all wanted the same thing: a committed relationship.
“Most people just want a serious partner. They want people that know how to act in a relationship,” Matundu said. “We want to get real people to come on the show, knowing that they can actually find real love.”
While millions of subscribers watch the series as a guilty pleasure, true love stories have blossomed, like Smith and his girlfriend Taylor, 23, who is a staffing coordinator at a football stadium.

“The connection felt very genuine,” Smith shared about his one-month love story. “It felt like a love, and it was just something that I couldn’t believe this was a reality.”
Smith, who isn’t a long-distance guy, admitted the connection is worth the thousands of miles apart. “So far it’s going pretty good,” he said.
And he isn’t the only East Coaster smitten with West Coast love; another couple’s romance unfolded in front of the camera, and they became engaged after two months of dating.
Mike Braswell, 37, from Newark, New Jersey, met his fiancée Nicole “Khe” Akak, 31, a California native, during a June 1 episode.
“It’s 2024. That’s an accepted way to meet somebody,” Braswell said. “Bolia was genuine about bringing people together that were not wasting people’s time. They’re bringing people together so you can feel them out if it’s organic [and] if you guys have real chemistry.”

Mike Braswell, 37, from Newark, New Jersey, met his fiancée Nicole “Khe” Akak, 31, on the dating show.

“Once you find the person you kind of know,” Braswell said about Khe.
Although Braswell and Akak’s relationship is fresh, the couple knew they were meant to be together.
“I was initially attracted to his aura. He had a strong presence, and that’s something that I was looking for in a man,” Akak, who goes by her stage name “Khe,” told The Post. “That’s why I was happy that we matched.”
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The couple, now based in Los Angeles, California, plans to get married within two years of their engagement, which took place on the “Pop the Balloon or Find Love” set.
“Once you find the person,” Braswell said about his soon-to-be wife, “you kind of know.”