On Love Island USA, a show purportedly about pursuing heterosexual romance in an obnoxiously-lit villa in Fiji, the two biggest stories this season are not about sordid, spontaneous hookups; devastatingly hot bombshells in skimpy bikinis leaving broken hearts in their wake; or what scandalous behavior the night vision cameras have caught on tape. Instead, it’s an intimate friendship between two men and the girls sticking up for one of their own.
Viewers this season are focused on the depth of Bryce and Zach’s friendship. Some fans believe that the pair’s platonic chemistry is deeper and stronger than any romance Bryce and Zach have found with their female castmates.
Friendship is also top of mind when it comes to the show’s women and how they’re moving through this game. They’ve essentially unionized, as much as any group can on Love Island. They yell “BOOOOOoooOOO!” at the men together. They call out bad behavior. They give each other pep talks — routinely delivering the kind of speech that could empower someone to run through a brick wall. And in the moments when they’re feeling rejected and scorned, they focus their ire on the men who dumped them, not the new women they’ve chosen.
That friendship taking center stage on a famously depraved reality TV dating show feels a little shocking. It’s like serving up BLTs and having everyone rave about the bread — a welcome surprise, but not what we all came here for.
But, to longtime viewers (and at least one psychologist), this turn toward platonic friendships isn’t so much an anomaly but a natural evolution.
The reason Love Island USA is as popular as it is now — and it is very, very popular — is because of how its young, hot cast members have subverted the will of the show. Instead of fighting each other for the attention of the opposite sex, the show’s contestants have decided it’s about the friendships they make along the way — even as they weather “sexy” “games” that might, say, simulate a strip show or require contestants to put on lacy lingerie and chef’s hats and, then, play musical chairs, cheeks bare, rushing to sit on stools that are topped with cakes. The cast is also made to sleep in one large bedroom (with multiple cameras) and share beds — a conceit that’s yielded spicy, shocking content in past iterations.
But no matter how hard the show pushes them toward NSFW (and borderline not safe for life) situations and encourages them to compete for attention, the beautiful Gen Z guinea pigs of Love Island continue to turn the format on its head and play by their own rules. And viewers love seeing powerful friendships unfold. In that sense, this shift away from sex and coupling and toward platonic connections is a direct reflection of a lot of what we know about Gen Z’s dating habits.
Do people really watch Love Island for…friendships?
Three signature Love Island challenges
While every season of Love Island is unique, and the producers continue to find new ways to torture contestants, there are some constants: the challenges. These mini games have no prizes; they are designed to titillate; gyrate; humiliate; and, perhaps, in some cases exfoliate the island’s unlucky inhabitants. Here are three signature ones:
Heart Rate Challenge: The castmates have to perform a strip show wearing very cliche costumes (cops, cowgirls, firepeople, etc.). At the same time, everyone is wearing heart rate monitors. Ideally, couples’ heart rates would be highest when they are with each other, but that’s not always the case.
Gross food spitting: By far the most obscene thing on Love Island is the dreaded food challenge. The food and beverages may change, but the basic idea is that the islanders pass food or liquid to each other mouth-to-mouth with the hope of accumulating the most total volume of spat-up substance. There really is no winning this challenge, because of how nasty it is. It is, I suppose, a test of intimacy.
Pucker or Pie: This one is just mean (but not in a disgusting food regurgitation way). Basically, islanders have to answer a leading question (e.g. Who is the least trustworthy in the villa? Who’s the hottest? Which one is waiting to dump their partner?) and then flip a coin. If it lands on pie, they must smush the person they answered with a pie. If it lands on “pucker,” they have to kiss. The challenge almost always ends in hurt feelings and pie violence.
Love Island premiered in the UK in 2015 with a tantalizing premise: Watch these hot idiots hook up, try to forge a lasting romantic relationship while being periodically tempted to stray by new “bombshells” (cast members), and have an audience choose the most likable couple to reward with $100,000 in the end. Along the way, they will participate in challenges that almost always feature bikinis, lingerie, or underwear; gushing or squirting substances (water, whipped cream, slime); and some kind of make out, mounting, thrusting, or grinding upon the opposite sex. The show airs on Peacock in something close to real time, which keeps the cast in an isolated bubble and allows the audience to directly affect the twists and direction of the show through periodic votes on their favorite and least favorite couples and contestants.
Being hot, having sex, and looking for love on TV isn’t new territory. Shows like Temptation Island (which premiered in 2001 and was recently rebooted) and Bachelor in Paradise are also based on the idea of finding sex and romance on a body of land surrounded by water. Newer franchises like Too Hot to Handle and Perfect Match have expanded and twisted the original Love Island premise into new extremes featuring monetary prizes and an Avengers-like assembly of past contestants.
But Love Island USA has become a sensation, largely because its cast members have rejected the tropes of the genre. It’s not that the contestants aren’t looking for love, but the fact that they’re willing to put friendship on equal footing that makes the show unique.
The most-talked about episode of this season aired on Friday and featured the show’s female cast members circling the wagons around their bestie Aniya and simultaneously laying into her partner KC after he dumped her for a woman he’d just met. Watching her friend get dumped in front of the group, Trinity tells her cast mates that “this dude is crazy.”
Then she he tells him, directly, “You told her you didn’t want to explore…but the moment you get away from her and you can actually do your thing — that gives sneaky.”
