Mark L. Walberg Is Coming For Your Boyfriend (and thank god)
from hosting antiques roadshow to transformation on temptation island
Esther Perel. Orna Guralnik. The Gottmans.
Mark L. Walberg.
He may not be the dating and life coach we wanted, but he’s the one we needed.
If you’re unfamiliar with Temptation Island (Netflix) — good. Maybe you haven’t been on the couch with strep throat recently. I, however, have been bingeing. The concept of the show is kind of The Ultimatum meets Too Hot To Handle, bringing together my favorite reality show themes: cucking, edging, and love triangles.
Four couples start their journeys on the island wondering if their partners can be faithful in the face of temptation. The couples split into separate villas by gender and live with twelve smokin’ hot members of the opposite sex. Their every transgression is recorded for their partners to see, and played back at the ‘bonfires’ that punctuate their progress on the show. This is where Mark L. Walberg is set loose upon them with insightful questions and metaphors that land like nuclear bombs on the simpletons that have signed up for this.1
The four men begin the show as fucking turds. I’ll say it. They’re entitled, self-absorbed, and are treating their girlfriends like mean mommies that are preventing them from having fun. All except Lino, who is a sweetie pie and spends every night pensively journaling alone in bed. The others, however, are not great. Tyler (second from left) was famously nailed by his girlfriend Taylor as having ‘bitch tendencies,’ which very much checked out when he was tempted within the first 72 hours to start a relationship with another woman. Brion (second from right) feels his girlfriend Shanté isn’t putting out enough, and he misses the threesomes and wild sex of his past (ok so be with someone who also wants that! Dang!). Grant (right), when he isn’t doing electrolysis on his beard, is busy sucking the life force out of Ashley, a sweet girl with a lot of lip filler who really needs to learn when to throw in the towel.
None of these turds (not you, Lino) are safe from Mark L. Walberg. Listen — did I scoff when his lower third came on? Absolutely I did. I underestimated him. But starting from the very first bonfire, he rolled up his sleeves and began shaping these turds into men. Let’s take a look…
This article contains no spoilers for anything beyond episode 2~~
Mark L. Walberg vs. Grant
After watching footage of his girlfriend Ashley starting to disassemble her dissatisfaction and lack of trust in their relationship, Grant says he hopes the experience can convince her essentially to get off his jock and let him do whatever. Mark L. Walberg moves in for the kill:
Mark L. Walberg vs. Brion
Brion will not stop talking about wild sex and threesomes. Fair, neither will I. But context matters, y'all.
Mark L. Walberg vs. Lino
Lino may be sweet but he is not without his baggage! He came on the island because his girlfriend Alexa had cheated on him in the beginning of their relationship, and he still feels like her second choice. It’s time to move on, Lino!
Mark L. Walberg vs. Bitch Tendencies
Tyler is treated at the bonfire to a video of his girlfriend Tayler venting to one of the men in her villa about how he has been unemployed for a year and living in her house without contributing financially. Listen, it’s a tough economy. But he also won’t put the toilet seat down and she feels disrespected by this. In turn, Tyler feels it’s very disrespectful of her to feel disrespected by his disrespectful behavior. Let’s go, Mark.
From that first bonfire onward, the show follows these turds as they genuinely undergo exactly as much personal growth as I think they were probably capable of in the few weeks they were defiling the island of Hawaii with this shit show. Assisted by emotional assassin Mark L. Walberg, the boys are pushed to examine their own role in the dysfunction they’re experiencing in their relationships. A lot of other reality shows conspire to make contestants worse by plying them with alcohol and manipulative producers while simultaneously laying on the pressure to be monogamous and virtuous (I have a graph about this in my article about The Ultimatum). This show on the other hand seems, against all the odds, actually pretty invested in the wellbeing of its participants (as much as a show that plays clips of infidelity at a bonfire can).
The pinnacle of this growth happens at the final bonfire. I’m keeping this as spoiler-free as possible so I won’t go into too much detail but Mark facilities some truly transformative discussions that leave everyone better than they came in.
The women receive plenty of Walbergian Wisdom as well, but it’s the boys I’m most fascinated by. Reaching young men these days is notoriously difficult. Conventionally handsome young men in their twenties who are willing to go on a reality show called Temptation Island are probably one of our worst demographics. But Mark really got through to them by validating them, then pushing them towards a vision of masculinity that is vulnerable, but also involves accountability. That’s the problem right now with dudes getting just enough therapy language to become worse but with a better gaslighting vocabulary — they’ve gotten the message about being vulnerable but aren’t ready to take responsibility for themselves. Putting both of these things together is clearly what has assisted former Antiques Roadshow host Mark L. Walberg in having a 38 year marriage. 38 years!!! The guy has the juice!
Some heroes don’t wear capes. Or have degrees. But I’m hoping we get an Antiques Roadshow-level amount of seasons of my Mark Wa(h)lberg taking turds and turning them into gold.
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My personal favorite was when he told someone their coping mechanism is their “armor.” “But then what happens,” he continued, “when that armor starts to rust?” Minds were BLOWN.
Gawd, this is such a good read. Thank you!
This reminds me of something I say a lot. That humans, both the boys and girls and born a blank slate, and whatever they become is a direct reflection (most times) of the world around them.
Feminists think of they just educate the men enough, they'll be better. But that's not true. The younger men will really only listen to the older men. And that needs to be our focus.
This was a great read. Thanks for writing it