Why Love Island USA Watch Parties Feel Like A '90s Throwback

Refinery29

6 hours ago

An audience of 130 people cheered infectiously at the big screen as they enjoyed cocktails, bar food and conversation with strangers at 275Park in Brooklyn, a venue typically used as a comedy club.
This may sound like the scene from fans watching the NBA Finals, but instead, the crowd was locked in for a Love Island USA watch party thrown by Peak and Pace on Monday night as the highly anticipated Casa Amor episodes began.
'It's usually just me screaming at the TV, but doing it with other people just made it,' said Morenda Jebo, 31, who has been watching Love Island for the past three years. 'I'm not the only one who feels this way.'
Since Season 7 premiered in early June, Love Island USA has become appointment TV, racking up more than 1 billion minutes viewed. According to Deadline, about 39% of viewers are new to the franchise. Night after night, conversations flood timelines, FYPs, and group chats with real-time reactions and recaps of the drama that ensued in Fiji, where the show is filmed. On social media alone, the show has generated 54 million interactions across Instagram, Facebook, X and YouTube. As a result, Love Island watch parties have been in high demand and are popping up in cities across the country.
'It's basically watching sports, but for reality TV,' attendee David Gilstrap said, an attendee who'd never seen the show before last Friday when his homegirls convinced him to start watching all of the reality show drama. He enjoyed it so much that he ended up binging the latest season over the weekend and pulled up to the party alone, ready to watch, holler at the screen with strangers and make new friends.
That's music to Peak and Pacer founder Owen Akhibi Herrera's ears.
Herrera started Peak and Pace as a run/walk club to bring people together in a healthy way after his first year moving to New York. Over time, it evolved into a community dedicated to trying new things together, including skiing, hiking, and, now, watching Love Island USA together.
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The parties are a great example of how pop culture moments still drive real-world connection.
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'It's a cultural moment, and it gave us an opportunity to bring our community together in a fun and unexpected way,' the founder said in a Zoom interview. '[The show] sparked so many different conversations online, and we saw the opportunity to take that digital energy into a real-life thing.'
Peak and Pace announced the watch party just 24 hours before the event and packed the venue to a max capacity of 130. Herrera said they will host watch parties at 275Park every Monday for the rest of the season.
Meanwhile, on Friday evening, Tyra McAdam also hosted a Love Island USA watch party at RumBar, a Black woman-owned bar in Brooklyn, where she works. Tired of watching the show on her phone behind the bar, she surveyed her TikTok followers to see if they'd be interested in joining a watch party. After receiving more than 26,000 views, 2,700 likes and hundreds of eager comments, that was enough for her boss to sign off on approval for McAdam to start creating Love Island -inspired cocktails for the event.
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Love Island is just the catalyst, but what they're really after is that authentic connection that only happens when you're actually in the same room, fully present with each other.
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'The girls were like, 'I want it to be where the boys are watching sports games watching Love Island,'' she said. 'It's such a community, and it's such a girly thing. It's so feminine.'
She credits the show's real-time reactions and the audience's ability to vote and influence what happens in the villa, making it perfect to watch in a sports bar setting.
'I like that it comes on every day, and we all have to watch it at the same time,' McAdam said. 'It's not like on Netflix, and you watch something before someone else. It's almost like back in the days in the '90s, we all had to watch the show at the same time.'
On Eventbrite, hundreds of Love Island watch parties have been listed. Roseli Ilano, the platform's head of community and trends, said in a statement the parties are a great example of how pop culture moments still drive real-world connection.
"Young people are craving shared experiences where they can have those immediate reactions together—the gasps, the debates, the collective investment in something happening right now,' Ilano said. 'Love Island is just the catalyst, but what they're really after is that authentic connection that only happens when you're actually in the same room, fully present with each other."
A common thread between Herrera and McAdam's parties: They're building welcoming, inclusive and intentional spaces that prioritize joy and connection for Black audiences who can come out and have a great time near their own neighborhoods.
Though Gilstrap admits the show stresses him out and the cast makes awful decisions, he's having more fun watching Love Island USA than he did watching the NBA Finals. He's already considering attending another watch party before the season ends.
'The fact that you get to hang out with your friends and then talk about it, that's what makes it fun,' he said. 'That's what keeps me watching every night. It's purely not like the content of the show. It's because I get to hang [out] with my friends and kiki with my homies. That's what keeps me coming every single time.'