Who gets the thumbs up?

Abstract This study explores Iranian “Blind Date” YouTube shows as discursive spaces where subjects navigate the tensions between patriarchal-Islamist values and global liberal-consumerist ideologies. Drawing on Bakhtin’s (1981) concept of chronotopes and expanded through the frameworks of scales and polycentricity ( Blommaert, 2015 ), the article analyses how participants construct hybrid identities in a liminal social condition, marked by the overlapping and often conflicting discourses shaping contemporary Iranian society. Through qualitative content analysis of ten highly viewed episodes, including coding of conversations, gestures, and aesthetics, the study reveals how everyday performances reflect deeply embedded gender norms, economic expectations, and cultural contradictions. The shows function as hybrid chronotopic spaces where traditional matchmaking rituals intersect with globalized reality TV formats, exposing scalar tensions between micro-level interactions, meso-level societal norms, and macro-level ideologies. This study argues that these online dating programs not only represent the sociopolitical dynamics of post-revolutionary Iran, but also actively reproduce and negotiate the discursive struggles around modernity, tradition, gender, and agency. Ultimately, Iranian blind dates offer insight into the evolving modes of subjectivity and power in an ideologically divided yet interconnected society.