Why All The Hate For Zach?  Labels Of Male Supremacy Fuel Parasocial Behavior From ‘Love Island’ Fans

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks. It is Wednesday, July fifteenth, and the season finale I Love Island was on Sunday. Some Islanders seem like they'd like to go back to Fiji now because they are just realizing just how ugly the conversation about them had gotten. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Roabes. I really did not know everybody Zach is getting all this heat. I was really I didn't understand. Why can you tell me, please, why he's getting most of the hate.

00:00:33
Speaker 2: Yes, this is actually shocking. I wasn't expecting this either, But apparently so many people can't stand Zach and the reasons that have been given surround this whole situationship thing. They're angry that he wouldn't fully commit to Cada. They're angry that he wouldn't take the step to boyfriend girlfriend, and they felt like he put her in an awful position in front of America, and so they're angry at him. Some people have also criticized all of the love and romance he showed Bryce that he didn't extend to Cata. Okay, so for that reason they have collectively decided to destroy him.

00:01:16
Speaker 1: Sweetheart, I have done the same thing. I felt some of the same things. I thought the relations situationship thing was ridiculous. He and Bryce doing their thing. Come on, dude, I understand. Can you help me understand though? How it goes from Yes, I had those same observations. Yes, I in this house, sitting on the couch, was critical of some stuff Zach was doing. How though, do his missteps on a reality show that we're all watching now turn it groupes what's being described as something something much more than just him getting a little heat or people poking fun at him.

00:01:49
Speaker 2: That's right, and look for the record. His TikTok account was banned for much of the day yesterday because a group of we believe it's young women who have parasocial tendencies where they actually feel some significant connection to him to cata to the show to the point where they were willing to. There's a whole Facebook page apparently dedicated to reporting Zach's TikTok account to get him kicked off the social media platform, and it worked for a large period of time.

00:02:24
Speaker 1: False styles correct.

00:02:26
Speaker 2: Oh my god, they banned. They banded together using social media to tell everybody, Hey, go report Zach's TikTok account what that You can just say, whatever it is, we're just gonna get here, you're gonna report bad behavior, and then you get someone banned. And that's what they did.

00:02:46
Speaker 1: They just want to get him, Yes, yes.

00:02:48
Speaker 2: They want him to feel pain.

00:02:49
Speaker 1: What's that thing that people do when like somebody is called out or canceled publicly for something they do, They'll go to their company site and give them like one star ratings and they get all these things. They try to give them bad rights.

00:03:02
Speaker 2: That happened to gaul too. His business the coffee shop got like completely and totally terrorized in critic reviews. They basically made him gave him one star, zero star, and just started making his coffee shop seem like the worst place on the planet because they didn't like how he treated Jen.

00:03:21
Speaker 1: Is there anything that any I saw a bunch of bad behavior on that show? Is there anything anybody on that show did that justifies what's happening to them now? Absolutely not as bad a behavior as people displayed, and treating people poorly and not being good stewards of people's emotions, awful behavior. We saw this, but these aren't awful people. These aren't the and we're destroying them. We are attempts are being made to destroy these people.

00:03:49
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, correct, And so one of the big headlines is that Trinity, the winner of Love Island, went online to defend Zach. Now. Look she's amassed two million follows on Instagram now, and look a lot of the Islanders are above half a million followers where they had like, you know, three four thousand before they got on the show. So now they do have significant platform.

00:04:11
Speaker 1: She's the most popular.

00:04:12
Speaker 2: She comeing out by far the most popular.

00:04:15
Speaker 1: That's why this is meaningful. She used some cloud and some capital to defend him. That was a big deal.

00:04:19
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and that was a big deal. She put this on her stories yesterday when word came that his TikTok account had been banned, she wrote this, coming out the villa one, I want to say I'm very blessed and appreciative of the love and support everyone has given me. With that being said, I want to say the hate and ignorant comment some of you guys are doing regarding Zach is absolutely not okay and needs to stop. It's very disheartening, and we are people just like everyone else. We genuinely have love for each other inside and out of the villa, and he's one of the most amazing people I've met, so please have some empathy.

00:04:57
Speaker 1: Good on her for doing that, and then she probably understood. She just got all this capital built up and she's expending some of it on him. I don't know. I did see some comments where people like, all right, you my girl, so I'll listen, like they were begrudgingly almost following because she said do so I'm okay with I just don't know. Why are we trying to destroy a guy He didn't murder somebody.

