Pop Culture Happy Hour - Love Island

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

Love Island USA is pure chaos, and admittedly: we love it. It's one of many spinoffs of the long-running British hit series, Love Island — and it might be the closest thing we've got to a watercooler event. The latest season of Peacock's knowingly trashy reality dating show has fired up the group chats thanks to this messy batch of conventionally sexy singles. Sometimes, for better or worse, fans even get to stir the pot and decide who stays or goes. To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

The monoculture no longer exists, but this summer, Love Island might be the closest thing we've got to a water cooler event. It's pure chaos, and admittedly, we kind of love it. The latest season of the knowingly trashy reality dating series has fired up the group chats thanks to this messy badge of conventionally sexy singles. Sometimes, for better or worse, fans even get to stir the pot and decide who stays or goes. I'm Aisha Harris, and Buckle Up Babes. Today, we're open to exploring Love Island on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. Join me today is B.A. Parker.

She's one of the hosts of NPR's Code Switch podcast. Hello, Parker. Hello. Also with us is Ronald Young Jr. He's the host of the film and television review podcast leaving the theater. Hello to you too, Ronald. You know, I'm looking forward to exploring this connection, Aisha. Aren't we all?

Aren't we all? And rounding out of the panel is culture writer and critics, Shemira Ibrahim. Hello, Shamira. Aisha, you know, we've known each other for so long. Are you ready to close this off yet or no? I don't know, Shamira. Do you have pancakes ready for me? I expect some pancakes at the end of this recording.

Freshly made. Duly noted. Shaped of a letter A. Oh, man. Okay. So, yes, Love Island USA is one of many spin-offs of the long-running British hit Love Island. A crop of hot men and women are thrown into a villa in a tropical locale to compete for each other's affections via highly convoluted games and scenarios. Everyone's in a while new hot singles

known as bombshells are also thrown into the mix. The ostensible goal here is to quote unquote find love, but there's also a cash prize at the end for the last couple standing because, of course, they're games. You've got to have some games in here. Now what makes Love Island different from other reality dating shows is that it airs six days a week for several weeks and viewers experience it in realish time, Big Brother style. There's just a mere one to two-day delay between the taping and airing of new episodes. In fact, some folks are currently still on that island, making out probably, right now as I speak on this Monday afternoon.

Love Island USA is streaming on Peacock and the finale drops Sunday. So, Rodan, I'm actually going to start with you. I know that you are a huge fan, but tell me, like, what is it about this show and this season in particular that has got you, like, hyped. Why are you loving Love Island? I've only watched one other season of Love Island, and it was of the original recipe, the British one. This one in particular, I sensed people around me gearing up and being excited about it. And I was just like, I haven't watched a season of Love Island USA. Let me just jump in on this one. And from the first episode, I don't know if it's this cast, or I don't know if it's the discourse or probably some

combination of both, but I'm hooked. It is peak trash reality television. And if that is your jam, then you probably should be watching this show. You should have FOMO. Yeah, yeah. It's unlike anything I've ever seen. And I'm sure we'll get into some of the reasons why this season in particular has been very, very messy. For me, at least, the sheer amount of episodes was what originally turned me out, because I did try to watch the first season of Love Island USA back in 2019. And I tapped out because I was like, I can't keep up with this. But, oh, man, as I've been watching this for this, I have been hooked. I will admit it.

Parker, I am so curious because I know you have a lot of thoughts on reality TV and reality dating shows. You've talked about it on Code Switch and elsewhere. So what is it about this season and just Love Island in general that you are just really, really into? I mean, it quenches a thirst for messiness that I'm not going to get anywhere. else. Like, not since, like, F-Boy Island. Have I truly felt, like, being satiated in my, like, thirst for mess? I started watching with season six, like, a lot of people in an episode for Code Switch about the first Asian bachelorette that was happening in 2024 and how people of colors seem to have, like, poor time on these shows. And it felt like season six of Love Island was

kind of like a solution for that. And then I'm coming into season seven, like, maybe. not. Like, people of color. And it is a very diverse cast. This is, like, spoiler alert. A huge crop of white people got sent home, like, last week. Yes. So, like, as a good, from a diverse standpoint, it feels an appetite.

But, like, the way that cultural relations are handed on there are done poorly. So you're just, you're, like, watching. It's like, I don't know, you're, like, having a magnifying glass on a bunch of ants in Fiji is what feels like what's happening right now. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a great, great descriptor. I was actually quite shocked at how many black women there are on the show because, as I've said, I've watched a lot of reality dating. And usually there's one or two and then you might have like an ethnically ambiguous person on there. But like two dark skin women from the beginning and who as of this recording are still both there is kind of shocking.

