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Love Island Is Everything Wrong With The Gen Z Dating Scene · The imuRgency Room

• 0:00
  Dates. We're missing dates.
• 0:03
  Like get the on my face. Hello.
• 0:12
  New York. Live island is doing a lot of
• 0:15
  things for a lot of people. For some it's entertaining, for
• 0:18
  others it is frustrating, and for the majority of us, whether
• 0:22
  we know it consciously or not, this season of Live Island is a
• 0:25
  mirror to the current Gen. Z dating landscape and also
• 0:29
  friendship landscape, and it's time we talk about it.
• 0:32
  Hey guys, it's up to urgency and welcome back to my channel.
• 0:34
  Today we are back. And today we're talking about
• 0:37
  Love Island and more so dating. Because season 7 of Love Island
• 0:42
  has been dominating Internet discourse, no pun intended, for
• 0:45
  just about a month now. And so many different think
• 0:47
  pieces have spawned good, bad, ugly, and the likes about this
• 0:51
  show. Because for one, I think that
• 0:52
  most rowdy shows are just the human sociology experiment.
• 0:54
  But this isn't especially because there are just so many
• 0:56
  layers going back. Now, this is by no means a
• 0:59
  season review. We're more so talking about Love
• 1:01
  Island and the themes and controversies of Love Island to
• 1:04
  help us have a better understanding as to like what
• 1:06
  has been going on in the Gen. Z dating scene.
• 1:09
  We've talked about dating in Gen.
• 1:10
  Z in Priority. I was more of like a general
• 1:12
  feeler for what's been going on in society.
• 1:15
  This video is meant to tackle some of the most prominent
• 1:17
  things that we're seeing that are the biggest pain points in
• 1:20
  dating and young people that we see that are being put on full
• 1:23
  display on our televisions every single day on Love Island.
• 1:26
  Showing us in real time why things like nonchalance, being
• 1:29
  non committal, as well as how things like identity stealthing
• 1:32
  and the overuse and sometimes weaponization of being a girl's
• 1:36
  girl all impact the way that we're seeing people on Love
• 1:38
  Island date. And why this season is one of
• 1:40
  the most loveless seasons, as well as how it's impacting us
• 1:43
  outside the villa in the real world, making Gen.
• 1:46
  Z1 of the most loveless generations.
• 1:48
  This is for sure going to be an interesting 1, so be sure to
• 1:50
  buckle up because it's time to get into it.
• 1:52
  OK, so let's just set a level of understanding here because I did
• 1:55
  ask my subscribers whether or not they're actually tuned into
• 1:57
  Love Island in the majority of the all said no and had no plans
• 2:00
  of watching. Ouch.
• 2:02
  OK, target audience not reached. So for those of you that are out
• 2:05
  of the loop, there's this reality show.
• 2:08
  Yes, I know, I just heard the collective groan near me.
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  There's this reality show called Love Island, which is basically
• 2:14
  what you get when you put a bunch of really hot chronically
• 2:17
  on line 20 somethings all on an island without any form of
• 2:20
  connection to the real world. Make them partake in a series of
• 2:23
  potentially biohazardous humiliation rituals, I mean
• 2:26
  challenges. Put cameras in their face and
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  say go at it. Now you may be asking yourself,
• 2:32
  wait, I thought this was called Love Island?
• 2:34
  Where's the love part? And that is a perfectly fine and
• 2:37
  intelligent question. Us Love Island watchers have
• 2:39
  been wondering the same thing all season.
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  Like I said, this is the 7th season of Love Island.
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  USAUK has a ton of seasons. But As for the US, this is the
• 2:46
  seventh season, but only the second season of Love Island USA
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  that features a mostly Gen. Z cast and maybe potentially the
• 2:53
  first entirely Gen. Z cast.
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  And this is made very obvious given how many TikTok references
• 3:00
  and meme references that are made throughout the season and
• 3:03
  just in their regular conversations.
• 3:05
  Yeah, I like your laugh. It sounds like something she
• 3:08
  said. This season's original cast ages
• 3:20
  range from around 21 to 27, but now with some of the more recent
• 3:23
  bombshells it's up to around like 29.
• 3:25
  But again, majority Gen. Z.
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  And do not be like generationally specific but like
• 3:29
  to everyone surprised 18 to 24 year olders right now are kind
• 3:33
  of considered Gen. Z2 point O.
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  But I'm sure like no 24 year old actually knows this and is aware
• 3:38
  of this. But each their own articles
• 3:40
  don't write themselves. We've actually talked about this
• 3:42
  divide in Gen. Z in a previous video.
