When Love Island first blew up – I’m talking the programme’s universally accepted golden age here, 2018 and 2019, the period that gave us the athleisure tycoon Molly-Mae – it was still generating interest for the simple fact of broadcasting sex on TV. Big Brother had done some shagging, of course, but that was incidental to the dystopia – not the prize, purpose and main appeal. People found all sorts of excuses for watching it (the phrase “sociological interest” was used an awful lot) but no one could deny the (marginally) super-pornographic appeal of the thing.
In time, Love Island would generate all sorts of pseudo-political discussion: I remember, very distinctly, Emma Barnett frowning her way through a segment regarding “misogynoir” on Women’s Hour, relating to the romantic misfortunes of Samira in series four. And there was always the note of class safari that is common to all successful reality TV: I remember a dinner party in 2018, the same summer, at which a very drunk, very posh girl (she actually lived on Sloane Square) roaring “Got a text!”, one of the show’s catchphrases, every few minutes, in her very best Estuary. But English repression makes its way out as goggly prurience, and, given that the entire cast of Love Island is nearly always nearly naked, I think we all know what’s going on.
Love Island has since been overtaken, lapped and humiliated. If that was the golden age, it has been succeeded by decadence. Now people watch Virgin Island – incels being therapised into future shaggers – and who knows what obscenities are being developed and finessed in the reality TV laboratories? This is the last roll of the dice for broadcast television, and its beleaguered, redundant producers will resort to anything – Hate Island? Love Island: Space? Chastity Island? – to keep us watching.
Perhaps for this reason, or perhaps because it’s now the unlucky series 13, Love Island looks very tired. I tuned in to a week’s worth of episodes, roughly halfway through the series. I consequently had no idea what was going on, while slightly scarily knowing immediately and exactly what was going on. There was the same isolated villa complex, with its shallow pool, blocky furnishings and famous firepit. There were three identical, interchangeable blond men with curtains and permanent stubble (two were admittedly brothers). The men called each other “bro” and called the girls “gells”. The wrong ’uns had been clearly identified – Simba and Tommy shared a kennel in the doghouse – and the boring couples, those who seem to experience genuine affection for each other, had long since vanished from view, their footage too warm and banal to use. The value held in highest esteem remained a kind of essentialised authenticity, whereby any act, however adulterous, can earnestly be explained away as “genuine” or “honest”. Everyone talks like this: “You can forgive, but you can’t forget”; “I will trust my gut and go with my gut”; “I am what I am”; “Everything happens for a reason”.
Watching it for the first time in half a decade, it was interesting to see which decadal mores had bled into the show. Chiefly: skincare is now for men too. Before bed, each of these lads became a smear of unguents, exfoliants and SPF. Via the night vision supplied inside the communal bedroom, I even spotted a pair of under-eye patches, placed there to ward off dark circles. But the show reiterated the motions you’ve seen possibly hundreds of times. Romance happens here through the same beckonings as diplomatic summits, couples and love rivals doing their business via discreet chats, parrying real commitments, delivering emotional feints and making false promises.
Then there’s the general directionlessness of the programme – there’s nothing to do but sunbathe, put on make-up, take off make-up. And I think this is bound up with programme’s key restraint. After a legless first two series, the programme began limiting contestants to two drinks per night. Everyone knows that the real love island – I refer here to Great Britain – depends on alcohol for romance (Martin Amis somewhere talks about British nights out resembling “an orgy in the vomitorium”). Love Island today is what happens when you turn off the taps. It’s very stilted, very inarticulate and very dull.
[Further reading: Alice and Steve is an embarrassing mess]
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This article appears in the 01 Jul 2026 issue of the New Statesman, Happy Birthday America
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