Love Island *is* Friend Island

Hear me out: what if Love Island is an anthropological study of friendship, coming-of-age, and the bizarre world of dating in the 21st century? The way these islanders navigate the waters of loyalty, conflict, and reconciliation mirrors our own experiences, making us laugh, cry, and sometimes cringe in recognition Isn’t it just a fishbowl experiment masqueraded as an entertaining reality dating show? Reader, Love Island is Friend Island!

While it is possible that I've been watching too much Love Island, as evidenced by a recent dream that Joey Essex tried to gaslight me on a murder mystery train, fans of the show get it: it's easy to get swept up in the Love Island universe. 

Love Island UK (summer and winter), Love Island: All-Stars, Love Island USA, Love Island Games, and Love Island Australia are currently watchable via streaming. Given the various locations across hemispheres and the newly added spin-offs, you could theoretically watch the show year-round. 

The show originated in the UK in 2005 and was originally called Celebrity Love Island. Filmed in Fiji, this version was canned after two poorly rated seasons. The format we know and love today is a reboot that aired in 2015 under the Love Island name. 

"This isn't Friend Island"

What is it about the Love Island franchise that makes people watch hour-long episodes six days a week for eight weeks straight? Beyond the intrigue of watching attractive people date each other while almost exclusively wearing swimwear is something even more universal: the friendships they form along the way. 

We love watching hot people flirt, fall in love, make mistakes, argue, break up, and get back together. But there is something even more interesting behind the rollercoaster romances: friendship. 

The friendship squabbles and makeups on the show are even more interesting than the romantic ones, particularly the gendered differences in how friendships are developed and maintained. 

The women support each other while the men disrespect them, and the men encourage each other to cheat while reassuring each other they did nothing wrong. The women will maintain their grudges against each other, either overtly or secretly, and the men will shake hands an hour after getting in each other's faces like it was never a big deal in the first place. 

We see it with every Casa Amor episode: The men encourage each other to explore, coming up with justifications for their friends' future actions while assuring them that the woman they're in a couple with has no grounds for being mad. 

On the other side of this coin are the women who support each other in the aftermath, providing comfort through tears and tantrums. Support from your friends would be the only way to get through a breakup with someone you have to live with and watch crack on to someone else who's also very hot. 

The mark of a true friend is someone who will sleep on the daybed with you after a major bust-up with your partner. 

In PPG We Trust

Season six of Love Island USA was the first season that got me actively interested in the American version of the franchise. Until the summer of 2024, I was very loyal babes to the UK version of the show. They were more entertaining than their American counterparts. It could be the accents. Maybe it's the slang terms that required a Google search the first time I heard them. 

But the rumblings on TikTok about how amazing Love Island USA season six was could no longer be ignored. The internet has lied to me many times before, but I wasn't disappointed this time.

We watched Kordell and Serena show up on the first day in matching outfits, Leah endure tantrums from Rob, Connor drop JaNa on a dime only to give Leah the ick, Leah wrangle playboy Miguel, JaNa profess her feelings in Spanish to Kenny, Kordell "dry-humping in the bed," and Serena tear him to shreds for it. 

Season six brought about some of the most quotable lines from the franchise and even a newly minted girl group we didn't know we needed: PPG, which is a riff off of The Powerpuff Girls and consists of ride-or-die friends Leah, Serena, and JaNa. 

In one of the best character arcs, Serena and Kordell rekindled their trust in each other and won Love Island USA season six. Did I vote for them? Yes! Is this the first time I've ever voted for anything on a reality show? Also yes!

That's the power of Love Island's tumultuous, authentic, and triumphant character arc. Viewers will reward you for it. And don't worry, their love and banter continue to burn bright even after they've exited the villa. 

While we are obsessed with Serena and Kordell's, Leah and Miguel's, and JaNa and Kenny's love stories, we're undeniably more obsessed with the strong friendship between the women. Where most reality shows thrive on ripping each other apart at the seams of everyone's insecurities, our hearts grew three sizes watching these women genuinely support each other. 

The numbers don't lie either: Love Island USA reached more than one billion minutes streamed during its final week.  

Friendship Breakups

The romantic breakups come and go in the blink of an eye, but what happens to the friendships? The lines between friendship breakups are blurry and sometimes undetectable in a way that romantic breakups are not. There's just as much grief, if not more, in friendship breakups. 

We knew when Chris and Olivia broke up. But what happened to Jess and Olivia's friendship, the strong relationship in the villa that caused heartache when she left? Are they still close friends today? The evidence says probably not. 

We knew when Gabby and Marcel broke up after he cheated on her while they were on holiday in Mexico. After recovering from his audacity, all I could think was, what would Jamie and Camilla say about this? And are Camilla and Gabby still friends? 

When shit hits the friendship fan, I want to know about it just as much as I want to know about the romantic breakups. Maybe the Love Island gods are listening.

The second season of Love Island: All Stars clarified a few friendship questions with an episode that featured phone calls from home. We saw Tom and Molly show up for Casey, Olivia for Ronnie, and, most importantly, Whitney for Catherine. 

In the playful yet stern manner that only Whitney can deliver, she gently ribbed Catherine for "marrying" Sammy in the Snog, Marry, Pie Challenge. Like the rest of us, Whitney hadn't forgotten how horribly Sammy treated their friend Jess during their season. 

This short video call told me everything I needed to know about the state of Whitney, Jess, and Catherine's friendship. (It is stronger than ever.) Carrying grudges for your friends is light work, but a friend who will kindly call you out when they disagree with you is rare. 

I take back what I said about sleeping on the daybeds: Holding a grudge for eternity against their ex is the true mark of friendship. 

But what about the friendship breakups we didn't have the privilege of witnessing? Did they go out in the fiery explosion of a heated disagreement? Or did they peter out in an anticlimactic dissipation? 

Evidence suggests that most of these friendships gradually dissolve in the same way our own friendships do when we're no longer in close proximity to each other. 

Be honest with yourself: How many of your classmates, roommates, or former coworkers do you keep in touch with regularly? 

I've heard the islanders compare the experience to summer camp or high school and that the friendships simmer out in a similar way. This is understandable, especially when we relate how our high school bonds faded into the background when we transitioned into the next phase of life. 

Even though this dissipation is boring compared to a potential juicy feud, it leaves me with bittersweet comfort. Every friendship isn't meant to last forever, and that's okay. The duration of the friendship doesn't reflect its depth, authenticity, or meaning. 

Ultimately, Love Island is more than just a reality dating show; it is a cultural mirror that reflects the complexities of modern friendship, love, and identity. While the romance might be the initial hook, the friendships often carry the true emotional weight of the show. As we tune in week after week, maybe it's not just the love stories we're rooting for—but the bonds that truly define what it means to be human.