‘Love is Blind’: Shayne Jansen Reveals Why He Doesn’t Believe Dating Experiment Works Anymore, Misconceptions About Him, Partnership With Best Fiends (Exclusive)

Love is Blind fans will always remember Season 2’s Shayne Jansen. After a perceived love triangle between him, Natalie, and Shaina, Natalie said no at the altar, leaving him devastated and confused. The two continued communicating for some time before ultimately opting to cut ties solely. He also garnered a reputation for being a wild boy, and his personality rubbed some viewers the wrong way. But he says he’s simply misunderstood. Jansen later appeared in Netflix’s Perfect Match, where he tried his chance at love again.

Now, he’s focused on himself, and getting his body into the best shape possible. He’s also partnered with Playtika’s Best Fiends on its newest campaign that’s squarely targeting its biggest puzzle game competitor. 

Similar to his own experience on LIB, but this time digitally, the mobile gaming sensation is taking aim at its biggest competitor with a national campaign encouraging fans to break up with their old sugar habits and meet their new crush.

Developed by Playtika’s studio Seriously, Best Fiends quickly became very popular, with over one million daily active users. With its exciting gameplay, Best Fiends offers an innovative twist on classic match-3 puzzle games, and features stunning graphics, and an exciting storyline.

PopCulture.com spoke with Jansen on all things Love is Blind. He also dished on how the new game has helped him move past some of his own dating woes. 

PC: How did your partnership with the new Best Fiends campaign come about?

SJ: On my shows, I’m a little – I don’t want to say crazy – but I’m just a little wild person. I’m a very upbeat and friendly kind of person. And I’m friends with everyone. That’s just who I am. And I think just my personality, I think I match perfectly for this kind of partnership.

What does your partnership with them entail?

SJ: I’m just promoting it on my Instagram. And I played the game to see if I liked it or not and see what it was about. Basically, it’s promoting it on my Instagram and trying to show everyone else what the game’s really about.

If you can describe the game in a few words, how would you describe it?

I would describe it as mindless entertainment that just puts you in a really good mood. But it’s very addicting.

The campaign release mentions something about breaking old dating habits, and that’s one of the things that you’ve been working on. So which habits did you realize you needed to break when you began to participate in this specific project?

One of them specifically is, I think, jealousy. It’s mostly just giving people their space. And jealousy, I think, was the main one for me. I have a tendency to get a little jealous sometimes. And I think the world is a little jealous a lot of times with social media and everything like that. But these kinds of games can get rid of that for you. Instead of just being on social media, and all the apps all the time, and being on Instagram and checking people’s profiles and stuff like that, this really gets away from that kind of stuff. It takes your time away from other things.

So has that been a major problem in your previous relationships?

I wouldn’t say major problem, no, not a major problem. I would say it’s one of the problems. It is a problem, though. Jealousy is a thing that I think it’s natural in today’s world, with social media nowadays, it’s natural. You’re just scrolling on Instagram all the time, you’re scrolling on whatnot. You’re just always reading and looking at stuff that you shouldn’t probably need to look at, that doesn’t help your relationship at all. You see how bored you really get online, and it’s like you dig deeper into things you probably don’t need to dig deeper into.

So, how would you say that social media can really be a downer in today’s relationship or dating culture? And how does the Best Fiends campaign fit into that?

So I think social media culture really does mess things up. You’re always are looking at these beautiful people online 24/7, or you’re looking at their ex-boyfriends or their relationships, whoever they’ve been with in the past. And you’re always looking at other stuff. You get so bored nowadays, you’re just sitting around doing nothing or else working, but you’re really sitting around doing nothing. You’re just trying to look for trouble, I guess. You’re always trying to browse for more trouble. And this app is something where it gets your mind off that kind of stuff, and it gives you other things to do on the internet instead of just always browsing on the internet looking for trouble.  Whereas this one is mindless fun, addicting entertainment.

Obviously, most people grew to know you from participating in Season 2 of Love Is Blind. What misconceptions do you feel you face from the show that has traveled with you?

