Love Island: Our 21st Century Stanford Prison Experiment
What Reality TV Teaches Us About Performance + Digital Footprints
There’s a moment in this season of Love Island USA that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. Early on, Amaya asks Austin directly if she is being too much, if she’s being too affectionate. He denies it to her, but in all his side conversations, he’s acting like he can’t get away from her sooner.
Surrounded by the nodding “girls girls” delivering practiced smiles and paired with footage of side conversations filled with buried tension — it perfectly encapsulates what this show has become: a test of how convincingly you can perform a feeling, while being watched.
The Performance Economy of Love
Love Island USA has never really been about love. But this season, the emotional dissonance feels sharp. No one seems to be looking for connection, they’re playing for control of their narrative, their visibility, and the eventual brand deals waiting once they touch down from Fiji.
The villa has become a game of strategic sincerity. Contestants know they’re being filmed and know American is watching. They don’t root for each other, they root for reps, and the glory that comes with a 1M follower.
The islanders claim not to care what the audience thinks — while behaving in ways that they believe will directly court public behavior.
Surveillance and Identity: The Stanford Comparison
This season feels like a Stanford Prison Experiment with sunscreen. The original experiment show how quickly people conform to roles when watched and given power — but in summer 2025, the only changes are some ring lights and a Peacock streaming contract.
What happens when you put a bunch of people in a closed, aestheticized environment, assign them roles (“the crier”, “the ringleader”, “the bombshell”), and tell them to perform authentic connection in front of millions?
We start to see not love, but something eerily curated. Controlled detachment. Emotional suppression. Rehearsed vulnerability. Without external surveillance, the islanders would be moving differently.
But add cameras, voting, and parasocial fandoms, and what you get is behavior sculpted for applause, not empathy.
Emotional Honesty vs. Strategic Alliances
Take Amaya. Her unfiltered responses, visible hurt, and refusal to process everything cleanly before speaking it aloud. Real emotions: and yet they make the other islanders deeply uncomfortable. People like Austin, Ace, and Zak recoil not just from her feelings, but from what her honesty reflects back at them.
While the villa was meant for virality, the edits show human discomfort most.
Meanwhile, emotional calculation — especially from the men — is rewarded. Detachment is coded as “level-headed.” Strategic pairing (but nothing closed off) is treated as maturity. But when Hannah genuinely connects with more than one person. she’s sent home. When Charlie and Jeremiah show emotional depth, they’re voted out. The message is clear on island: playing the game wins over playing it real.
The shadow of PPG’s post-show success looms large. Everyone is chasing the new blueprint: build a narrative arc, land a fanbase, leave with followers and Fashion Nova sponsorships. The contestants aren’t acting in real-time — they’re planning their season recap packages.
The voting reflects that. TJ was cut just as something real started to form with Iris. Why? Because real connection isn’t the goal, it’s a threat to the other islanders. Who knew they were playing Survivor.
Parasocial Justice: When Audience Becomes Jury
This season hasn’t just played out on screen — it’s unfolded in the comment sections of Reddit threads and cached Tiktoks. Yulissa was outed almost immediately for her casual use of racist rhetoric. Cierra, one half of the only “closed-off”couple was removed on the last week after fans uncovered fresh videos in which she used a racial slur — sparked by a 17,000 sigature petition and widespread backlash.
Accountability matters. But we’d be naive not to also clock the speed and intensity of the receipts economy — the way fans comb through digital trails not only to find the next American sweetheart, but sometimes to confirm their worst instincts.
We’re watching a show about love, sure. But we’re also watching ourselves, become moral arbiters with search bars. And the islanders? They’ve become accutely aware that every confession, every eye twitch is filtered through the possibility that something they said two years ago might rewrite their story in real time.
In a parasocial world, your browser history is always watching.
What This Season Tells Us About Ourselves
We, the viewers, do vote for honesty. We reward emotional depth. Amaya is a fan favorite (and now knows it!). Hannah was widely loved, and Jaden + Jeremiah are getting their flowers outside of the villa. But on island, that kind of connection is treated like a threat.
While the Love Island USA fanbase is incredibly toxic and had to be admonished more than once on-screen, the problem isn’t necessarily always with the viewers. It’s with the strategic alliances formed to protect the most calculated players. Love isn’t being prioritized, positioning is. What we’re watching isn’t a romance experiment: it’s a brand management exercised disguised as vulnerability.
Love Island USA still sells itself as a show about connection. But this season, it’s clearer than ever: The people willing to be real are voted out not by us, but by the people too scared to look at what their authenticity reflects.
What happens when emotional honesty threatens the whole system?
That’s what I’m watching for.
Ultimately this isn’t a romance experiment — it’s a control experiment. And what’s really being tested is our capacity to hold compassion, complexity, and uncomfortable truth — and whether the show can keep up.
🧭 Open Tabs
“Why the talk around ‘Love Island USA’ is turning explosive” — Washington Post
“The Ugly ‘Love Island’ Misogynistic Bullying Went Too Far” — The Daily Beast
“Yes, Ace, America Actually Loves Amaya” — Business Insider
“Love Island USA Season 7 Is Being Ruined By ‘Sisterhood’” — Teen Vogue
What performance are you noticing this week — in yourself, in others, or in the culture?
Until Soon,
Sarah
Strategist / Daughter of florists / Fan of deliberate edits