I’ve long been known among friends for my distaste for reality TV. I worried it might be “brain rot,” and for the most part, I succeeded in avoiding it.

But this summer, the new season of “Love Island USA,” which premiered June 3, has been inescapable. My Instagram feed was flooded with memes of Huda Mustafa, a contestant, telling Nic Vansteenberghe, another contestant, “I’m a mommy,” and his confused reply: “Mamacita?” Even Justin Bieber joined in on the joke, posting a meme to his Instagram feed that received nearly two million likes. And Megan Thee Stallion appeared as a guest host.

I saw clips of watch parties at bars, where crowds huddled around massive screens as if they were watching a competitive sports game. At restaurants or on the subway, I often overheard conversations about how different contestants process their relationships and Huda “crashing out.”

And I noticed the sheer number of men who were tapped in. When the N.B.A. Finals aired at the same time as a new episode, many were faced with a difficult choice of which one to watch.

As an observer, I was fascinated.

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The drama-filled episodes of “Love Island USA,” filmed in Fiji, are shot the day before they air, six days a week at 9 p.m. on Peacock. Credit…Peacock

After piecing together some of the show’s major plotlines from friends and social media, I was able to join in on the conversation. Once I got over the cringe-worthy moments and the strange make-out challenges, I managed to sit through a full episode.

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