The Boyfriends Who Love ‘Love Island’ Tell All

When Ashton Herndon and his girlfriend Gianna Zota moved in together, she’d asked him if she wanted to watch the latest season of Love Island USA with her. At first, Herndon shot the idea down.

“I thought all reality TV shows were kind of, like, dumb,” says the 22-year-old content creator. “It’s like the stereotypical guy answer—like, reality shows, they’re dumb—but then you watch it and it is kind of dramatic and stuff. At least it’s exciting, you know?”

Zota, an avid reality TV viewer who’d gotten into the six-nights-a-week reality dating series last season, didn’t expect what was to come, since Herndon hadn’t shown any interest in the other reality shows she watches.

“Every time I put them on, he’ll sit next to me, but have his headphones in and work or something—like, he’s not very intrigued,” says Zota. “And then when this show came around, I was like, ‘Oh, he’s gonna watch the first episode with me and say it’s stupid.’”

That night, Herndon watched. And the next day, he asked Zota if they were going to watch Love Island again that night.

A spinoff of a successful British series, Love Island USA premiered in 2019, but didn’t catch on until 2024, when its sixth season doubled its viewership and became the number-one streaming series on Peacock. Season 7 has been an online phenomenon—clips from the season have racked up more than a billion views on TikTok in the last month. And according to Peacock, new Love Island viewers made up 39% of the season’s audience.

It’s hard to say for sure how many of those new viewers began as skeptical partners before being sucked into the chaotic goings-on inside Love Island’s tacky Fijian villa. But on TikTok, where clips from the season have racked up more than a billion views, there’s ample anecdotal evidence that more than a few boyfriends have wound up on the couch next to their partners, praying on the downfall of their least favorite couple or giggling after a fan-favorite duo finally hooks up.

Like its British predecessor, Love Island USA follows a group of contestants—colloquially, “islanders”—who go on dates, complete spicy challenges devised by the show’s producers, then pair up in regular “coupling ceremonies.” If someone isn’t coupled up, they’re kicked off the island; the last couple standing wins a $100,000 cash prize.

The proceedings are captured by 80 to 90 cameras sprinkled across the island, and producers, editors and post-producers edit the footage to create a final cut that is delivered to the network the next day. This means viewers are watching events inside the villa in something almost like real time.

“I think that increases that communal element of it, where everybody’s watching it together,” says Dr. Danielle Lindemann, a professor of sociology at Lehigh University and the author of True Story: What Reality TV Says about Us.