• 3:44
  You should have to go check that out.
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  And from that video, we learned that there are two Gen.
• 3:48
  Z's, at least politically. Gen.
• 3:50
  Z 2.0 is largely defined as people that experience the
• 3:53
  pandemic during high school. And for reasons that we've dug
• 3:56
  into before, this group of people tends to lean a little
• 3:59
  bit more conservative and is more so right leaning and
• 4:02
  aspiring for the traditional life than the older half of Gen.
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  Z. And this isn't to say the
• 4:07
  younger Islanders are conservative.
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  I don't know that. But it's interesting to see what
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  they value and what the ideology and language of that is like for
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  people like Ace and Bella, who are some of the younger
• 4:16
  Islanders this season. They both talked around the
• 4:18
  concept of being high value, whether that be a high value
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  woman or a high value man, which as we often know, is terminology
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  used in red pill content, whether that be for men or
• 4:27
  women. There's also a lot of talk this
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  isn't about the traditional life, whether that be like the
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  traditional wife or husband coming from all parties, which
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  is crazy because how are you all talking about wife and husband?
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  We all can barely find a strong connection.
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  Let's talk about that like Ace, one of the more prominent people
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  on this season, has had that conversation with at least two
• 4:44
  people already. I'm already thinking of Iris and
• 4:46
  Coco just off the Dome, talking about how they agree that
• 4:48
  they're not just dating to date. They are in fact dating to
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  marry, which is something that a lot of people tend to say.
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  I'm not here to say that just because you out here trying to
• 4:55
  date to marry don't mean that you're like on some kind of
• 4:58
  pipeline. No, it's just the fact that they
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  are on the younger side. And based on what they've said
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  in the show, they have not had a lot of dating experience or at
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  least serious dating experience. So it just feels a little while
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  to put that pressure on whoever they're planning on dating being
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  like, yeah, I know I met you 5 days ago in the villa, but I'm
• 5:17
  looking for this to be end game. But this whole conversation lays
• 5:21
  into something we're going to get into later in the video when
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  it comes to men, both in real life and on the show, claiming
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  to want the traditional nuclear family but not being traditional
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  themselves or acting any way of the sort.
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  And I think that this is really interesting just because I feel
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  like with older Gen. Z and millennials, there are a
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  lot of other ideas around like family dynamics that aren't
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  necessarily as traditional. And of course, I have another
• 5:42
  video talking about that. And obviously when I say these
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  things, I'm not speaking like monolithically because most
• 5:47
  things are a case by case basis. But it seems, at least
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  anecdotally, a lot of older Gen. Z and Millennials are beginning
• 5:52
  to see new forms of family and community, whereas it's seeming
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  that for the younger half of Gen.
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  Z, things are trending towards wanting more traditional
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  structures. I've been thinking a lot about
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  the red pill language that's been used on the season of Love
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  Island. I've made a couple of videos
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  about how Bella Rests in peace in particular has been one to
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  use it calling her herself a high value woman, which is
• 6:12
  pulled straight from the manosphere hierarchy that says
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  high value people are superior to low value people because they
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  have traits that make them so, like being hot, having a good
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  job, better morals. Taking a little step away from
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  the Gen. Z dating correlation with Love
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  Island and more so just around like how Gen.
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  Z as a culture has been changing, not only reality TV,
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  but more specifically this season of Love Island.
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  And it's something that people have been talking about a lot
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  online as C factor that's been ruining the season of Love
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  Island is the hyper awareness that they're being filmed.
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  As a generation, we've grown up in front of the camera and on
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  social media. And it's very much so apparent
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  in this cast, like the Islanders seem hyper aware, even more so
• 6:51
  this season, previous ones, that they're being watched.
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  They either play into it or reference it.
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  Like our generation has been living in the digital panopticon
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  and it makes sense. We're the first generation to
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  live our formative years online, on our phones and on social
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  media. Meaning that we've always had
• 7:12
  the watchful imaginary eye on us, in our heads and on our
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  screens. Like the amount of times that
• 7:17
  Islanders reference America and analyze our choices then go
• 7:21
  ahead and make decisions, making the show feel more like a
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  gameplay and more so like Big Brother than actually Love
• 7:26
  Island. And like, it almost feels like
• 7:28
  this cast is hyper aware that they're on a show and aren't
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  actually participating in the show to abide by what the show
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  is meant to be and is instead fixated on replicating
• 7:37
  everything that went down in season 6 and what the winners of
• 7:40
  season 6 ended up reaping. But you see, the problem here is
• 7:43
  that what made Season 6 of Little Island such a hit and
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  launched all the winners, like the top three winners into super
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  stardom and all the money and connections and all that, is
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  that they're doing what the show actually required of them and
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  actually did find love and they seemingly genuine way.
