Hearing loud cheers at Cobblestone Pub & Biergarten is not unusual at the Queens bar in New York City, where sports games are often projected across their many screens.
But on Sunday, bar patrons were buzzing for a very different occasion: A watch party for the “Love Island USA” Season 7 finale. Some arrived hours early, sipping on the themed frosé and frozen margaritas and exchanging theories about what couple on the dating show would be crowned this year’s winners. By 9 p.m., every table was full and latecomers stood wherever they could to get a view of the screen.
“We have women screaming at the TV screen like it’s a Knicks playoff game,” said Peter Massaro, the owner of Cobblestones, adding that hosting watch parties around the show “took off like I never could have imagined.”
Across the country, similar scenes played out at dozens of other venues, where the sentiment among fans was clear: “Love Island USA” isn’t just a show, it’s an event.
The reality series, which streams on Peacock, follows a group of singles over the course of six weeks as they race to couple up and form romantic connections, or risk getting dumped from the island. (Peacock and NBC News are both units of NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast.)
In San Marcos, Texas, attendees at the nightclub The Marc gathered for a party that featured a meet and greet with contestant Jeremiah Brown; at The Palm and The Pine in Hollywood, California, fans lined up for a photo booth and entered a raffle in collaboration with NYX Cosmetics; Bigs Fullerton in California served drinks like the “Hurricane Huda” and “Mamacita” — catchphrases that went viral among fans; and in Las Vegas, fans watched in the typical Sin City way — at a pool party at Stadium Swim.
Watch parties are far from a new concept. Popular shows, like HBO’s “Game of Thrones” as well as other reality franchises like “Vanderpump Rules,” have drawn in massive crowds for similar events. But pop culture experts like Steve Granelli, an associate teaching professor of communications at Northeastern University, say the surplus of gatherings around “Love Island USA” has underscored a need for “pure escapism.”
“You watch it every day. It gives you something to retreat into,” Granelli said. “It’s the thing that people are gathering to talk about, gathering to watch.”
Viewers are drawn to the show because it offers a specific kind of emotional release, engagement and detachment from real life, he said.
Another main reason the show has taken off is due to its “relentless” production schedule. With a new episode nearly every night, it becomes a “time-sensitive phenomenon,” Granelli said. The show's live format and interactive voting — where viewers can eliminate couples or islanders — makes audiences “feel like they have more connection.”
Although Frenkli Jahaj, 20, a student at Baruch College, just started watching the show this season, he has been attending watch parties at Cobblestone on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the past few weeks.
The “sense of community” has kept him coming back,” he said.
“When I’m at school, I feel like I meet a lot of people every single day, but over the summer it’s either people at work or just nobody, so it’s really nice to be here,” Jahaj said. “It makes it feel like a more welcoming space rather than if you’re in your room alone.”
For Jahaj, the show’s almost daily rollout is also a big part of its appeal.
“There’s no more reality TV now that happens every single week. If something goes popular on Netflix, then you just watch it for one day and then it’s over,” he said. “But having a reality show that comes out every day live at the same time, it’s nice to have other people talk about the same exact thing at the same time.”
Amy Guaman-Dumancela, 25, a data scientist and longtime viewer of the show, said she loves the communal aspect of the fandom.
“It brings all different types of people together,” Guaman-Dumancela, who rallied some of her friends and family to attend the viewing party Sunday, said. “It shows how much we can rally together to find one person or one couple and just how much we want to see love prosper in real life.”
The fervent fan base has brought more viewership to the show, which is a spinoff of the ITV series in the U.K. But the surge in popularity has come with intensified harassment online toward contestants, as fans put islanders’ behaviors, physical appearances and political backgrounds under a microscope. Two cast members — Cierra Ortega and Yulissa Escobar — were booted off the show this season, following backlash on social media over their past posts containing racial slurs.
For some, the drama on and off screen has been a turnoff.
“I don’t know if it’s just the editing or how they portrayed the cast,” said Agnes Lazar, 25, who watched the finale with some of her friends and family at Cobblestone. "I feel like we’re missing certain parts, and it’s just kind of disappointing, especially with the casting."
Still, most fans remain committed to the viewing experience.
Granelli, of Northeastern, compared the “Love Island” franchise to the Olympics, which takes place every four years and draws major attention during its short run.
“When the Olympics are on, it seems ever-present. It seems like everybody’s talking about it. It seems like they’re inescapable,” he said. “But then as soon as they’re over, you couldn’t be further away.”
As for the finale, it came as no surprise to many viewers that fan favorite Amaya Espinal was crowned the winner alongside Bryan Arenales. The two made history as the first Latino couple to win “Love Island USA."
At Cobblestone, Amaya Papaya (Espinal's nickname) was the most common chant of the night, as fans stood up to cheer when host Ariana Madix declared she and Arenales were taking home the $100,000 prize.
