And We Can’t Even Go to Fiji

I used to think I was above reality television, or rather, I considered it to be something below me. But as an avid people-watcher, reality television has become a new guilty pleasure, and Love Island is like crack. 

My favorite activity, finding my own love, has become too expensive; going out and failed dates rack up a bill, streaming doesn't. My friends seem to be too busy hustling so we have enough money for new-age gambling, so I needed another scoop of dating discourse from somewhere.

And with a summer buzz in the air of a reality television series about love, what else was I to do besides watch?

Beyond the fact that I find it outrageous that I am quickly approaching the ages of the younger Love Island USA contestants with each new year, all I see when I watch this show, especially this year, is a petri dish taken from the dating market; I know because I'm a part of it.

Obvious reasons aside—being Gen-Z, attractive, and someone who could definitely have been a model if I ever just applied—I almost recognized this year’s contestants as kindred spirits. 

It took me embarrassingly long to realize why.  Every one of this year’s Love Island USA contestants reminded me of someone I know. 

Even if I didn’t specifically know a caricature personally (thankfully, a Sincere has not entered my life in any capacity… yet), I definitely knew of someone who was close enough.

I know of someone who can’t embrace their vulnerabilities, or someone for whom communication skills are beyond them, or someone preferring their patterns, or someone who is emotionally immature, someone stuck in toxic masculinity, or someone who people-pleases, or someone who moves blind to consequence, and so on and so on. 

This wasn’t The Kardashians about a family having money and quotable dialogue or the personal lives of rich women from Real Housewives or even, the home renovation and real-estate content of HGTV, a staple of the 2010s. These were dating stories I had heard at some point, whether from my friends or their friends, or a random stranger I struck up a conversation with at a community event.

On the surface, Love Island USA is structured like a game show, rather than just being an excuse to suck up content for clips. Contestants live in an isolated villa where they can establish themselves socially, and to survive to the end, they must continually couple and recouple.

Challenges test each couple's compatibility publicly, and winners receive rewards like dates, or access to special secluded spots. Bombshells join as outsiders trying to disrupt both couples and the existing social hierarchy.

Anyone left single after recouplings is eliminated, and each season culminates with one couple winning $100,000, courtesy of public voting.

Watching this show means watching people lie, cheat, and scam through the motions of love, intimacy, and attraction, while frantically rushing to protect themselves emotionally and strategically, all while putting on a flashy white smile for the cameras.

So much has been said online about the social patterns of the show, especially the gender dynamics and the racial biases, and how they can be extrapolated to the social politics of modern-day dating. In fact, anything that I could add here about it could practically become plagiarism. 

But what I can say, while I still feel like I have an original thought, is that Love Island USA, amidst the catty clapbacks and cathartic releases, is a snapshot of what dating looks like when it decays into itself.

Relationships have become a gig economy, and attention is the currency, valued by perceived authenticity. 

People’s value in the dating scene is constantly reassessed with new people entering “the market”, and people compete not only to win a partner, but to win the social validation that comes with “winning dating”. Swiping on dating apps, which are functionally designed to keep users on the app, has turned romantic pursuit into instantaneous decisions made about supposed romantic compatibility. 

Even if you’ve built a good foundation with someone, there is always the looming threat of someone better—hotter, smarter, funnier, more accomplished—in the form of “the other woman” or a “side piece” who can take away everything you’ve worked so hard for.

And the public voting? We don’t need that. Not when we have likes on soft and hard launches and jealous comments on couples’ content. These habits have turned relationships, both others’ and our own, into products to be consumed. 

People package themselves and their relationships, which they think of as an extension of themselves, as things that can be measured objectively, as if relationships can be understood universally.

The commercialization of romantic life with all of its emotions has become intertwined with market logic. 

And why is that? Because we are scared. So, so scared. Terrified. 

As leisurely pursuits and every form of recreation grows more and more overpriced, every potential chance for love to begin and blossom comes with a higher cost.

Expensive opportunities shrinking the scope of possibilities for love, means the possibilities we do get to have, become increasingly more valuable. And so we hold on for dear life. Until the second things might seem like they go wrong. Then we ghost, we avoid, and we run. 

Anything to keep ourselves from feeling.

That’s why Love Island USA feels so poignant. We see ourselves in the contestants. We see our pain in their struggles, our attachments in them trying to control the situation, our shame in their public humiliations. We write thinkpieces and record monologues about behaviors we have committed ourselves. When no one is watching, we are all the same scared someone.

Someone horrified that all that effort might be for nothing, that all the social alliances we built couldn’t stop unexpected change, that the performance we put on can’t save us.

Love Island USA reminds us of the someone we try to be in dating. 

Confident, attractive, intelligent, charismatic, untouchable. Perfect. But also reminds us of the realities that love doesn’t let us be those things, at least not always. You can’t be all those wonderful qualities when faced with the reality of another person.

Love is restlessly eager. Love is being gentle. Love gets jealous over others trying to get close, and love will make you do stupid things to get their attention, and you will still feel like an idiot for feeling after. Love won’t manipulate, or keep score. Love won’t laugh at your Instagram archive because it holds every record of your truth. Love is the smile when they put their head on your shoulder. 

Love has always been our desperate and messy attempt to be acknowledged and understood so we can share the best and worst parts of ourselves.

