Daily Trojan Magazine
‘Love Island USA’ is more than a silly dating show
The show exposes key themes about connection and discussion.
By MIRANDA HUANG
Imagine the stereotypical American bar: beers slosh around, greasy food churns in stomachs and questionable characters laugh heartily, slurring their speech. Supplemented by some appetizers and perhaps a crowd of people, the main event of the evening is the sports game that glints above the counter.
Regardless of where one falls on the spectrum of loving or hating the sport being televised, most people are aware of its existence: either it remains a steady buzz in the background of a conversation or it generates loud cheers and boos from keen audience members.
Over the summer, this attention toward sports bar culture shifted. With the nation’s explosive focus on the seventh season of the reality TV show, “Love Island USA,” many bars across the country began hosting watch parties. As one source noted in a Los Angeles Times article in June, “This is our Super Bowl.”
“The act of communal watching gives people the opportunity to treat it like a live sport and to have a conversation about what’s going on on the screen,” said Samah Sadig, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in communication who studies reality television dating shows such as “Love is Blind.”
Sadig’s colleague, Magdalayna Curry, who is also a fourth-year Ph.D. student in communication, made a similar comment, explaining how the live nature of the show creates a sense of discussion between people.
“Being able to watch it live, I feel like I’m more invested in what everyone else has to say about the show than what’s actually going on in the show,” Curry said.
Although the show’s latest season ended on July 13, the phenomenon lives on. Even for those who have not participated in this culture, the show’s latest season often becomes known in their lives.
Without ever clicking or even searching for the Peacock TV website, where the show can be streamed, many individuals were aware of what the show entailed — whether through Instagram Reels that would pop up on their feed, friends sending content about a recent episode or another form of media.
“[Seeing TikToks] definitely made me want to watch it because I think it’s interesting, but at the same time, because I can find so much on TikTok, I don’t feel like watching,” said Manuela Santamaria, a freshman majoring in economics.
“Love Island USA” follows the lives of contestants called “islanders” as they couple up, compete in challenges and aim to create connections with others in an isolated villa. Those who remain single can be eliminated by their peers or through public vote, and at the end of the season, a popular vote of the fans chooses one of the lasting couples to win a cash prize of $100,000.
Garnering more than 18 billion streaming minutes with the most recent season, according to NBCUniversal, the show has amassed a wide fanbase. At present, the show’s official social media boasts 2.4 million followers on Instagram and more than 3 million followers on TikTok. This does not even account for the follower counts of individual contestants: some, such as the widely-known Huda Mustafa, now have over 5 million followers on TikTok.
“I think the fact that the contestants had people running their social media accounts really helps build that parasocial relationship with these people on the show,” Curry said. “With the voting aspect of it all, people feel such an intense connection — like they can have a say in what’s going on in these people’s lives.”
Alongside promoting these interactive features, Peacock created a “Love Island USA” app, which offers voting platforms, prediction polls and mini-games. Spin-off shows such as “Love Island: Beyond the Villa” and “Love Island Games” create separate opportunities for watchers to tune in. As memes spawn, such as the exchange when Mustafa told Nicolas Vansteenberghe, “I’m a mommy,” it is clear new reactions have emerged.
“Even though the season might be ending, ‘Love Island’ as a franchise just keeps the conversation going by popping out content, and they’re always posting. So even if it’s not coming out actively, there’s active interaction online,” Sadig said.
For many undergraduate students, the show offers both a form of building stronger relationships and a way to find lighthearted entertainment.
“I think it’s super entertaining, and I love that everyone on social media is also watching it too. All my friends watch it. We can all comment on who we like and who we don’t like and like all the drama that’s going on,” said Lily Blankenhorn, a junior majoring in communication.
Blankenhorn also said she enjoyed talking about the show with her colleagues at an internship over the summer.
Along with harnessing the ability to bring communities together, “Love Island USA” provides scenarios for romantic partners to hash out, even if they don’t apply to them. Curry, who began the show during the pandemic after her husband recommended it, said she did so after Mustafa told Jeremiah Brown she had a child.
“Talking and thinking about Huda and Jeremiah — what would you do? Whose side would you be on? And would you react in the same way? [Discussing] gives you a safe space to talk about these topics that might otherwise be hard to bring up,” Curry said.
Both Curry and Sadig distinguished how couples perceive the show and how single individuals engage with it: Curry sees single people as viewing the show more optimistically, but Sadig said single people are wary of the nature of these TV relationships.
