Love Island USA Season 7 is in full swing, and fans are having a field day online as the islanders navigate Casa Amor. Last night, Nic and Olandria were seemingly eliminated until a post-credit cliff hanger showed Nic getting into a car with Olandria. Is Jerimiah driving the car? We’ll see. What really stood out to me in last night’s episode was the cyber bullying warning displayed in the middle of the episode.

Love Island occupies a unique place in the “putting complete strangers in a house” spectrum of reality TV. There is a rudimentary form of a game here, players are competing to win $100,000, giving the show a bit more substance than something like The Real World. However, the “game” doesn’t have much strategy – contestants simply need to couple up and make it to the end of the season where the winner is determined by public vote. Like Big Brother, there are challenges and social relationships to maintain, but unlike Big Brother there is no real consequence for failing a challenge or letting a friendship slip away. Nominally, the “strongest” couple is crowned the winner, but it’s nearly impossible to objectively determine which couple is the strongest. 

Love Island is a bona fide popularity contest. Votes by the American public, or by fellow islanders, to determine who stays and leaves the island hinge on the simple question of “who do you like most” or “who do you like least.” People become vulnerable to elimination when they are single, people often become single when no one on the island likes them romantically. It’s all a game of being liked. 

Contestants this season have been highly criticized and scrutinized online. Huda and Jermiah’s relationship received a lot of backlash for being “fake.” Ace has been blasted for his perceived jealousy and his role in eliminating Jerimiah. New islander Vanna has had her appearance disparaged across the internet. It’s important to note that the Islanders are completely shielded from this during their time on the show, their access to the outside world is highly restricted. The contestants only get a sense of what the viewers are thinking when the producers leave matters to a public vote, often leading the islanders to speculate on what America is seeing that they are not. 

The producers’ choice to display the cyber bullying message was necessary, but these same producers are creating a fertile environment for this cyber bullying to take place. Obviously, by signing up for these reality shows contestants know that they are opening their lives to the public. Part of the allure of going on these shows is the potential for fame, enhanced by the social media age where simply being famous can become a lucrative career. At the same time, no one expects to be hated, having every little off hand comment or flaw in their appearance used against them. Inherent in a popularity contest is the reality that someone is the least popular. Like high school social dynamics, the least popular people are often maligned and ridiculed, a classic display of group psychology.

Further complicating the popularity contest is the fact that the American public only gets to see what the producers want us to see. This is a well-known fact about reality television, but it becomes especially problematic in a contest crowning the most popular couple as the winner. In a reality show like Survivor, there are some built in protections for those who are not popular. Winning a challenge generally guarantees some safety. Love Island does not have these protections. There are no games to win, and Islanders can be voted off at any time by the public or by their fellow islanders. The sort of group think that occurs among the fans of the show often leads to the least popular becoming villainized, with harsh calls from the public online for them to be eliminated for their perceived flaws. Some fans have pointed out that the producers have seemingly edited certain interactions with Huda in a negative light, fueling the hate online. It seems disingenuous to then ask fans to stop the hate despite giving the fans ample fuel to do so.

Last night also showed us that the producers will save islanders from elimination if they feel they are popular. Nic and Olandria were two of the most popular islanders who were seemingly saved because the producers felt they were too popular to go home. With a prize of $100,000 at stake, it feels like somewhat of a disservice to the Islanders who have made it this far. Does this make for entertaining television? Of course. But it begs the question of why there is even a prize if the game is fixed from the start.

These thoughts are not groundbreaking or new, these have long been complaints of reality television. But Love Island feels like the synthesization of all the reality tv that came before it to make the purest form of popularity appealing to our voyeuristic tendencies. The contestants of Love Island season 6 appear to have made entire careers for themselves based on the popularity of the season, perhaps that is the true prize, fame on the other side. 

One thing is for sure, the Love Island formula has worked on me, and I will continue to watch until a winner is crowned. These shows work for a reason, they appeal to our desire to be liked and find comradery in a group. I’m just as easily drawn to these things as anyone else. But last night’s episode had me take a step back to think for a while about what I was actually watching.