00:05:18
Speaker 2: And that is exactly what some people are writing now in defense of him. But you had Kada, Melanie and Anaia all repost Trinity's story, which is pretty cool. And Zach's own brother, Charlie, who was on season seven of Love Island us.

00:05:32
Speaker 1: I, made appearance on this one.

00:05:34
Speaker 2: He made an appearance, but he actually put this out and he is suggesting that he and or Zach are going to come out and say something further. But this was just yesterday he put out there. TikTok has banned Zach's account because everyone is reporting it. What the f is wrong with people? The truth about the false narratives portrayed about his time there will be spoken on suit.

00:05:55
Speaker 1: What are the false narratives are we talking about? We all watched the show. Need to create a narrative. We saw what happened. We saw some bad behaviors, some stupid behaviors, and loving behaviors, and we saw everything. Yeah, so what is it?

00:06:08
Speaker 2: I think people are upset about him and Bryce's relationship in a lot of ways.

00:06:12
Speaker 1: Why exactly to the point, you want to destroy a guy you don't know are and Kate is fine.

00:06:18
Speaker 2: If Kate's good, we should be good. If she's happy, we should be happy. She isn't saying, look at what a terrible person this is. I'm breaking up with him because he's an asshole. No, they actually put a post up on their stories, both of them, showing a picture of them together saying my rock, my guy, like saying we're together. But that's what they're having to do. They're learning very fast, very quickly. This has got to be incredibly huh overwhelming for these folks who were not household names six weeks ago and are now at the epicenter of public debate. And that is not an easy place to be, especially when you're a young twenty something and you've never experienced the polarization that people can make you feel this public debate.

00:07:04
Speaker 1: Yes, sty've been a part of that conversation, Robes, this is this is a public flogging, this is a public annihilation. This is a gang mob mentality. Yes, that is why has anyone Robes? I will say, we have said plenty of stuff on our mics here. Yeah, I can't believe Zach did that, Kimbie Casey did that. Can't believe so and so did. We talked about all this stuff. So as far as the conversation goes, I'm I'm all here for it, and I understand why people take issue with some stuff he did and several other people did. Robes, I don't why do we have to have another conversation about the conversation. Why do we have to we have to go back? And I don't know. You said parasocial have Is this a condition like this?

00:07:49
Speaker 2: And apparently it's contagious and spreading because people want to belong and they want to have a bad guy and a good guy. We've experienced this, we know what it's like people in order to feel safe, to feel like there's some order in the world. They need to place people in certain categories so that they can feel okay about their lives. I really do believe that. And a show like this put sets people off. It triggers people, and they overreact, and they overconnect to things that have nothing to do with them, and they make judgments that they actually don't know anything about.

00:08:17
Speaker 1: They overjudging. Well, I just don't road this one thing. Put a comment on your story, put a comment up that you didn't like something he did. That's fine to make the effort, Robes to look up, to go do what you need to do, to go, lie to a social media platform about him so you can get him punished in some way. Robes, his social media account is necessary for him to make money. Right now, you are messing with this guy's life because you didn't like how his relationship played out for you.

00:08:50
Speaker 2: That's the truth. And look, I did find some reasonable Reddit posts that gave me a little sense that, Okay, there are a lot of normal people in the world who are now publicly disparaging this type of parasocial behavior, and I just wanted to read a couple of them because it did make me feel better. A lot of folks going online saying some Love Island fans are absolutely feral and this weird parasocial behavior. Fans to stop fer that's a good word, absolutely ridiculous. Why are we holding reality TV stars more accountable than government officials?

00:09:20
Speaker 1: That is true.

00:09:21
Speaker 2: I thought that was such an appropriate response.

00:09:24
Speaker 1: It wasn't too damn long ago that Graham Plattner still had Democrats supporting him when women were saying they were raped.

00:09:34
Speaker 2: Yep, okay. Zach's TikTok account got banned because they didn't like that he wouldn't fully commit in his relationship. Another one writes, genuinely, if you mass reported Zach's TikTok, or if you've been sending him hate messages to his social accounts, you need help. This is a TV show. Take a break, put the phone down and go outside, and.

00:09:56
Speaker 1: You tell somebody that you know what they're going to do. They're probably doubling triple down A Nope, it's not me. Something's wrong with you all. You don't recognize how terrible is act. They probably trip because nobody wants to admit that they might be the problem in this whole conversation. That they're seeing something there that happened to you or from your life or that you have done, and now you're projecting all of it onto somebody else because hey, wasn't me, He's worse.

