Love Island Season 8 was the definitive show of the summer with nearly 19 billion minutes watched to date and an average viewership of 7.9 million (that’s the entire population of Hong Kong and then some). The show has gained so much traction that 35% of viewers were new to the franchise– me included. 

Honestly, I don't even like dating shows. I watch reality TV to revel in crazy people being insane, not to watch hot people finding love. But Love Island pulled me in because watching Love Island isn’t about the show– it’s about watching the show together.

Nearly half of viewers watched with at least one other person and I was no exception. I couldn’t resist the allure of having something to talk about with everyone in my life every single day for six weeks. As a yapper, the high of having such a widely shared hyper-fixation is unbeatable.

For those six weeks, it felt like Love Island took over the world. Every day felt like a slow march to 9 PM that was only broken up by refreshing Reddit threads and watching Tiktok edits. My group chats were louder than they'd been all year. I had opinions about people I'd never met and I was ARGUING about them with real conviction. The show gave me a shared language with strangers on the internet and with my best friends simultaneously. 

By the end of July, the show had transcended its trashy seasonal reality tv status and became an integral part of this year’s zeitgeist. That's culture doing what culture is supposed to do: giving people something to connect over.

As a strategist, Love Island reminded me that the most powerful cultural moments aren't one-time events — they're sustained conversations. A Super Bowl ad gets talked about for a day. Love Island gets talked about every day for six weeks. 

The lesson is: if you want real cultural impact, you need to give people a reason to come back tomorrow, not just a reason to pay attention today. The brands and campaigns I want to build aren't one-and-done moments. They're ongoing conversations that people feel like they're PART of, not just watching from the outside. 

Love Island doesn't have an audience– it has participants. Even the islanders treated America as a part of the cast. That's the difference between content people consume and culture people live in.

IT JUST MAKES YOU FEEL SO ALIVE!!!