Wild. Unheard of. Shocking to me. Yeah, yeah. So definitely feels like a different type of show. But Shamiric, please tell us. What are you taking from this season so far? One thing that I really get away from the franchise in general is just how different iterations of the franchise really reflect the social realities of each locale, right?

Like, when I first got into UK, I was so enamored by how much of it was consumed in the idea of self-concept, right? Like how you want to present yourself, how British-coded kind of levels of hierarchy make it very clear when someone is trying to be posh, but it's actually a roadman or actually. actually from Essex or, you know, all these things that aren't explicitly clear to me as a non-Brit, I found it fascinating to, like, actually watch tease out on a trashy reality show. You know, I'm more Bachelor in Paradise, not Bachelor of Traditional recipe. It's perfect for me, right? Coming to the U.S., I think that racial switch that we've all been alluding to becomes much more explicit, right?

And all of the years of Love Island, they've always been a multicultural, you know, cast. but there has been an increasing kind of perception that if you're a black cast member on Love Island original recipe, you have no shot. It's basically a humiliation ritual for you. They'll just throw up people who pretend to be interested in you, but there's no bombshell that's actually looking for you, right? You are always a conservation prize. In the U.S., that's very much different, right? Like, it still sticks to like the precepts of racial hierarchy and romance fantasy, but we're allowed to look at black women as desirable on the show, right? And I think season six led to an explosion in that respect because we got to see a black love story.

And people were hoping to see that again this season. And I think results have been mixed at best. Boo. Shelly. Okay. Well, let's talk. Let's talk about that. I would just like to note that I did not down my Black Kings.

It was not me. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I mean, we won't go through every single couple. But I feel like two of the biggest couples that have caused the most drama have been Shelly and Ace. And then there's the love triangle. You have originally it was Taylor and Alandria and now you have Taylor and Clark. And these are all black people who have some of them have been at times linked up with other people.

But it's just so interesting to me because, oh man, Ace is a menace. He's 22. I got to remember he's 22. Get him out of here. Get him out of here, Parker. Yeah. Okay, fine. He's 22.

But like, it's so interesting to me to watch Ace and the way he's moved throughout this entire season. He's like the pretty boy. He's the one that in the very early parts of the season, all the women seem to be drawn to him. And I found it interesting because, like, he is, as they've called him, a short king. Although he's not that. I think he's like, he says he's 5'10. That's a lie. That's a lie.

That's a lie. I mean, he is 5'10. As journalists, we have an ethical responsibility. Thank you. But it's the reasonable assumptions of the truth. Thank you. Thank you. I said he says.

I don't think he's even 5-10 with Tibbs are. No. Absolutely not. He is the type of guy who I look at him and I'm like, oh, you are trouble. You have your name tattooed in large letters on the back of your body. And on top of that, his whole thing with Huda, Huda, Kudokudah Shida, and Jeremiah. And this is what I found really fascinating. And what I always find really fascinating about these reality shows is the way there's the racial component, but then there's also just like this, if it's a straight show or a show where the couples are ostensibly going to be hetero pairings, is that like there's all this masculine, feminine, old school way of looking at things.

And the way Ace was so upset with Jeremiah for linking up with Hoodah so quickly and was trying to do this whole brocode thing. Like it was very, very strange. I was like, first you're saying Jeremiah did it too quickly, but like at some point you're supposed to link off with people. What do we think of that whole dynamic? I need to hear how people perceived that because I thought it was just out of control. I mean, it's also why there's been like a dissatisfaction with this season is because there's been such a delay in like real established couples because there was this kind of jealousy and manipulation, frankly. of getting rid of the competition. No one ever talks about this $100,000 at the end.

I think the rule is one person in the couple gets the money and can decide whether to keep it all to themselves or split it in half. So essentially you have a bunch of half-necked people performing the Stanford Prison Experiment on each other for after taxes, hopefully 30K. Yeah. So it doesn't make sense.

But, yeah, like, A-C needed to, like, focus on his own home and not, like, worry about what Jeremiah, as beautiful self was doing. I think that that was an example of poor production. We know that a lot of these shows are highly produced. We know that the producers are involved. Or at least we can surmise that from any of our past interactions with reality television, even if we do not have that on a factual basis.