00:10:17
Speaker 2: Kim me a fuck exactly. This is I know, I know, I know, but I do love that other people are calling these folks out. Another one writes there is an entire group on Facebook dedicated to mass reporting his and others' accounts and reaching out to people like former managers, et cetera. Yeah. Yeah, like they're going to their former bosses saying terrible things about them, saying like making things up, and they said, this cancel culture really needs to effing stop. I really really love to see one of these people who try to cancel get canceled themselves. It's so easy to stand there and judge other people, but can you even begin to imagine what be like to have false narratives be spread about you to everyone you've ever worked for, anyone you've ever done business with, and to have this out for the world to see. And the last one I wanted to read, I thought this was very very well said. It is freaking out of control. People can't make mistakes anymore without their whole life being wrecked and that really serves nobody big time overreactions, and then it makes it really hard for the person with questionable behavior to learn, to grow and to move on. It's sad and truly, Zach did nothing to warrant all of this shit. People are acting like he killed someone and you said the same thing. I was like, yep, you're gonna have a friend here on Reddit. But I do appreciate that there are voices of reason. The problem is they're being drowned out. They're being drowned out by these other folks who literally have no lives.

00:11:49
Speaker 1: Weld I had. I mean, throughout the show, we we took issue, we got heated debates. There was never a time that we ever looked at any of those folks and thought they were bad people.

00:12:01
Speaker 2: No, there were opportunities to recognize some of that same behavior in ourselves and to learn from it. And we saw them do that very thing on movie night. They saw their bad behavior, and I would argue they learned from it. That's the point. That's the cool part of the show. And to take that and use it against these folks as if you've never done anything bad in your life, as if you've never behaved badly. Give me a break. Every single one of us has.

00:12:29
Speaker 1: This is hard. I didn't know. I thought this story was gonna different.

00:12:32
Speaker 2: You're getting all he did.

00:12:33
Speaker 1: I'm a little this It does, Robes because we've been through it and we do Robes, and folks have noticed and followed us for any number of years and hear us how we talk on this podcast. You are hearing people speak who have been through it. Yes, and everybody, Robes. We give space for everybody with their mistakes, no matter what they are. You just leave room for a little grace, that's all. And Robes, you don't have to agree. You could take issue. He could be your least favorite islander of all time. That doesn't mean you try to destroy his life, and that you ask yourself that why thirty episodes this season? Tell me the one he did something so egregious that it was worth you taking the time to find out where he worked and how to send something to TikTok to get him kicked off. You made an effort, Robes. That is mean, That is vicious, That is evil.

00:13:33
Speaker 2: You need to talk on your motivations. There's something inside of you.

00:13:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm not even getting on to those people. Something is wrong that you need to examine. Robes. We've something is wrong with you if you do that, and I hope you get it corrected. But please understand, these folks do not deserve this. And Robes is getting to a point as you were starting here, and you know, I've been turned off on the show. This is turned off. You don't want to be a part of a community that does this. And the fandom is a big part of it. It's a good feel. We got ten people on the couch every night we watch. It's a big communal thing. But is this how we're going to treat these people at some point? Will they have a hard time recruiting good people? Because I almost should to do with that.

00:14:13
Speaker 2: I mean, it is a cautionary tale for a lot of folks who are considering entering into this type of public venue. And if you think you're heated now, babe, after the break, oh it's not just Zach, pretty much all of the men. Maybe yeah, the main the OG's Bryce maybe be the only one who's excluded from this. But a lot of these men are getting publicly scrutinized. And the question is is it fair? Welcome back everyone, to an unexpected Love Island edition. We thought we were done giving Love Island updates Hate Island, but unfortunately, yes, it's becoming Hate Island. We started off talking about all the hate Zach's getting to the point where his TikTok was banned for almost a day because bizarre fans decided to band together and falsely report his accounts to.

00:15:13
Speaker 1: TikTok, Like, how many people does it take? Do they not check it out? They just, oh, we got enough, we'll just take it down.

00:15:18
Speaker 2: I get there must be an I don't know if there's an AI component to an algorithm, but for whatever reason, it was eventually reinstated. But you had Trinity, his brother, other Islanders speaking out and speaking loudly in his defense. But there was an article that was just published in Harper's Bizarre, and I brought it to your attention because the question is what did we witness misogyny on display? Here is the title the Love Island Gender Wars. Season eight of the wildly popular show saw a troubling descent into male supremacist behavior and a satisfying rejection of it. It was look, primarily women are watching this show, and now they actually went through Zach Casey sincere specifically to talk about the misogyny that was on full display during the show.

