During the Love Is Blind reunion, Shaina Hurley was seen squinting several times, spawning a meme that will likely last for a while, especially among reality TV fans who have kept up with the first two seasons of the show. Shaina said she has moved on from her failed relationship with Kyle Abrams and Shayne Jansen, but during the reunion, which dropped Friday, Shaina had to defend herself and took a critical eye on more than one occasion to those who attacked her.
Kyle, especially, was determined to make it clear where Shaina had erred in their short-lived engagement. Although Shaina took 100 percent ownership of accepting a proposal despite still having strong feelings for Shayne, she also expressed that Kyle proposing with his mother’s engagement ring felt like manipulation. Kyle wanted the audience to know that there was much the viewers didn’t see as far as how deeply the two connected, and that he had little reason — outside of the religious beliefs — to doubt their connection. Shaina also had to answer for downplaying her post-engagement talk with Shayne to Natalie Lee. She was also prompted to respond to dating rumors surrounding her and Shayne after the show aired.
Through it all, Shaina made a similar face, squinting her eyes as if hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey were testing her vision instead of her treatment of the other cast members. If she was trying to close her eyes because the situation was uncomfortable and she’d rather be anywhere else, no one could blame her. During a majority of the reunion, Abishek “Shake” Chatterjee’s blatant misogyny and disrespectful interruptions were hard to watch. She was also unable to fully explain her post-show potential romance with Shayne because he was unwilling to address it at all.
Shaina leaned into the joke on social media, sharing fan reactions to her squinting, including a post that compared her eyes to the squinting Futurama Fry/Not Sure If meme. While the look was a source of confusion among many fans, Shaina seems to be owning it as a symbol of women empowerment, throwing shade anytime a man tries to explain themselves but winds up digging a deeper hole instead.
During the reunion, Kyle and Shayne hardly said anything worthy of Shaina’s critical squint. It made more sense in the context of Shake, whose comments were both nonsensical and extremely rude. When Shake said, “This show is about finding love. It’s not about finding a wife,” the audience could see Shaina attempting to decipher exactly what he meant by that. While Shaina may not have found a spouse from Love Is Blind, she at least managed to break the internet with her signature squint. That’s got to count for something.