Later, when Aniya falls to her knees weeping over the outcome of a dramatic recoupling ceremony, Melanie is there to pick her up. “You’re a f****** grand-ass f****** woman, bro,” Melanie yells atAniya, speaking fire into her veins and creating a speech that’s since gone viral. “You’re not going to act a f****** fool in front of these weird-ass f****** people.”
And while the bromance of Bryce and Zach isn’t playing out exactly like this (it’s far more dopey than fiery), their friendship has arguably become a bigger story than the women these boys are paired with. They talk openly about the girls they like, encourage each other, and are secure enough to compliment each other’s various body parts. (They’re so comfortable, in fact, that some fans can’t believe they aren’t just a little bit attracted to each other).
These friendship-oriented narratives are actually exactly what Love Island USA contestants continue to deliver — and what viewers like to see.
Anna Peele, author of Enter the Villa: The (Unauthorized) Reality Behind Love Island (an encyclopedic guide on the show) explained to me that friendship has been what’s turned the US version of the show into a breakout hit. Peele said that the ratings in season six quadrupled after Rob Rausch rejected his partner Leah Kateb, telling her that their hookups were awkward. “The real winners of the show were the PPG [Power Puff Gang],” Peele said, referring to the friendship alliance between Leah, Serena Page, and JaNa Craig. “[They] supported Leah through the pain of being rejected by a snake wrangler.”
Instead of fighting with each other over men, Leah, Serena, and JaNa subverted Love Island’s format and put each other first. That resonated with the show’s audience, which later crowned Serena and her partner Kordell Beckham as the winners. Peele also said that one of the show’s executive producers told her that Serena’s arc, in which she put equal weight on friends and romance, is a blueprint for winning. Viewers want to see someone who supports their other cast members as much as someone trying to find love.
“Trinity being the fan favorite [to win the entire show this season] also makes complete sense,” Peele told me, pointing to Trinity’s loyalty to the aforementioned Bryce (who seems to be hopelessly in love with her) and her unwavering “girls girl” energy.
What Love Island USA can tell us about Gen Z
If art reflects life, then even a show as heightened and unhinged as Love Island might be able to tell us something about how people, especially young hot ones, approach love. And the way Love Island USA’s contestants behave is in line with many of the things we know about Gen Z’s dating habits.
There’s been study after study, report after report, showing that Gen Z is approaching love differently. They’re stuck in situationships. They’re afraid of rejection. They’re also having less sex. At the same time, experts have told me that research and surveys continue to demonstrate, year in and year out, that Gen Z wants to see social connections on screen more than they do romance.
“What we found is that teens and Gen Z want to see friendships that better reflect their real lives,” Yalda Uhls, a developmental psychologist, told me in an interview about gender dynamics on reality TV earlier this month. Uhls is the founder of UCLA’s Center for Scholars and Storytellers, which studies young people’s relationship to entertainment.
“Relationships where friends who actually communicate, support each other, and work through problems — I feel like TV shows are starting to reflect these things, and it’s happening obviously on reality TV,” she added.
It makes sense that the generation whose initial taste of adulthood was social distancing and pandemic lockdowns would yearn for meaningful social connections, and it follows that the Gen Z contestants on Love Island would reflect this generational shift.
It also helps explain why the show’s younger audience (50 percent of viewers of Season 7 were under 30 according to NBCUniversal) would connect to contestants with storylines that center connection, empathy, and communication, especially in the context of romantic rejection and platonic friendships. Conversely, those tuning into Love Island expecting fast and furious hookups and who are surprised that they’re not happening at a rapid pace might be the older viewers.
That said, Peele explained to me that friendship on Love Island only works when there’s something to push back against. The reason that the bromance between Bryce and Zach works is the same reason that the PPG alliance is as beloved as they are and is the same reason why Trinity is the fan favorite — friends are needed as support for the romantic relationships, especially when they get rocky.
“One thing that strikes me is that ‘Friendship Island’ is usually a pejorative term — it means people are just sitting around and not flirting or hooking up,” Peel said. “It works this season because it’s balanced by a ton of romantic drama.”
But the direction those conflicts take might also be indicative of generational shifts. While the overall earnestness and emotional vulnerability of the male cast members is in line with the fact that a majority of Gen Z guys believe in equality, both KC (Aniya’s ex) and fellow cast member Corbin have been called out by the women on the show and fans for talking about their partners like they’re disposable. Rejection is baked in on Love Island USA, but the men’s tone has an edge of entitlement and misogyny to it this season. (At one point, KC calls Aniya a “grandma” for taking things slow sexually and implies that she’s not sexually attractive to him.) The way some of the male cast members talk and treat women might be a reflection of what studies have found: that Gen Z men tend to have more regressive attitudes toward women and their female partners than generations before them.
Faced with men like this, one can’t help but lean on their friends — especially when you’re all on the same island.
If you're seeking reliable vent solutions, look no further than Mr. Lint Guy. Specializing in dryer vent cleaning, Mr. Lint Guy offers effective solutions to prevent fire hazards and improve dryer efficiency. Whether you're dealing with stubborn dryer valley problems or just need regular maintenance, Mr. Lint Guy has the expertise to keep your home safe and your dryer running at its best.
0 Comments