And to me, letting Jeremiah leave when you had something like this brewing between Ace and Jeremiah was a mistake in production for me. And you also tilted the whole slant of the show to be. towards doing things the right way when Love Island in the season that I've seen before is about doing things the wrong way. It's about doing things. It's about chaos. Yes, it's about that.

And so for him to even introduce the term love bombing, which is being inaccurately depicted in this show, which I think is a very serious accusation, and the ways in which he's speaking to people, calling himself a leader, calling out his height, going at people saying that he did it right, all of that. And it feels completely unchecked.

It's wild. What is the opposition to Ace? That's what you should have put in the house or left in the house, in my opinion. My thought about this is, I think it's connected to two things. One is the gamification of reality TV that ACE has kind of come out of, right? By that I mean that ACE is someone as a personality who was clearly going to end up on reality TV one way or the other. This is a man who prior to this was going viral on TikTok for teaching Pakistani people dances,

right? Like, you can look it up. I should not do that. Right. Yes. Literally giving instructions on how to do like common TikTok. trends, right? I'm unclear if that's what he means by he has a dance company, by the way. Neither here nor there.

If you think about how he approaches the game, though, it's very much reminiscent of like Real World Road Rules Challenge, it's very reminiscent of Big Brother logic, very reminiscent of even Survivor, right? I have to establish fealty to me, I have to start to create camps. We all vote in coalitions. These are common tactics in gamesmanship. The thing about Leavisland, though, is that it's supposed to sell a veneer of a fantasy. Now, do we know that we're in late stage capitalism reality TV and that most people are trying to get their followings for brand deals? And most these couples don't actually succeed to the point that the few very successful ones become huge icons. Yes.

Right? That said, I think that in that kind of nuance scene of how to work my self-concept into this image, they've forgotten to abandon that. You're supposed to pretend to actually want to get to know people, right? You're supposed to pretend to actually like people. Part of me also wonders, by the way, if it's in part a generational thing, right? I hate to do a lot of, I look at young people online and therefore it's representative of a whole generation. But there is something to the fact that there seems to be a repudiation of the idea of hookup culture, right? And I think that kind of manifests in how a show like Love Island, which essentially thrives off of hookup culture, like can be realized, right?

If there's arguments over whether it's irresponsible to be casual with dating and going around, and searching and whether or not that's responsible or healthy, and it's the same people who are voting, that level of self-awareness or self-consciousness that comes into those choices you make and how casual or cavalier you may have been about it, say, five years ago versus now for the same voting audience is going to ship a little bit as well. I did see, like, there was like a tweet. There's like a large portion of the people on this island right now were COVID teens in lockdown.

Yes. And now they're on the island. Exactly. That explains a lot. It does explain a lot. Like there are certain views of women that feel regressive that, you know, comparatively to last year where the women were like, they were the ones that like elevated the show. You had Leah, Serena and Janay, this coalition of women who kind of like elevated the show. And like right now there's like there's a shining light who is like Amaya who is this, you know, sweet, you know, Dominican nurse.

And you can see like once it was revealed. that like she was beloved by audiences, men started to clamor towards her. Like, she was the prize. Yeah. Which is icky because you could see like the money rolling in their brains. I was like, oh, no. Yeah. Well, I mean, that is something, another point I wanted to get to,

which is this idea of like America becoming a character in this entire season. Because once that aspect of it is introduced to the show, it becomes more than just, okay, trying to attach yourself and maybe be, presumably trying to find love, but also trying to endear yourself to the American public who is voting. And I found it so fascinating the way that like that especially kind of broke up the Jeremiah Hoodah situation and the fact that like everyone in the show started saying, well, don't you realize like this is the sign that America sees something you don't about your relationship. And I'm just like the peer pressure and the level of like just having a devil on your

shoulder and an angel on the other, but like, it's mostly just the devil who's talking to you. And how quickly people can change all of a sudden switch up. And again, this is like both the contestants and America, America in air quotes. But like, it's just fascinating to me how the scales can shift and tilt so quickly and how the producers kind of respond to that in a way. I find it very fascinating the way the outside world doesn't really trickle into the show. in any, like, obvious ways other than people getting kicked off, specifically about the way they're not really addressing political issues. I'm thinking about how Sierra, who we've already mentioned, left the show

due to a quote-unquote personal situation, which the producers have not said straight out. This is why. But apparently, we found out that there were Instagram posts from on social media where she had used a racial slur. The same thing happens with Yolissa, who also left the villa and, like, after the first or second episode. Cast a name Vitten. Yeah, I mean, clips of her on a podcast, no less, like a public thing of Ulyssa using the N-word.