00:16:07
Speaker 1: Sure sounds like a wonderful read. Robes sounds like a wonderful read. And I get that breakdown. I get why the headline is written in such a way. It's just we go about the conversation and people have their opinions. That's fine. I just just the idea of grace taking the age environment into account and starting with this. None of these are bad people. They're doing some bad things, they makeing some bad mistakes. But when we start labeling Robes misogynists, done, We're done with you. There's no conversation that can be had after that. So I hate when we do this. Robes human being, black man. They are different, they are displaying some things, but we're starting to label them as something. And when you do that, you can't come back from it. Exactly, we're dismissing and throwing away human being because we saw them on a show behave poorly.

00:17:04
Speaker 2: Yes, and perhaps instead of labeling this as misogyny, because I was reading through what they said, each of those men did that represented misogynistic behavior. But also I think you could actually say it was all insecure behavior, and so yes, we can give it a label, or we can try to understand it and understand that almost every human being goes through some of these emotions. And whether a man does it or a woman does it, I think that these are human behaviors. Like for Zach, they said he withheld affection from Cada when he was annoyed, like refusing kissing or threatening not to cook her breakfast as a form of punishment. It was textbook emotional manipulation. Okay, but hasn't everyone done that at least one point in a relationship, man or woman. Yes, that was bad behavior. Yes I recognize that, and I actually remember some of that specifically, But to immediately label it as misogyny, I think is dangerous.

00:18:01
Speaker 1: Robes. It was a fleeting, quick moment, It was in.

00:18:03
Speaker 2: Security, it was it was you know what, it was childlike, it was, it was yeah, and okay, it's emotionally immature.

00:18:11
Speaker 1: What do we call it? And I guess we're only seeing a man do it. And I guess this writer is not suggesting this is only men who do this. He's just pointing out something and he did. But we're taking that and we're applying it and labeling it, and look look at what.

00:18:23
Speaker 2: Men do, and it gives women the opportunity to say, see what these men are.

00:18:29
Speaker 1: Like, and it we go into this war. Okay, okay, you help me here. Generally speaking, isn't this something that's talked about in society is something women do withholding sex, cook your own damn food, wash your damn dirty.

00:18:45
Speaker 2: Dry Absolutely, yep, no, agree, that's what I'm saying. I don't think this is a male This is everyone does this, and it's emotionally immature and it is manipulative, but I don't know that it's necessarily misogynists. Okay, case they say, his constant need to bring up the fact that he wasn't chosen shows his classic victim logic. Then they said, explaining his reasoning for wanting to make Tet his girlfriend, he said, she's literally shown me that she's worthy to be my girl. And then they also said, when he called Anayah a grandma because she wouldn't fol around with him, is that misogyny? All those were all like their their their references or their examples of misogynistic behavior.

00:19:34
Speaker 1: Okay, well, maybe I need to look up misogyny and I don't realize what the.

00:19:37
Speaker 2: And then for sincere, they said he spent the finale praising Melanie for being so patient and resilient, and he celebrated her willingness to repeatedly forgive his transgressions. That that was misogyny. So they're calling all of this out. And they said for many of the men, they were all upset about the oh double standard on movie night. They're like, what they didn't get was they were disparaging the women that they were previously coupled up with to justify their exploration and that was where the misogyny was and that's why it was not a double standard. And look, I get that some of this can be talked about, discussed. I just think, as you point out, putting a label on it now demonizes these men, and then I think further creates this undercurrent of yeah, we're gonna show them, we're gonna punish them. And I think that's the problem. There's no effort to understand, there's no effort to learn, there's no effort to say, wow, how can we each help each other be better human beings instead of just making them the bad guys. And that's what these articles do. And that fuels a lot of what I think we're seeing. And that's why I wanted to point out this article. And I'm not trying to disparage the article, but I do think the articles like this absolutely justify and validate some of these folks who are going online and trying to harm, trying to do harm because they feel like they need to take these guys down a notch.

00:21:00
Speaker 1: You gets so much easier to do when you call somebody misogynists.

00:21:04
Speaker 2: Is calling him Zach exactly.

