Love Island Explainer Post

 

This is a post for everyone who doesn’t understand Love Island. Because Love Island USA

may be over, but Pure Honey breakdowns? Pure Honey breakdowns are forever.

So what is Love Island exactly? The most popular reality dating show on the market? The reason I have Peacock and am now binging Parks and Rec? A thick dense stew ripe for analysis about dating, gender, and race in America?

Yes. It’s all of those things. 

Love Island is a show in which people live in a villa in Fiji for six weeks, separated from their personal devices, and are filmed 24 hours a day. On the very first night, the islanders are placed in a couple. The couples share a bed in a big room with everyone on the island.

I will admit to being surprised about the non-traditional sleeping arrangements.

I was shocked the first time I saw two people hooking up. I suppose it can’t be helped- I am a prude, through and through. At least I come by it honestly; my mother described the show as “legal whoring.” 

Almost everyone is coupled up at any given time. Being in a couple means that is (theoretically), the main “connection” a person is exploring. That is the person you make breakfast for, and that is the person you sleep with. 

There is no idea that islanders are exclusive within their couple. The format is to get to know as many people as possible at once and then pick whoever suits you best. 

The show shakes things up and makes good TV in many different ways. Firstly, every so often a new “bombshell” will come in. A bombshell is a very hot person who may interest the person in your couple more than you do. If an islander chooses to couple up with a bombshell, or another islander, the person they leave single is left vulnerable. If that person is a producer or audience favorite, they may be saved or have someone brought in especially for them, but typically, they are sent home.

The show’s premise is simple enough. At the end of six weeks, there are four couples left standing.

America votes for its favorite couple, and that couple wins a grand cash prize. 

A grand cash prize of, drumroll please, 100k dollars!!!

Well, no, actually, because the couple has to split the prize. So actually, the grand

cash prize is… 50k dollars!!

Because who wouldn’t take six weeks off from their jobs for the chance of winning 50

whole big ones. I mean, that could buy you what, one whole trailer AND a place to park it?

As is the case with pretty much every dating reality show, the point is not to “win” or find love. The point is to make good TV and earn fame and sponsorships, all while convincingly seeming like all you are looking for is love. Love Island does a pretty good job of hiding its reason for existence, and not admitting its own conceit, but it fails miserably with the cash prize. There is no monetary incentive for islanders to be in happy, healthy couples, even though that couple would be more likely to win. Because even though “winning” means making it to the show's finale, the 50k prize is peanuts compared to how much a reality TV “villian” could make in followers and sponsorships. Given how popular the show is (one billion views within the first two weeks) they could easily pay more. But they don’t, which reveals to the audience that the point of the show isn’t really winning. 

It follows that in order to talk about the show at all, one must understand that pretty much everyone there wants to get famous. For that purpose, Love Island is a good show to go on. As Game of Roses points out, this past season had a bombshell who only lasted two episodes, yet gained 127k followers almost overnight. 

It follows that social media growth for people who stay on the show and become the main characters is even more staggering. Huda, who became pretty much synonymous with Love Island USA season 7, now has 4.6m followers. She already has a sponsorship running with Huda beauty. Though she didn’t win the show, and didn’t even leave the villa in a couple, she’s certainly made a lot more than 50 thousand dollars. 

 Clearly, it is beneficial to stay on the show, and get as much screentime as possible. But how would an islander go about doing that? Game of Roses is a podcast that reviews reality TV in the context of gameplay. This idea of islanders as “players” and everything they do in the villa being a “play” can help explain the strategies we see on our screens.

As Game of Roses explains it, the average player's strategy on the show is to constantly re-evaluate who their intended audience is at the moment.

The producers are arguably the most important audience for any player, as they in the end are the ones who decide who gets to stay and who gets to go. This choice is not made directly, but typically in the way the re-couplings are structured. Sometimes players who are not picked for a couple are left single, while typically they are dumped. 

Also important to remember that there are many hours of the day the viewer does not see. Many things get manipulated through editing. While editing on reality TV is infamous for crafting a story with heroes and villains, it also serves to hide the actions of the producers. Every day, islanders have one-on-one lunch with the producers, who can also (allegedly) speak to them through hidden speakers in the walls. All of this is edited out and unknown to the average Love Island viewer.

So when you watch the show, you may notice that happy couples will get the boot, while one man couple wrecking balls will get saved, and saved, and saved. That is because the producers, even more so than the couples, are interested in good TV above all else, including love. 

It is important to remember that anything we think happened is a guess. There is no way to know who was truly acting out, versus who was doing what the producers told them. There is no way of knowing how it was edited to look bad, or good, or how many real emotions were involved. SO as we dive into analysis, remember this very important fact: it is all a story we are being told. 

The question then is not; “Why are these people acting like this,” but rather “Why is this the story they think we want to see?” and more importantly, “Were they right?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7TqOWe7mlI