How Love Island USA Exposes the Horrors of Late-Stage Capitalism
It’s been a few days since the season 8 finale of Love Island USA, so obviously this blog post is already old news. Which could be its own post on what this means about capitalism and the world as we know it (jots down idea for future use).
After the cozy dates, nostalgic reminiscing and agonizing commercial breaks I was delighted to see that my beloved Brinity won the $100,000 grand prize! As Trinity got emotional and spoke about the life-changing amount of money she would be receiving I found myself getting increasingly uncomfortable.
I recalled the emotional intensity of the entirety of the 8th season and what each individual and pairing had gone through over the past 6 weeks. The challenges, exploring, heart ache, french frying and uncertainty all in front of cameras for the viewers’ entertainment. Not to mention the sheer number of bikinis and swim shorts worn on camera. Images of The Hunger Games flashed through my mind, and while Love Island USA is much less violent, I couldn’t help but draw the parallels to the exploitative nature of these competitions. Luckily, Love Island USA participants opt in to the experience, they have their own motivations and goals for being involved with production and hopefully they grow their influencer careers from this point. The spectacle, the money invested, the challenges and elimination and pressure to win all feel slightly dystopian.
If we lived in a society where we all had what we needed for survival guaranteed, where we could access healthcare, healthy food, housing and had enough money to get our needs met, would there be a market for this kind of entertainment/exploitation? Would there be a market for beautiful people to be on screen having to compete to be the most in love to split $100,000? What kind of competition and desperation leads us to not only watch people go through this but to opt in to participate? While I agree that $50,000 is a life-changing amount of money… isn’t it quite sad that’s the case? Those funds could go toward schooling, transportation, housing, supporting family, food… all of these sound like things we maybe should have access to already.