Whether it’s producer intention or just happy coincidence, Love Island is full of romance novel cliches. A group of hot 20-somethings give up internet access to move into a villa and couple up for a prize? We call that “forced proximity” and “marriage of convenience” in the romance world. And the fact that a pairing shares one bed? That’s literally known as “one bed.” There are love triangles and second chances, heartbreak and hook ups. So it’s not surprising that viewers—and aspiring writers—have started noticing these tropes and creating their own works.
Yes, a new bombshell has entered the villa: Love Island fan fiction exists, and it’s even hotter than the real thing.
For the unfamiliar, fan fiction—also known as fan fic or FF—are stories written and posted online about existing movies, books, TV shows, or even real celebrities that expand or reimagine these popular figures in new scenarios. They don’t have to be steamy, but it’s the Internet, so they often are. When it comes to Love Island FF, specifically, there’s something for every mood on popular fanfic reading and publishing platforms like Wattpad and Archive of Our Own (AO3). There’s wish fulfillment based on real-life contestants. But if that feels too invasive, you can escape into ones with totally original characters. Or maybe you’d like something that blends the two, where a new fictional main character meets and interacts with the existing IRL cast of a season. One writer I spoke with based theirs on Love Island: The Game, a role-playing mobile game that’s “#1 in Simulation” in the Apple App Store.
“I think Love Island is actually perfect fodder, because you have this beautiful enclosed environment where outside influences don’t exist,” says Alessandra Ferreri, head of content at Wattpad, a free social storytelling platform where users can write and post their own stories. “You have a huge cast of characters that you can sub in and out, depending on what you want your cast to look like. You have these contrived challenges that aim to push conflict, and they’re all bent on emotional stakes, which I think is just as compelling as something really fantastical. It really plays around with your heartstrings and with the emotional core that you see in a lot of character building and character arcs in romance stories.”
The popularity of Love Island USA season seven, which just wrapped this week, seems to be behind a quick rise in LI fanfic in particular. “Every time a new season comes out for Love Island, it’s such a fun, romance-driven show that we’ll often see these bumps come up,” says Ferreri. “But this season has been particularly juicy.”
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Since the first week of June, when Love Island USA premiered, the number of stories tagged #LoveIsland and #LoveIslandUSA on Wattpad has increased by more than 1400%. Last week users spent nearly 150,000 hours reading Love Island tagged content alone. AO3’s numbers, meanwhile, are smaller but also growing on the non-profit, volunteer-run site for fan fiction, fan art, and other fanworks. “The quantity of fanf iction naturally tends to increase over time as a show becomes more popular,” a representative tells me over email.
Aisata Ba, who writes under the handle sxnnystudio on Wattpad, was one of those inspired by this season of Love Island USA. Ironically, she’d never watched the show and didn’t consider herself a fan before this summer. “I can’t stand suspense,” she tells me over Zoom. “Whenever they have those long pauses, I get so irritated. I’m like, no, I can’t watch it.”
But the algorithm always provides. Ba started getting served fan edited videos on TikTok of Nic and Olandria—a.k.a. “Nicolandria”—back when the Islanders were still just friends. Despite the fact that the two were exploring connections with other people, many viewers were convinced the two had chemistry and started shipping them as a couple. Wait, they’re cute, Ba thought. Intrigued, she started watching the show with her friends and found herself “catching any crumb” she could.
“It was the longing gazes,” she says. “I was like, they want each other. Why are they playing too hard? Why don’t they get together?”
Her desire to see them turn their friendship into a romance was so great that she decided to make it happen herself—fictionally, of course. “I was like, if the producers aren’t going to do it, and Nico and Olandria aren’t going to do it, then in my universe, that’s going to happen,” she says. “I’m going to play into every trope I can, and I’m going to make this as yearning and romantic and as angsty as possible.”
She started writing and posting her FF, Kiss & Tell, around episode six. By the time the real-life Nicolandria actually kissed—in episode 21—Ba had already planned out a whole plot line and developed something of a following. “When I first posted, I got maybe 300 views,” she says. “I was like, okay, cool. This is actually a good amount. So I just kept going and kept going, and then it kept building. Every single day I would blink, and it would go from 500 to a thousand views, a hundred to 10,000.” (According to Wattpad, Nicolandria content engagement nearly doubled before and after their recoupling episode.)
Ba’s TikTok views doubled, too. “Everyone’s like, you manifested this,” she says. “And I’m like, no, I didn’t. They just caught up with the program.”
It turns out the Love Island extended universe offers a lot of inspiration beyond the real-life Islanders. Ariendiel, real name withheld, based their AO3 story, The Triumph of Time, on Love Island: The Game. “I have never been comfortable writing about real people,” Ariendiel says. “I’ve also barely watched the show!” Their fanfic follows two Islanders—who scandalously were not coupled up during filming—deciding to make a go of it beyond the villa.
Ariendiel says it was the structured format of both the game and the show that made for a fun creative exercise. “It had very compelling characters that were still open for interpretation—things us fanfic writers love,” they tell me. Because the game allows the player to create a main character who follows a set plot structure, Ariendiel says it made the threshold for writing fanfic relatively low and beginner friendly. Don’t forget the built-in stakes, either. “The quest for love, combined with questionable motives, makes for compelling watching and gameplay.”
According to the representative from AO3, fan fiction is what happens when people enjoy a story or real-life events and start asking, “What happens next?” “Fanwork often tends to focus on exploring things left unresolved in the canon, such as relationships that didn’t happen or ended in an unsatisfying fashion, storylines which were cut short, or characters it would have been interesting to see interact, but who never appeared together,” they explain. “Other fanworks might focus on things that fans simply want to see more of.” So, if you’ve ever watched Love Island and thought about what you would do in that situation…maybe you should write about it?
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There’s definitely an audience. It’s why so many bars and restaurants are making a killing off hosting live Love Island watch parties right now, too. “When Nico and Olandria finally kissed, I remember the fandom euphoria,” Ba says. “I felt like everybody was on a high. I couldn’t even go to sleep that night. I was buzzing. There’s something inside all of us—a collective—buzzing with excitement right now. We’re all so happy to know this is happening, and that someone else is happy. We’re living through them in a way, so we’re rooting for them. I think as a culture, we need someone to root for, and we want something good to happen. Love Island is a chance to see that.”
Ba continues, “People really want to see something hopeful. And I think love is one of those things that really inspires hope. So when we see two people who like each other, we are rooting for them. We don’t even know why we’re rooting for them. We’re just like, give me something good, please.”
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