As fans watched Islanders Huda and Chris pulling each other for a chat during the “Love Island” season 7 finale at home in August, the streets outside were filled with teargas, fires, and protests. Distracting viewers from real life, entertaining reality TV pulled people’s focus and continues to do so. While the world is filled with distractions, most people are not learning about important issues happening in the world.
“Love Island” is a reality TV show filled with contestants trying to find love in a luxury villa. It would be an understatement to say that the show has a wide reach. According to NBC Universal, this year alone, 18 billion minutes of “Love Island” were viewed, with 77 million impressions on all social media platforms. This year alone, the show experienced an increase in viewership by 49 percent. It created massive trends, turned regular people into celebrities overnight, and was a main topic of conversation.
I learned when I started watching the show for the first time with season 6, that it was just another dramatic series that went viral because of its problematic contestants. Due to the show being so well watched, immense amounts of news stories were covering the show alongside other current events. However, the hype around season 7 made more people pay attention to the shows coverage, causing far more important stories to be missed. Stories that carried truth and depth made people uncomfortable, because the easy drama in TV is preferred over reality.
Take for an example the “No Kings” protest against authoritarian acts of the Trump administration, that happened across more than 2000 cities in June. Although it expanded into big cities, such as Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York, it still had fewer people actively referencing the event in social media content than the amount of Americans lazily watching reality shows. The social media hashtag “nokings” contains 153.3 thousand posts, while a couple about who did not even win Love Island had a hashtag “nicolandria” with over 160 thousand posts. Even if it is a political event you agree or disagree with, it is important to remain educated and aware to keep the privilege of having your own opinion.
Although actual reality should carry more weight than reality TV, people are obsessed with voting for their favorite couple, or watching the next contestant be eliminated. People share their opinions towards islanders getting kicked out, but then treat current events as if they do not matter or are consistently oblivious to important issues, due to an infatuation with reality shows. The rest of the real world and things that matter turn into background noise. This perspective leads to a disconnect in social interaction, as people are using reality TV to engage with the world, rather than at least educating themselves on active issues.
Because digital distraction dominates attention, we should ask ourselves: What matters more: Our real future? Or a TV show? While it is understandable that it can be entertaining, awareness and action does not lose its importance, especially in actual reality. What happens next will not be determined by islanders, but the life we constantly try to escape.
