'Love Island': Paradise or Parasocial Experiment?
By Jordan DelFiugo
There’s something undeniably seductive about Love Island that sets it apart from other reality dating shows. According to Deadline, Love Island USA’s seventh season is already breaking viewership records, surpassing one billion minutes viewed in its first two weeks.
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Unlike Love Is Blind, which brands itself as a social experiment, or shows like Married at First Sight and Are You the One?, which attempt to pair contestants with their “perfect match” based on compatibility tests, Love Island doesn’t promise anything groundbreaking. It doesn’t even promise any kind of real structure. Instead, it offers a far simpler premise: a group of conventionally attractive, bikini-clad singles testing out romantic connections in a beautiful villa in Fiji, with those who have the strongest connection receiving a cash prize.
Perhaps it is this sheer simplicity that makes the show feel almost like a hyperreal simulation, one that fosters intense, often unhealthy relationships, both between fellow islanders within the villa, as well as outside the villa, via the parasocial relationships that develop between viewers and contestants.
Episodes of Love Island air nearly every day (with the exception of Wednesdays and Saturdays), creating a constant cycle of storylines and updates. Even on off-days, the companion talk show Aftersun keeps the discourse alive. Further, even when fans are not currently watching an episode of the show, they stay actively engaged through social media. Currently, there are over 1.1 million posts under #loveisland on TikTok and over 1.2 million on Instagram.
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This constant exposure to the islanders contributes to viewers forming parasocial bonds, where they feel emotionally connected to islanders they don’t actually know. The show capitalizes on this illusion of “knowing” these people with built-in “reality checks”: moments where the cast is briefly reminded of the outside world and how the public is perceiving them. During “Family Night,” a select lucky few of the Islanders are allowed to Skype with loved ones. During the “Twitter Game,” they read viewer commentary about themselves. During “Movie Night,” they’re forced to watch unseen footage, often revealing secrets or betrayals in front of the entire cast.
The result of this is a hybrid of emotional surveillance and psychological manipulation for entertainment. It’s not just the audience watching the contestants; it’s the contestants watching themselves be watched, reacting not just to their own feelings but to how they think they’re being perceived, which is only further complicated by the producers’ manipulation.
Former contestants have spoken out about the show’s toxic behind-the-scenes practices. Leah Kateb, who appeared on Love Island USA’s sixth season, described being bullied by producers, deprived of sleep, and emotionally manipulated for storylines. “I’m exhausted mentally, physically, and spiritually from this entire experience,” she said of her time on the show.
Kateb was not the only islander who was reportedly subjected to mistreatment by producers. In 2023, a group of former contestants filed a lawsuit against Love Island USA producers, alleging mistreatment, abusive conditions, and violations of California labor laws. The complaint also alleged instances of racist behavior from production and accused them of creating a hostile environment to boost ratings.
Even when contestants finally leave the villa and the producers, the mistreatment does not end, as they get their phones back and are immediately subject to public scrutiny.
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This season there have been multiple calls from fans to remove controversial contestant Huda Mustafa, a 24-year-old single mother. Mustafa, who has been in a volatile coupling with Jeremiah Brown, has become a case study in how quickly the parasocial relationship can turn ugly. After a series of emotionally intense arguments between the couple aired, fans online began suspecting Mustafa has borderline personality disorder, calling her an emotional abuser and unfit mother. This kind of baseless speculation is not just unhelpful, it’s dangerous. While I also admittedly find some of Mustafa’s behaviors alarming, relentlessly bullying this young woman and diagnosing her with personality disorders is not a productive solution. Three former Love Island contestants have died by suicide following their time on the show. Thus, it's clear that there needs to be more caution in the way viewers dissect contestants for entertainment. Likewise, there must be greater mental health support for the islanders.
Ultimately, as viewers, we are only watching about five hours of highly edited, manufactured footage per week of a person that is being filmed 24/7, and even the footage we do have access to is still shaped by producers to maximize drama and promote engagement with the show. Even still, the parasocial nature of the show convinces fans that they know these people, deeply and intimately.
With at least six weeks left of the season, there’s still plenty of drama ahead. But as things unfold, it’s worth remembering that while the show isn’t exactly real, the people on it, and what they feel, still are.
