Brandy Monk-Payton, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham, explained how the online fandom surrounding “Love Island USA” has evolved into its own parallel show, with fans creating content across platforms like TikTok.
“Younger fans are drawn to it as appointment-viewing television, because a lot of what is transpiring on screen are relationship dynamics that they might identify with themselves, so there is a lot of projection onto the cast of characters. And that creates an entirely new show,” says Brandy Monk-Payton, associate professor at Fordham University. “It’s almost as if there is the show that exists on Peacock, and the show that exists on TikTok.”
“Who you enjoy, who you want to win, becomes a projection of your identity and so you have all of these conflicts online that are just proxy wars,” Monk-Payton adds.
