On the surface, there wasn’t anything particularly different about this season of Love Island USA.
It’s another hot idiot parade. The villa is the same, overly lit and filled with dumb neon signs, looking like it was exclusively decorated by Target (the contestants are still obliged to call it beautiful as they enter, leaving audiences wondering if they are told by producers to do so). There is the same introduction of personalities that at first seem complex and different, only for everyone to fall into a high school trance once they start vying to be chosen. There is the same suspension of any kind of reality for the most part, in which the contestants rarely discuss the real-world implications of their lives, such as their jobs and living situations.
But this summer saw Love Island USA truly take off, breaking ratings records and storming social media (new viewers reportedly made up 39% of the season 7 audience). Peacock, the NBC-owned streamer, boasted that the show was the most talked about TV event of the season with 623m video views on TikTok. Yet in the UK, the original has been struggling, with ratings lows. Perhaps it’s down to fatigue, with the show having been around almost twice as long overseas. At the same time the US equivalent has been boosted by an overall rise in interest for live event TV (the past year has also seen awards shows receive an uplift in viewers) and the past weeks have seen Love Island watch parties crop up in bars across the country. But why now?
It has all of the same horny plot twists we expect, but this season somehow grew a heart. The antics are still as naughty, but the sexy singles of the villa are honest about what they want (at least until they start coupling up). And what they want is genuine intimacy fueled by emotional vulnerability and availability. People seem to be actually looking for real love, long-term commitment, seeking people with real partner potential, and even discussing having children in a deep way. Add on the complexity of one of the contestants Huda having a daughter, and the fearful way she navigates the topic, and you have people being real for once on a very unreal show.
Part of the allure of this season is that gen Z has finally taken the torch of what millennials started (and I say that as a very exhausted millennial). These contestants are fluent in gen Z-speak. They say “dead ass”, “type shit”, “be so for real”, “hits different”, and “tea” as if no one didn’t ever know what those words meant. They are covered in tattoos and piercings, and no one bats an eye. These people grew up with social media, and it shows – and somehow, instead of being entirely off-putting, it’s more relatable than the millennials who came before them, who were constantly angling for the camera’s attention while overthinking how they were coming off in the public eye. There’s an effortlessness of this new young generation who came of age so filmed by their own phone cameras that they don’t seem as concerned with the production crew’s POV, or even the fact that they’re being watched. The ennui and cultural frustration of millennials is eclipsed by gen Z women who don’t feel the need to go so high glam with their style, and men who are excited to talk about their feelings. It’s a refreshing energy.
It all translates into a collective self-awareness that while they could become famous just by being there, and especially by staying on as long as possible, showing any interest in that is off-putting and will get them kicked off and also disowned by the public. This is probably informed by watching online backlash against other reality dating show contestants in the last few years who were exposed for being there just for fame, but also feels like a generational shift. This generation is also far more mental-health aware, and watched as the early seasons of the UK show were tragically plagued by suicide and mental health crises, and it has helped to create islanders who avoid the pitfalls that they can trip into in approaching the game for fame or by being emotionally ugly (getting cliquey, being blatantly disloyal, trying to pull focus, being overtly manipulative). They have become smarter about how they come off on camera by not playing into it at all. Authenticity is king in this generation. No one is pretending to be smarter or hotter than they are. And they don’t necessarily seem to be comparing themselves to one another, more just not wanting to feel rejected. It helps that the format of Love Island is almostreal-time, with just a 24-48 hour delay from filming to air. It reduces the noxious vibes of over-produced reality TV that everyone at this point knows is anything but real.
This season has also seen some controversy with contestants being kicked off. Yulissa Escobar was axed unceremoniously in the first week after an old podcast episode resurfaced in which she had used the N-word. She apologized for the comment on her social media accounts, but also critiqued the online backlash against her as “cancel culture”. Cierra Ortega left last week with narrator Ian Sterling saying she “left the villa due to a personal situation”, after two social media posts circulated in which she’d used a slur against people of Asian dissent. As opposed to Escobar, Ortega has apologized profusely, with her family even putting out a statement before she returned home about the harm they were afraid the mass, vocal backlash against their daughter could cause to her mental health.
As the season comes to a close this weekend, producers were also reportedly upset with OG islander Huda, who is in the finale to potentially win the prize, for posting a TikTok lip-syncing to a Elijah The Boy’s Over You, for a portion that includes the N-word. She will apparently not be kicked off ahead of the finale, but was pulled aside by producers and admonished and asked not to cause any more controversy for the brand or herself. The lack of self-awareness certainly has a downside for these gen Z’ers who have lived their youths sometimes regrettably too online. But at the same time, it’s part of what stokes viewers. With the rise of shows like The Traitors, also reaching a record audience in the US, it seems people are wanting a return to a messier brand of reality TV.
Where does the present-day Love Island obsession come from? Is it just wanting to get away from the crushing reality of the geopolitical climate? There’s no longer a layer of disdain for young TV dummies grinding on each other just to get internet famous. Love Island isn’t just a guilty pleasure or a hate watch anymore. Now we are rooting for them. We want them to win. We wish we could be them, or be there for them. When they say they’re there for “girls girls and soul connections”, we believe them. A day after talking about how the show was a salve for our chaotic times with a friend, I saw a meme of the 2023 Barbenheimer summer box office moment, with an image of Margot Robbie’s Barbie looking out over Barbieland next to an image of Cillian Murphy’s Oppenheimer looking out over am atomic wasteland with the text overlay “Watching Love Island while simultaneously watching WWIII start.” It’s how we all feel, like a meme of the world wrapped into a person who just wants to live.
The biggest appeal of Love Island has always been the quickness with which these people will couple up and catch feelings for each other after mere hours together, and then turn around and transmute that into the same thing with someone new whom they just met. There’s something wildly delulu about it, but also kind of how we all want to be loved – for it to be instant. For someone to pick us. For someone not to want to take it too slow. For someone to make us feel easily chosen for the long haul. The bonding exists entirely in this neon, sexed up faux paradise where the pressures of the real world don’t exist (what we all wish we could return to). It’s a sleepaway camp for adults with the promise of global attention, and the joint potential for a soul mate and a cash prize. Take that original recipe and add in this new gen Z natural charisma and lack of anxiety around being vulnerable, garnish with universal trauma around the state of the world, and you have the perfect storm to lose months of your life watching a single season of this show. Happily ever after for us all.