00:21:05
Speaker 1: You have, you have a label of a bad thing, a bad person. You can go after that, no problem. I hate I hate the labels I get. And people have their opinions, and hey, look, it's good to have a conversation around this stuff. But what we just we throw people away. We throw them away. And if you don't think is anything redeeming about Sincere or Zach or Corbyn or anybody in there, that's right, you have that right to that opinion. We have got to stop throwing people away. Rodes were given the impression that to any woman that any guy who does any little thing wrong, and these are twenty to twenty five year old guys. Yep, everybody, We're talking about they're immature. I assure you Casey's background in there somewhere, Robes. He hasn't learned at that age how to deal with his own feelings, his own emotions, and how to comfort somebody in theirs.

00:21:54
Speaker 2: I'm still working on that as a fifty three year old.

00:21:57
Speaker 1: What about a twenty four year old black man in this country who only understands when he's hurt. You gotta push, you gotta fight back, You gotta be tough. The last thing you do is cry and admit that you're hurt. Robes, there are dynamics here, any human behavior and nature that need a little grace before we just dismiss and throw people away. I hate this. And you remember when Casey was getting all kinds of hell and even people in our house, everybody ever else against him. I said, take a beat. That's Casey too. And he was also the first guy that you're all in love with. He's having a hard time. And if people will hear this, I'm not defending bad male behavior, but I am absolutely in defense of better understanding and grace and Robes not dismissing human beings because they make what you think is a death throw worthy mistake.

00:22:51
Speaker 2: Yes, and as soon as we have an US versus them and we start talking about gender wars, that does not serve anyone.

00:23:00
Speaker 1: Is that the articles? Yes, it said gender it did it?

00:23:03
Speaker 2: Did it said? It said the Love Island gender Wars. I love the title, and so I just look, and I'm not trying to throw that writer or that article under the bus. I just think it does a disservice. Oftentimes we don't realize the impact of what we're putting out there. It. I just think when we label people and we don't, the effort isn't to understand but to demonize. That's never the way to go forward.

00:23:26
Speaker 1: You read through the whole thing more than I did. What was there any conclusion? Was there some way forward? Was there anything you just said, not just label, but have a conversation? Is there is there a conversation in there? Or is it just an attack?

00:23:38
Speaker 2: It was pointing out that these men behaved badly and women were calling them out on it. That was pretty much the the crux.

00:23:47
Speaker 1: Of the article. That part's fine, That part what did you say about Zach one more time baby?

00:23:51
Speaker 2: Before I got the reason why? It's the troubling descent into male supremacist behavior and the satisfying rejection of it. So it was again satisfying rejection of it. When when these folks, and I say folks, it's probably mostly women who went and got Zach's TikTok band, there was a saddest faction. We got ahind it, we got a gout statist fact. Yes, and so that it feels good, get him, get him back. And I think the article unfortunately fuels that mentality. That was my point. And yes they were calling out Zach for withholding affection from Keda, for refusing to not cook her breakfast or threatening to not cook her breakfast because he didn't like her behavior. That, yeah, that was bad, but we don't have to label it as male supremacist behavior. That takes it to a whole other level.

00:24:42
Speaker 1: There have been times I swear to God, you and I might not be doing great. You rubbed me the wrong way about something and I come back into the office and I could have gotten you a drink as well, and I didn't. I'm saying, robes people, he reacted as as a human being or as a male misogynist. What does he react as? Why do we need to take a step further and label him as that. What do we call a.

00:25:09
Speaker 2: Childlike behavior for either gender?

00:25:11
Speaker 1: Label it for women, for me? Or can women not do it? If a woman is pissed and says no sex, if you hold that a.

00:25:18
Speaker 2: Passive aggressive is what I would call that?

00:25:20
Speaker 1: Okay, but not him because he is the male.

00:25:23
Speaker 2: Right, is that he's just aggressive.

00:25:25
Speaker 1: But that's the dynamic, is that women are considered a protected group if.

00:25:29
Speaker 2: You will yes, and we haven't generally historically speaking yes or in depending on what country, and we don't have the power. So therefore, maybe that's a big part of this, is that that dynamic shifts the conversation, but it's still an inappropriate one and hopefully everyone can calm down and understand. As Trinity said, they're people too, so please be respectful. And with that everyone, we hope this is our last Love Island season eight update. Hope it is. And with that, we always appreciate you listening to us. I made me robot alongside DJ Holmes. We'll talk soon. M hm hm hm