And so she left. So the way this works is the narrator, Ian Sterling, kind of comes in and he just says, Sierra left for a personal situation. Just skates by it. And how does that affect your viewing of the show when we know all the politics are happening and the audience is responding to these politics and pulling out these things from social media? And clearly it's affecting the show, but the show refuses. to address it. I feel like the impact of the world and outside of the house, outside of the villa,

on the villa, I think that's the best of reality television, is to acknowledge that there is a world happening out there and it's affecting the world here. And when it comes to them making mistakes and getting kicked off, I don't know if they're handling it great if it's something that's going to impact Love Island, like i.e., Nick is now single, and we have to deal with that. But obviously he said, obviously there was probably a tearful departure and you put none of that into the show.

Because Alangia is right there. So you're a Nicholandria stand? Not the Nicania. Conspiracies already. We had to have one stand out of the four of us. No, I will say, like, the social media aspect of the show that creates that level of dramatic irony

where the audience is more informed than the participants, I find interesting, but what happens is like my TikTok for you page is giving me like all of this like Nicolandria, which is for Nick and Alandria, who are two separate cast members who were in separate couples and had really nothing to do with each other. But certain factions of American viewing an audience were like, we want them together. Well, don't forget that Nick kissed Alandria without her. In the blindfold test.

In the blindfold early on. I'm aware. I'm aware. I'm aware. I'm aware. I'm aware. Yes. But like, we also have like this side.

story that like audiences can create for themselves, which healthy or not, who's to say? It's like when you watch baseball and you're not really there for like the play-by-play, you're there for like the overarching narrative that is happening along the way. And so that I find interesting. I do find that the insertion of America as kind of the proxy for the fourth wall is compelling and also just reflective of our current time. Right. Now you have streamers who say stuff like chat, how do you think?

feel about this, and they're getting real-like feedback? This is an accelerated version of that, right? It's even an accelerated version of the existing model with something like reality TV. As most of us are housewives, connoisseurs, you know a season when you watch someone who thinks they're going to be the champion of the season and don't realize until the reunion or until it's playing in full that the audience is just actually not receptive to the plot that they marked out for themselves, right? And to watch people's brains break in real time while a little masochistic, I would argue,

is genuinely engaging. Like watching Ace slowly have to make his way down to the end because he was so convinced he was the most liked, viewed as the most genuine, only to find out he's actually near or at the bottom every single time is what I think is the magic that makes reality on TV. Like how do you see yourself? How do we see you?

What is the gap in between all of that? I think the problem comes where audiences get a little bit too self-aware as well, right? So, like, as the contestants are getting self-aware, so are we. So people are looking for authenticity and a highly curated experience. That's how someone like Amaya becomes popular. It allows for, like, the audience to feel like they have, like, participated in, like, their enrichment. Yeah.

Which is double-ed short, though, because then they feel overly invested. And that's when you have, like, racist threats to, like, Shelley and Delandria that they don't know about because they're in a villa. Well, that was another thing I wanted to bring up, which. which was the way that the show handles the harassment from the outside, the social media world, that is being delivered upon the cast members. And like in the middle of one episode, they cut to a commercial or they end it. And there's a whole silent worded message. It's like, Love Island, we love our fans, but also we don't love you harassing.

So they're very explicit. They're like acknowledging the outside world in that way. But then when a cast member leaves because they may or may not have said something racist or they leave maybe because they said something racist, they don't address that. And I think it's both not surprising because reality TV rarely ever, you always have to go to like the subtext or like you for that kind of stuff. The racism never actually fully appears in the way that I think, you know,

we'd like them to show themselves or like gets addressed in the way that we'd like them to show themselves. It's very rarely like rural season one in New York. Like we really have those kind of conversations. On the street have like a full blown. Come to blow. Let's talk about it. Yeah, that's not what's happening.

And I think the closest of the show has come to sort of acknowledging something along that lines is with Amaya and the way that Ace got really upset at her for calling him Babe, even though we all know she calls every single person, Babe. Right. I usually make up a nickname for them, like my own personal nickname. Yeah. Or Babe. Oh. Even Babe is like a lot for me, too. And I notice you like to say that.

Oh, my God. It is. I'm going to stop calling you, babe. Damn. If she calls you babe, that probably doesn't mean anything. But he was like, I'm putting up my boundaries. But then Brian shows up as one of the bombshells later on. It gets brought up again.