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  They're being fun, they're being messy, they're being flirty and
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  exploring because it's love, not strategy Island.
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  Like this season feels like the Islanders are intentionally
• 8:08
  trying to create moments and emulate what they think the
• 8:10
  public wants to see with a specific outcome in mind.
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  Now let's get back into the dating because that's what we
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  came here for. And one of the main things that
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  I've seen be a major hindrance and a lot of the cast, actual
• 8:21
  pairings and finding love, as well as one of the main
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  hindrances in real life and Gen. Z dating is the general non
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  committal nature of the cast and Gen.
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  Z. If you've been a Love Island
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  historian, you'd know that no other season has been in this
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  non committal. Like, yes, there's a thing
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  called Casa Moore, where the original pairings of people on
• 8:39
  Love Island go off and are attempted to pair up with a
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  whole different set of bombshells, all living in what's
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  called Casa Amor around halfway through the season.
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  But usually that's in the test, the strength of the original
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  connections that the Islanders had to see whether or not
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  they're down to actually fully commit or whether or not they're
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  just playing around and looking for something better.
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  But what we saw with Casa Moore this season is that it felt more
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  like a lifeline for the Islanders currently on the
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  villa. Because no one was committing to
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  each other at that point. There had not been really any
• 9:06
  strong couples where both parties are choosing to commit
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  to each other. And it felt like everyone was
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  kind of banking on Casa more to bring in some fresh meat to
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  potentially find someone to actually want to commit to,
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  which hasn't really been the case in previous seasons, which
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  is why they completely changed up how they did Casa more this
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  season because this year was just so strange.
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  And I'd argue that a big reason for the lack of commitment is
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  because of the fear of being closed off and committing.
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  I mean like there are many different reasons why people
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  didn't lock down and commit because of the way that certain
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  players are playing the game earlier in the season, AKA
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  Jeremiah and Huda, as well as Ace's role in it.
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  Both disincentivizing locking down with someone too early in
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  promoting exploring, AKA meaning dating as many people as
• 9:44
  possible without commitment until you know who you want to
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  commit to. But as we saw the first half of
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  the season play out, what happens when everyone's
• 9:51
  exploring, no one commits, and the people that get eliminated
• 9:53
  from the island are the people that actually do find a
• 9:55
  connection and want to commit. Well, it creates a batch of
• 9:58
  chronically single people on the show who seem like they want the
• 10:01
  prize money of 100K more than they actually want, want to be
• 10:04
  with each other. And we see this in real life too
• 10:05
  when it comes to dating in Gen. Z.
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  Not to beat a dead horse because everyone's talked about this
• 10:09
  when it comes to Gen. Z dating, but like the whole
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  advent of dating apps, having so many options, exploring so many
• 10:14
  options and not really committing to one or taking one
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  serious because the grass is always greener.
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  There are always more options until you know, there aren't.
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  But let's go a little bit deeper and talk more specifically about
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  like what are dating trends that we've seen happen in real life
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  that are playing out on the show?
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  And one of those being, and the title of the section is a
• 10:30
  question. Why are the men so conservative
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  and nonchal? Is this very?
• 10:34
  Weird, emotionally stunted season of Love Island due to the
• 10:38
  intimacy crisis and people retreating from dating.
• 10:41
  As the little Internet researchers we are, we of course
• 10:43
  found reposts, old tweets, old stories, the likes, the
• 10:47
  followings of not just all the men but also all the ladies on
• 10:50
  the show and on the male side. Why does it seem like all the
• 10:53
  men have been at some point red pilled or are on some level
• 10:56
  repeating conservative ideologies?
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  Like you have people like Austin reposting things do with Trump,
• 11:01
  things that are anti Kamala. You have one of the Islanders,
• 11:03
  there's TJ following Andrew Tate, then on the girls side,
• 11:05
  you literally have two girls that got kicked off for saying
• 11:07
  something racist. Like what is going on with this
• 11:09
  cast when it comes to how this is played out in the show, more
• 11:12
  specifically to the feelings of like nonchalance is like for the
• 11:15
  entire first half of the show, all of the guys really played it
• 11:18
  cool. They played it very cool.