“Single folks look at it as almost a precautionary tale, whereas couples are putting themselves in the shoes of characters and thinking, ‘What would I do if I was in this situation?’ [They are] talking about it with their partner while live-watching, which is something that’s unique,” Sadig said.
A few undergraduate students expressed the latter perspective on how the show portrays relationships. One word in particular has been circulating Reddit threads and was mentioned by several students: “toxic.”
“Even though it’s all about relationships, it doesn’t portray anything healthy about them. Barely any of the couples are still together, and they were all pretty toxic,” Santamaria said.
Despite never watching the show himself, Luke Scripps, a sophomore majoring in journalism, has seen edits of contestants through Instagram Reels. He comments on the broader marketing motives behind reality TV.
“There’s an incentive for them to have drama, and that’s what brings viewers back. The producers of the show probably love to see people fight and argue and if cheating goes on, too. Those are all things that bring in viewers,” Scripps said.
As Blankenhorn notes, the prospect of voting off islanders, coupling up while talking to other islanders, adding “bombshells” — new islanders that arrive at the villa to incite drama — and winning a final cash prize all dilute the authenticity in the relationships being explored.
“These are people that you’re getting a glimpse into. Even though it’s not real because TV is manufactured, it’s a form of content to watch, and it’s extra dramatic,” said Kathleen Luo, a graduate student in applied data science. “As long as everyone in the room isn’t taking it too seriously or makes real, genuine and lasting opinions on these people, I think it’s a really fun activity to be rage-baited by content and discuss it.”
Ironically, many online users tend to believe that the content of reality television is fictionalized. Even so, the last season confronted many serious social topics.
Two islanders were kicked out due to prior racist social media posts, and another was scrutinized for his right-wing political beliefs. Further speculation about one islander’s pro-Israel stance on Israel’s war in Gaza sprang to light alongside a bubbling discourse involving the breakup of season six winners, Jana Craig and Kenny Rodriguez. Rodriguez was rumored to have made racist comments targeting Black people.
“Shows like ‘Love Island’ reach such a massive audience that I would honestly be surprised if [cases such as that] didn’t happen. Cancel culture is very prevalent, especially in things as widely broadcasted as [the show]. With such a large audience, you have to reflect the values and the beliefs of the people that consume it,” Scripps said.
Luo said the idea of “cancel culture” is, to an extent, valid because it teaches people to be more aware of what they post. Although she has not watched “Love Island USA” herself, she has seen clips of the biggest controversies from the latest season online.
“Our generation is very in tune with whether or not people mean it when they apologize for things. I feel like that’s one of the reasons that cancel culture is so hard to get out of because apologies pretty much never suffice anymore,” Luo said.
As Luo highlights, it is hard to separate forms of entertainment from broader social problems. The prospect that this show has worldly implications can be startling, as reality TV is often satirized — why is it not just a show about conventionally attractive, young people?
“I love what it’s doing in terms of forcing people to have serious conversations about the role of reality TV in our culture. I’m not watching it because I like the characters or the cast members or because I like what they’re doing. I’m watching it with a critical lens of everything that’s going on, and I think it’s a good representation of the social dynamics that happen at large when it comes to dating in the U.S.,” Sadig said.
The last episode of the most recent season was released July 13, but the show continues to have an impact months after.
“Just the other day, I was sending my friend a post [about ‘Love Island USA’ Season 7 contestants],” said Tarini Swaroop, a freshman majoring in cognitive science. “You do keep talking about it, because in the media, they keep posting it, and the cast is still meeting up and hanging out, and that creates speculation because people love to over-analyze everything on the internet, and then from that, it just creates conversation.”
Hypothesizing how long the relationships will last outside the villa is one way the show stays relevant. As hashtags of couple ship names circulate, such as “#nicolandria,” social media continues to engage audiences.
“Folks keep saying, ‘I’m so done with this show, I don’t want to hear about these couples anymore.’ But just by saying that, they’re bringing the show back up, right? … Where are they now, and are they still together? Who’s cheating on who? Is ‘#nicolandria’ real? These conversations are ongoing,” Sadig said.
Regardless of one’s feelings toward the show, many young audiences continue to be invested in the content produced. In a time fraught with shocking headlines and constant strife, this form of entertainment may seem silly, or it may seem necessary, offering a mechanism of escape.
