There isn’t always love on the island of the internet when it comes to misinterpretation. Yesterday, BuzzFeedTasty’s Instagram account posted a carousel of pictures showing what they thought each Love Island USA girl deserved for breakfast. The Peacock show’s contestants are known for using food as a form of flattery in an attempt to display affection toward another contestant.
The post has since been taken down, but BuzzFeedTasty created virtual breakfast plates for each of the women contestants left on this season of Love Island USA. One Islander got pancakes with fruit, another got avocado toast with chili flakes, and Chelley got…a knuckle sandwich? The weird and offensive selection for one of the few Black women on this season of Love Island and the respect given outside of the surveilled villa matches up with what Black women have had to deal with since the beginning of time. In the journey for love that is televised and fetishized later on TikTok is something both Chelley and Olandria have had to undergo this season so far, and the internet seems to have collectively received the ick.
TikTok creator @kahlenbarry, aka Kahlen Barry, posted a video questioning why Tasty thought Chelley’s selection was appropriate and brought attention to his perspective on why Tasty thought violence against women was funny. Barry also spoke on the goldfish put on the side of Chelley’s digital plate with “in case Ace gets fussy,” in parentheses. This comment was seen as a dig at Black men as well, and gives off the energy of equating him to a child.
After deleting the breakfast plate post, BuzzFeedTasty took to their story today. “We recently published a post that was offensive and did not meet Tasty’s and BuzzFeed’s high level of editorial standards,” the company wrote. In another apology post, the team said that the post was not supposed to be intended with racial undertones and was meant to be ‘cheeky’.
The racially-charged plate reached the desk of Chelley’s team, and they wasted no time in issuing a statement on the issue. In the response written on Chelley’s Instagram story from her team, they referenced the apology that BuzzFeedTasty published to their page and labeled it as insincere and expressed how the company’s ‘cheeky’ knuckle sandwich comment was steeped in racism, misogyny, anti-blackness, prejudice, and domestic violence. The apology post, which seems to have been deleted, was screenshotted by the Instagram account @toohottea. Tasty currently only has an apology slide on their story. However, the comments of all of their recent posts are calling them out for the post and the apology.
The finale of Love Island USA season 7 is scheduled for Sunday, July 13, but this incident has obviously left a bad taste in some Islanders’ mouths.
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