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  They played it very nonchalant if you will, not really
• 11:22
  expressing the girls too much how they felt being a little
• 11:24
  distant, being a little coy and not really showing as much
• 11:27
  romance to the girls. Not necessarily grafting, as is
• 11:30
  typical for Love Island, like grafting and the concept of
• 11:33
  grafting was like such a integral part of Love Island
• 11:36
  that it became part of like the Love Island lexicon.
• 11:38
  And we've seen this notion of grafting more so with Ace in the
• 11:41
  later half of the season where he's going out of his way to
• 11:43
  plan these breakfasts and these dates and stuff for Shelly.
• 11:46
  But in prior seasons, it used to just be more widespread and just
• 11:49
  more it was putting effort to gain someone's attention,
• 11:52
  flirting, planning little dates, being intentional and thoughtful
• 11:56
  about the dates. But instead we get this season
• 11:58
  are things like this scooping and pushing boom.
• 12:08
  And I know I mentioned aces being one example of like decent
• 12:11
  Grafton, but he's also a perpetrator of like the
• 12:14
  nonchalance because he definitely did early in the
• 12:16
  season come up to Shelley and be like, how are you going to fit
• 12:18
  in my life? What are you going to do to try
• 12:19
  and pursue me to a Shelley replied something on the lines
• 12:22
  of you're chasing me. And we've seen it with a lot of
• 12:25
  the other guys too. You have people like Austin not
• 12:27
  really wanting to put in the work to pursue Shelley, and
• 12:29
  instead when he's seeing Ace pursue Shelley, he's like, oh, I
• 12:32
  don't want to be in love triangle while not putting in
• 12:34
  much effort himself. Then people like Taylor and
• 12:36
  Nick, who kind of come across as kind of like aloof and not
• 12:40
  necessarily that they're super into their person, that being a
• 12:45
  Landria and at the time, Sierra in the first half of the show.
• 12:48
  So yeah, it's just like this pattern of nonchalance that we
• 12:50
  see so often in the real world, which is really hurting the
• 12:52
  romance on the show. But also in real life, there is
• 12:54
  this like notion of like not carrying and nonchalance and
• 12:57
  sort of avoidance and detachment that is so prevalent in the Gen.
• 13:00
  Z dating scene. Like not wanting to show your
• 13:02
  car is not wanting to love openly, not wanting to fully be
• 13:05
  yourself too early in fear of getting hurt and in fear of
• 13:08
  being too vulnerable or just in fear of doing too much, I guess.
• 13:12
  And this is kind of twofold because I don't want to say that
• 13:14
  it's just a man thing. There also is a lot of pushback
• 13:16
  to Shalants and really expressing oneself coming from
• 13:19
  the girls side as well. Like we can't not mention the
• 13:22
  whole like who gonna be the boys, the sassy man apocalypse
• 13:25
  and DL allegations against straight guys that either show
• 13:27
  that they're too comfortable in their sexuality or just
• 13:29
  generally too expressive. And I really hate to be on here
• 13:32
  to defend and the guys because I'm here for the girlies and the
• 13:34
  gays, but it is a reality because it is not just a guys
• 13:37
  thing. And actually as a transition to
• 13:38
  that, let's kind of talk about what's going on on the show and
• 13:41
  in real life when it comes to the girls and specifically the
• 13:44
  girls. Girls.
• 13:44
  So recently on the show, the producers of Live Island created
• 13:47
  a new challenge called the Stand on Business Challenge, which is
• 13:50
  essentially ask FM or Ask me anything.
• 13:52
  In real life, people can write whatever question or statement
• 13:55
  they may have about you and choose whether or not they want
• 13:58
  to sign their name or not. Which of course became quickly
• 14:01
  messy when tension were high and people were already beefing with
• 14:04
  each other. But what started off with
• 14:05
  potentially messy intentions just ended up resulting in
• 14:08
  bullying. And we got to talk about one of
• 14:10
  the main people that were bullied in that episode where it
• 14:12
  was miss and my papaya. My favorite of the season
• 14:14
  essentially. And why I bring this up is
• 14:16
  because that episode and this season specifically, if you took
• 14:19
  a shot every time someone mentioned the term girl's girl,
• 14:21
  you would be rushed to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.
• 14:23
  Like that term is just being thrown around Willy nilly.
• 14:26
  And it's unfortunate because the term initially had a sense and a
• 14:28
  purpose, but the way that it's going to be used now on the show
• 14:30
  and also sometimes on social media, the term girls girl gets
• 14:33
  turned into a weapon of the state or at least a weapon of
• 14:36
  the villa, almost as a way of policing the girls behavior in
• 14:38
  ways that definitely extend out the range of intended use.