Emotion doesn’t function on the economics of attention, and the more we brace ourselves, the more alone we'll be, even in Casa Amor.

I'm over it.

 I don't know if it's scroll fatigue or capitalism fatigue or whatever other fatigue they list in their articles trying to explain why we are all so burnt out. But, spoiler alert: I think it might be the phones.

The weight of constantly carrying my phone has become much more noticeable. I suppose that's why they are trying to make them lighter. I just keep having an exhausting vision of carrying it with me forever, and dreading that future. 

I'm not sure what level of fatigue this is. But I hate it. 

The constant push of AI content, non-stop consumption, and over analyzation of everything has made being online exhausting. I've been online my whole life. In my earliest memories, I can see myself on a computer.  I still remember the internet safety sessions our first week of kindergarten; at home I'd spend time on my family desktop watching YouTube and dreaming about the days I was adult enough to have a phone, not for Facebook or Twitter, but to call my friends, and go to the mall, and be cool the way the older kids were circa early 2010's. When I finally got one, the excitement was invigorating; the world at my fingertips.

I don't want to hold the whole world in my hands anymore. I don't want every app to know me better than I know myself. It is not the same anymore; I'm bored. I long for the lives of rom-com characters in early 2000s movies, and when short-form was normal, not addictive. They don't spend hours glued to their apps; they live in a world much more free than the one I'm in. 

The new world that was birthed by the rise of the internet and social media replaced the mundanity of humanity. This digital-only, tech-forward dream the billionaires and tech bros get wet over isn't new to me. It isn't new to most of Gen-Z. It is stale on arrival. More new phones, more new apps, more and more; while the world rushes to capitalize on it, we just want it all to quiet down. 

Models: Sophia Deaver, Hillary Castillo Marte, Mickey Tegegne Photos By Toni Desiree

To me, this isn't a new way forward; the AI bubble, the Meta glasses, the intense algorithm, all might be "new" but it's the same power, the same fates, just worse. Me on my phone forever, just like elementary school, and middle, and high school. Trapped in the confines of the digital world's whims. The fun is over, it feels like we're stuck.

I've always been in an on-again, off-again relationship with my phone. At 15, I had gotten in the habit of jumping at every snap notification, and after a stint at summer camp with one spot of good wifi, I got good at seeing my phone as a tool, not a crutch. But in the deepest days of quarantine, when all there was to do was scroll, it became clear it was hard to put it down when it was my only real line to the outside world. 

But now, after spending my summer pushing myself out into the world, doing things like going to bar trivia, impromptu dinners with friends, talking to strangers, and putting my phone away in public, the things I found myself in a loop doing - overindulging in TV binging, doomscrolling, and the trend cycles have made the “escape” exhausting. 

Everything is quick and easy; the friction of our lives has been lost to make room for the ease of the digital world, and the upcharge to maintain it has become ridiculous. Netflix (w/o ads) costs $20+, software and gaming that used to be one-time buys rake up lifetime costs, they've stopped making DVDs, and they don't want you sharing or owning any of it, paywalls restrict the internet, and the verification system doesn't even matter anymore, because you can just pay for that too. 

I've found joy in the mundanity. The slow, the simple, some might say outdated things. Picking things up myself instead of having them delivered, getting dinner recipes from cookbooks instead of TikToks, CDs in a CD player, and phone calls on a landline. Keeping my online life at a desktop, not in my pocket.

It felt silly at first, how fun it felt to feel like I exist in the world again. It's weird how warped being online has become, so much so that it's made the thing people have been doing for centuries- going outside- exciting again.

Binge-watching leaves a certain level of post-watch clarity, and taking in too much makes me never want to tune in. I miss the days of new TV, and long seasons and filler episodes; I've exhausted the classics, early 2000's teen dramas can only be good for so long, and crate-digging forgotten TV shows is becoming increasingly difficult on traditional platforms. 

Instant gratification doesn't give me the buzz it used to; instead, I get my highs from finishing a book over the course of a week. I get giddy about making my own TV schedule full of what I feel like watching that day: new episodes, old shows, and watchlist movies. Refreshing my usual TV sit-downs, keeping me more engaged and mindful, instead of stuck in choice paralysis. I love growing the patience I thought I lost, I love taking the time to read articles and find my own feelings and inspirations. I love browsing and picking out cheap DVDs at thrift stores and swaps. I love going outside and meeting new people. There's not an app for that. 

They tried, they all suck. Online can't be everything; I'd rather own a little than rent it all from them.

We are being separated.  Gas rises, flight prices rise, walkability and affordability become greater challenges across the country, and it feels like they are stronger when we are apart. I'm tired of the all-or-nothing; we know things have to change. I want there to be a future, and I want it to look like the way I grew up, I want friction and intention, I want the soft, eclectic nature that made the world feel inviting. I want it all to be real. 

Despite how much I love the internet, the moves necessary to make that a reality can't be done in the face of what has become a complete invasion of our online interests and values. I never knew when I signed up for Instagram, it would become this. What was a fun way to connect online has stumbled into something else entirely. I've lost the connection, yet there's nothing to fulfill it, so every day I stay, longing for a new place, succumbing to the idea that maybe the only safe answer is offline.