And Brian's like, this is a cultural different. Like, this is the way, like, Dominican people speak. And so you need to give her grace. And I thought that was, like, the closest it came to sort of acknowledging these cultural differences in a very explicit way. And I thought Brian handled it well. Right. And I was also very... That's how he got into a new couple,

with Amaya. Yeah. But isn't Brian older than like, I imagine he's not 22 because I think part of somebody mentioned that ACE is 22 years old. Yeah. And when you put it through that lens, everything that he's saying, because I'm thinking about what I said at 22. At 22, I thought I knew it.

I was a senior in college. Like I'm like, I know everything. I'm smarter than the people that are doing the thing out there. There's only a little bit more I need to learn and I'm going to be on top of the world. If you would have given me a million followers on Instagram and a national platform, I'm might be behaving the same way that he is in a lot of ways. Yeah, I think for better or worse, it's a reflection of how people engage on the internet today.

I find the conversations that do touch on what we're talking about to exist just coded, right? Like you mentioned about how Alangier backed off. There was also a separate incident where, you know, Huda, like, admits that she crashed out. And then, you know, Alonji is like, well, I would never do that, right? And the subtext there is that she's not allowed to do that, right? You know? Or even when, like, Shelley and Alonjiar are in. like circular conversations around girls, girls. It really sounds asinine because, one, you're on reality

television. But what they're really trying to say is that there's a black girl called on how to represent each other on television that they have a social contract on that the other women don't understand, right? And are trying to meet and not and not equilating to, right? Or making an equivalence on. I think you see that a lot, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's such a good point because I did also notice the way all of the black women move in this season, even when, you know, And Andrea and Clark, who are in the middle of his triangle with Taylor, who, I don't understand the attraction to him, but whatever, that is my thing. There's one TikTok of him strolling as an alpha that people have clung on to for seven days.

That makes sense. Of course, he was in alpha. That's right. I thought Sigma. I was actually thinking Sigma too, but, yeah. But, like, even the way that Clark and Alandria really handled themselves is that, like, on a different show, they might be going at it all the time. there could be catfights and whatever.

And instead, they're just like, they acknowledge each other, but I think they're very aware that they do not want, well, one, they're like, yes, we're competing for those man's affections, but we don't want that to, like, be the main thing. And then also, I think they are aware of what it would look like if two black women start going at each other. Like, they're very respectful anytime they acknowledge each other. Especially two black women with different shades. That's also substantive conversation.

Exactly. I just appreciate that we can watch a show with this big. any black people that I can root against some of the black people. Because typically, like, there's one black person. I'd be like, even if they're a jerk, I'm like, I'm rooting for the black person because there's only one. I don't know. Whereas now I'm like, oh, I can openly and actively hate both A's and Taylor because

there's plenty of other black folks to root for up a show. It's like, I went Taylor out of my villa. Yeah. Listen, Jeremiah got a book club going on. You know, I have to support the brother who's out here reading. You know? I'm shameless. really rooting for Brian and Amaya for no other reason other than the Bronx Dominican parade

is coming up and if they get to return to that reception in New York, baby, I will be up there. Huda and Chris all day, baby. Huda and Chris. What? Whatta and Chris? Yeah, sorry. Interesting. I don't like anyone else.

Huda ain't getting my $100,000. She ain't getting my money. Better have it. Parker, who are you reading for, if anyone? I mean, I'm rooting for Brian and Amaya. Well, we want to know what you. think about Love Island, who you're rooting for, who you're sad left. Find us at Facebook.com slash BCH. That brings us to the end of our show, B.A. Parker, Ronald Young Jr., Shemira

Ibrahim. Where are my pancakes? Y'all, where are they? It's okay. I got there for you tomorrow. You are dumped from the island. Oh, thank you for being here, even without the pancakes. Thank you. Also, sharp left turn here. This Sunday in our podcast, We're going to have another monthly bonus episode for our Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus supporters. Instead of being on the Island of Love, Stephen and I are going to be talking about the movies that landed at the bottom of our Pixar poll, which included a film that received zero votes. Zero, zilch, nada. No one voted for it. Oh, poor movie.

We have thoughts on thoughts, on thoughts about that. And you can sign up for Popculture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org slash happy. and we'll also have a link to that in our episode description. This episode was produced by Mike Katzv and edited by our showrunner Jessica Brady. Engineering was performed by Neil Rauch, and Hello, Kamin provides our theme music. Thanks so much for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour

from NPR. I'm Ayesha Harris, and we'll see you all next time.