I would say a lot of it had to do with my ADHD, which was a big misconception of mine. People just always made fun of my ADHD. They always thought I was on something or on drugs or something crazy like that, whatever it was. But it was a big misconception for me. I just wish that people would take ADHD a little more seriously in this world, and there needed to be more information than you be talking about that.

People followed your relationship and the back-and-forth between you and Natalie. How would you describe your relationship today?

Oh, it’s nonexistent.

Do you keep in touch with anyone from the cast?

I keep in touch with maybe two people or three people. I keep in touch with Jarrette. I keep in touch with Kyle, and Shaina. 

You mentioned Shaina, so obviously, she’s engaged, correct?

Yeah, she’s married.

Well, is there anything that you feel has still not been cleared up about that perceived triangle between you, her, and Natalie?

Oh no. That has been completely cleared up 100%. If anything, it’s on her end, because she might not think it’s not cleared up yet. But me and Shaina, we hang out as friends now. I hang out with her husband, and we go to events together and everything. That is completely cleared up. People still want to talk a little bit because they need stuff to talk about still days, but that’s about it. People just do it because it was a huge storyline. So people talk about it because they just need something to talk about.

Now you recently defended Irina of Season 4 of the show after she was labeled as the villain. What made you step up and do that?

Because honestly, listen, I went through hell and back for my season. I went through hell and back. And I’m 33, she’s 26. I couldn’t imagine being 26 and going through that kind of pain and hell. And I really don’t think, think Love Is Blind, although they are very, very passionate fan base, they are very, very toxic as well. There needs to be a change. And I try just to do a little something because no matter what someone does, the amount of bullying she got back in return, it doesn’t make sense to me. If she’s a bully, does that mean that we can all be bullies back to her? And we always press about being better people and try to teach people to be better people. And no one was defending her, and I knew how she was. I knew she was probably going to be depressed. And I knew she would be in her bed, not be able to get up, do anything like that. And no one was sticking up for her. And it wasn’t OK.

Like I said, we’re all subject to criticism. The words that she was getting were not criticism, that was bullying back to her, and it was disgusting.

Outside of having to deal with everything that you dealt with on social media, do you feel as if the experiment is worth trying? Do you feel as if it actually does work? Or do you feel as if it’s become counterproductive now that it’s blown up to this magnitude?

So I’ll say this, again, I’ll say this, I always tell people this. I would do it 1,000 times over again. It was the best experience of my life. I learned so much. I grew so much from the experience, I would do it 1,000 times over. But yes, I agree with that sentiment. I think the experiment’s dead. I think it’s completely dead. I think the timeframe from when the show ends to when it airs, I think it’s too long. They need to do a quicker timeframe. And then you need to do a better job promoting love than what they’re doing right now. I think they really try to push drama too much, which I know they have to for the show, but I think people already know the system. I think people already know what they need to do. People know they need to get to a different level so they can get on TV more. So yeah, I think the show is kind of dead now, but again, it’s not dead because so many people are loving watching it. I mean, dead as authenticity-wise, I think it’s kind of dead, yes.

Now, going back to your partnership with Best Fiends, it’s actually a very popular game now, and it’s really rising every day in terms of daily active users. What do you feel adds to its popularity?

Like I said, we live in a world of negativity. I’m not saying this game brings all of the positive light in the world, but we live in a world of negativity. And this game is positive energy. The characters on there are so fun to play with. And it’s really a positive experience on your phone that you can just mess around. It’s like Love Is Blind, it’s mindless TV entertainment that we watch. Now this is a game with mindless, addictive, a game that we just play all day long. We can legit just play. And it doesn’t take much to really learn how to play it. It’s so fun and addicting.

And what other projects are you looking to get into next?

Right now, I’m working on a lot of fitness stuff because of my last show, Perfect Match, I lost a ton of weight from a bad relationship I was in. And I’m working on a lot of fitness stuff. That’s going to be my main focus moving forward. I really do want to focus on a lot more fitness-centered things.