How Love Island Became a Mirror for Misogyny
This season was more about what happened on the internet than in the villa.
I just finished this season of Love Island, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it—not because of any iconic viral moments or perfect couples, but because it felt like a front-row seat to the internet’s war on women.
The show has always played with gender roles and messy dating dynamics. But this season? It was different. It wasn’t just what happened in the villa—it was the way it played out online that felt especially bleak. The constant TikToks focusing on the female contestants of the show breaking down every facial expression, the comment sections ready to label a woman “toxic,” “crazy,” or “fake” within seconds, the podcast bros using islanders’ behavior to reinforce their own red-pilled agendas—it all felt like one big feedback loop of misogyny.
As an avid reality TV fan and perpetual optimist, I held onto my feelings on this and waited to see how things might shake out post-villa. Maybe the narratives would shift, maybe some accountability would surface. Instead, it has only got worse.
A Cultural Double Standard on Display
This season highlighted something we all know exists, but rarely see so clearly: the double standard we still put women under. While men were excused for lying, manipulating, and gaslighting, women were endlessly picked apart—not just by their fellow contestants, but by the entire internet.
If a woman cried, she was “unstable.”
If she stood up for herself, she was “aggressive.”
If she stayed silent, she was “fake.”
No matter what she did, there was a TikTok seconds after it aired tearing her apart.
Some of this isn’t new—people have always had opinions while watching reality TV. But the rise of social media commentary as part of reality shows has turned criticism into content. Now, being a Love Island viewer often means becoming a micro-commentator and immediately turning to social media after each episode to spend often times hours listening to other people’s opinions and breakdowns of the episode we just watched- including helping you form your opinion on the characters.
The parasocial comfort we’ve developed in dissecting every move these women make isn’t just normalized—it’s algorithmically rewarded. Every eye-roll, every outfit, every moment of vulnerability is clipped, analyzed, and monetized. Breaking down women we don’t know has become more than a pastime—it’s a content strategy, even a career path.
Take this stat: according to the BBC, the hashtag #LoveIslandUSA has amassed over 808,000 posts in 2025 alone. That’s not just conversation—it’s commentary at scale. So where do we draw the line between engaging with a show and actively participating in the public dismantling of real women, filtered through edits designed for maximum drama?
This tension isn’t new—The Bachelor franchise has long walked this tightrope—but it’s entering a darker, more aggressive chapter in the age of bro podcast culture and TikTok hot takes. The line between fandom and hostility has blurred, and women remain the easiest targets.
The Rise of Red-Pill Reality
It’s impossible to ignore the broader context this season unfolded in. We’re living through a surge in anti-feminist, “trad wife,” and red-pill rhetoric online. And those ideologies are no longer siloed to dark corners of the internet. They’re mainstream. They’re viral. And they're shaping the way audiences—especially young men—consume shows like Love Island.
This season felt like a perfect case study: men were rarely held accountable, while women were scrutinized not just for their actions, but for their tone, their faces, even their “vibes.” And it wasn’t just male viewers doing the dissecting—plenty of women piled on too. Because internalized misogyny is part of this equation. The pick-me wars are real, and reality TV loves to capitalize on it.
A Reflection of the Real Gender Divide
This isn’t just about TV. It’s about politics. The cultural gender divide we saw on-screen is the same one that’s showing up in polling data across the country. Young men are trending more conservative, more anti-feminist, and more influenced by online conversations critiquing women and the faults they have.
What we saw on Love Island wasn’t just drama—it was a dramatized version of the cultural battleground we’re already living in. The show didn’t create these dynamics; it reflected them, exaggerated them, and then handed them to the internet to chew up and spit back out.
What Are We Really Watching?
This season of Love Island left me feeling heavy. Not because reality TV should be serious, but because it’s clearly become another channel for reinforcing real-world power dynamics.
We’re not just watching dating games—we’re watching a culture that’s growing more comfortable with tearing women down, rewarding male mediocrity, and using “entertainment” to normalize it all.