• 14:41
  Now it's like a little backtrack and get into like what the
• 14:43
  initial meaning of girls girl was.
• 14:46
  It came into the social and cultural zeitgeist around 2023
• 14:49
  and it was meant to be a positive trait to finding women
• 14:51
  who backed other women, never viewing them as competition but
• 14:54
  as allies. It's meant to subvert and be the
• 14:56
  counter to the mean girl or pick me girl being either just
• 14:59
  generally rude to women or being a male centered woman.
• 15:02
  But as everything that gets reused to death by the Internet
• 15:04
  peanut gallery, it seems that people have lost the plot as to
• 15:07
  what the term actually means. And now that it seems that
• 15:09
  online and on this show that if a girl doesn't act in a way that
• 15:11
  you like or deem palatable, that you can always accuse them as
• 15:14
  being the worst possible thing they can be.
• 15:16
  Not a girl's girl. And I hate to say this because
• 15:18
  this may be overstepping, but like just because that girl is
• 15:21
  not your girl does not mean that she's not a girl's girl.
• 15:24
  And I don't say that to be crass or rude or anything.
• 15:26
  But we see, especially in the show, people overusing that term
• 15:28
  to police girls behavior into acting a certain way or to
• 15:30
  acting in accordance to whatever group that person is a part of
• 15:33
  because being a girl's girl is not the same in all situations.
• 15:37
  We're seeing the season that this phrase is being weaponized
• 15:39
  against girls for stepping on toes and maybe not being the
• 15:41
  most agreeable, which I mean isn't great.
• 15:43
  But like is the plot of the show.
• 15:46
  Like yes, if your home girl starts talking to a guy she
• 15:47
  knows you like that would be SUS in the real world, but on Love
• 15:50
  Island, that's like the whole point.
• 15:51
  You only know each other for a few days and like that's the
• 15:53
  name of the game I fear. And in the case of the show,
• 15:55
  like that president was also set by Hooda and Jeremiah, where
• 15:59
  Hooda would come after any girl that even look Jeremiah's way,
• 16:02
  calling them outside their name, calling them not a girls girl
• 16:04
  and then essentially damning them to hell.
• 16:05
  And like, the thing about this whole girls girl thing is that
• 16:07
  it's never actually used in practice when it should count.
• 16:09
  Like, yeah, it's used against the girls whenever one girl does
• 16:12
  something that another girl doesn't like.
• 16:13
  But like, where are the not a girls girl arguments coming?
• 16:16
  Where are Maya's getting bullied by three of her ex connections
• 16:19
  and none of the girls stand up for her?
• 16:20
  And when she rightfully so breaks down afterwards, it takes
• 16:24
  so long for the girls to actually go and comfort her from
• 16:26
  that. Like we've seen in past seasons,
• 16:28
  girls actually stick up for each other when the guys are tripping
• 16:30
  or doing too much. Like, think of Janae's iconic
• 16:32
  What did I say about arguing with women, Mike?
• 16:34
  It's a sense of like performative girls girlness,
• 16:37
  when in reality, at least in the show, it's not actually about
• 16:39
  uplifting and supporting other women.
• 16:40
  It's about making sure that the other girls don't get in your
• 16:42
  way or piss you off. And I guess to close off here,
• 16:44
  with all that said, I fear that a lot of these criticisms about
• 16:46
  Love Island and about how things are playing out in the dating
• 16:50
  sphere on Love Island aren't exclusive to the villa.
• 16:53
  They don't just apply to the Islanders.
• 16:54
  In fact, I'd say that they apply to the general dating sphere as
• 16:57
  a whole because we're seeing these trends in person.
• 16:59
  And I think that's why we're having such a visceral reactions
• 17:01
  to them play out on the show because we've seen these type of
• 17:03
  people before. We've seen these interactions
• 17:05
  before, and they're personally relatable.
• 17:07
  Because what's happening on Love Island, of course, to a more
• 17:10
  dramatized scale, is what's happening in a lot of the love
• 17:13
  lives of young people right now. And I've been seeing a lot of
• 17:15
  people online talk about how they need next season, an
• 17:18
  entirely new cast, just bring in some new people.
• 17:20
  Or would an entirely different cast around the same age group
• 17:23
  bring a different energy? Or is Love Island just a sign of
• 17:26
  the times where things like hyper vigilance, the loss of
• 17:29
  authenticity, and the inability to form new authenticity
• 17:32
  connections as easily? Well, God, I hope not.