The Love Island fandom is worse than the My Little Pony fandom.
I didn't start watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic until recently, mainly because, as someone who has always been part of fandom spaces, I'd always heard about the fandom’s drama rather than the actual show. Everything has its share of bad fans, but the drama surrounding this series was so intense that it spawned numerous YouTube videos. Due to the hostile reception of the fans, it deterred many people, including myself, from giving the show a chance and appreciating a charming and wholesome series that anyone can enjoy.
While Love Island USA isn’t suitable for all ages, it’s an enjoyable series for people who like reality dating shows. It’s not for me because I’m not a fan of these series, as I get too much second-hand embarrassment from watching them, but I understand why it appeals to so many people.
Love Island USA has become indispensable for me because so many of the people I follow watch the series. I didn’t realize how big a deal it was until I listened to the She Is So Bougie podcast during summer 2024, when the 6th season was airing. I may not go here, but I am familiar with what goes on in the show.
As of Summer 2025, the Love Island USA fandom has gotten to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic level of problematic fandom, and that is because fandom discourse is what garners so much of the attention the series gets; that’s not always a good thing.
Let’s go over some recent current events with the Love Island cast members and the fandom discourse surrounding them all.
The homophobia.
Jana Craig and Kenny Rodrigez recently went their separate ways. Many fans were speculating about what could have happened, and many people started to come up with theories on what he might have done to her (which is another problem; we will address this later). Jana spoke up recently, stating that she and Kenny were no longer together because he had done something disgusting. And you want to know what many people in the fandom assumed this disgusting thing was? They thought that it was Kenny, possibly being gay. It turns out Kenny was being racist towards Jana behind her back. Being racist is disgusting, but being gay is not. There are way too many cishet women online nowadays acting as if a man being gay is an issue. It isn’t, but your homophobia is a problem. I don’t like Kenny as much as the next Black woman right now because of his misgynoir, but using “gay” as an insult isn’t right. You can dislike him without feeling the need to question his sexuality.
The (numerous cases of) anti-blackness.
Where do we even begin?
Fandom spaces have never been the kindest to Black people, and even Black fandom spaces have their issues within their communities. What do you know? The Love Island USA fandom is contradicting Black people’s feelings. None of this with the Love Island USA fandom is shocking, but very much disappointing, and it really makes me think we are going backwards.
The winner of Love Island USA season 7, Amaya Papaya, is a light-skinned Dominican woman. When she was younger, she was making very colorist posts on her Facebook page. She was also caught liking posts from very questionable political figures just as well. Fandom loves to police Black people’s feelings regarding anti-Blackness, stating that her liking these questionable posts “was not that deep” and her colorist actions happened a long time ago and should be forgiven. Nobody is perfect, but it is not up to you to decide how people feel about her actions, regardless of how long ago they happened. Yes, I do believe people can change, but change is meant for you; it’s not your job to force people to see you the way you want them to see you. Black people have every right to be turned off by her because of her racist past.
One of the newest couples to emerge from Love Island USA is Nic, a white man, and Olandria, a Black woman. Fandom culture is full of people finding it hard to believe that a non-Black man could be romantically interested in a Black woman, especially one who is unambiguous and dark-skinned. They love to push this “they’re just friends and nothing more” narrative anytime they see an interracial couple in media with a Black woman being involved. Misogynoir is so rampant in this fandom that they were reaching extremely hard to find some reasoning on whether Nic really was into Olandria or if he’s pretending.
Black women have always been treated like shit in fandoms (I know from personal experience), and plenty of members of the Love Island USA Fandom never want to see Black women happy, let alone have them express their feelings. Aside from the interracial couple, they are taking jabs at Chelley, another darkskin Black woman on the series, and her relationship with a Black man (who is significantly lighter than her) on the series, trying to find fault in their dynamic just as well. Chelly then expressed how Huda, a non-Black woman, has been upset, and it caused backlash from Huda stans. Chelley's hate was so bad that Buzzfeed started to antagonize her. Even with Serena, when she was upset with Kordell (a Black man), the fandom was invalidating her anger towards him. People took issue with Serena taking her time with Kordell instead of being all over him from the beginning. Black women can never just be with these fans.
Speaking of Huda, Black women have every right to dislike her for the way she mistreated the Black men on the series that she was fooling around with. I'm leaving this just as that because there isn’t much else to say. She’s gross, and so are her fans, who see no issue with this behavior. I never cared for the Call Her Daddy podcast, but now I am completely turned off by it because it validated her heinous actions.
Fandom can’t have nice things.
The My Little Pony Fandom is notorious for overstepping boundaries with the cast and crew of the series at conventions and online. Love Island USA fans do the same thing! We see they say inappropriate things towards the cast on the internet, but recently, this bad behavior has translated into real life. There were tons of Huda fans who spotted Jermiah out in public and proceeded to follow him around the area. It was obvious Jermiah was uncomfortable and wanted to get away from them. At this point, this is considered HARASSMENT. If you see a famous person out in public, the LAST thing you should be doing is following them around.
Not too long ago, I made a video discussing how Love Island USA fans watch this series as if it’s Total Drama Island; my reasoning behind my statement had to deal with how this fandom continues to forget that these aren’t cartoon characters, they’re real people. Yes, these people willingly signed up to be on reality TV; therefore, the audience will give their unsolicited opinions on them. It has gotten to a point where people have taken their excitement for these series too far and have no idea how to be decent human beings anymore. You all are no better than toxic animation fans at this point. If anything, you guys are worse because your actions involve real people instead of drawings.
Thank you all so much for reading. If you are interested in more of my writing, me and Amaya Janelle’s new book You Still Can Not Call Me Sis, is now available for purchase! Offered in paperback and ebook.
Other ways to support my writing.