After watching international versions of dating-themed reality show Love Island, Mzansi had been waiting for Love Island SA but were left disappointed by the lack of diversity in the 90% white cast.
The long-awaited reality show aired for the first time on M-Net on Sunday and has Leandie du Randt as its host.
Its debut on social media got off to a rocky start as it landed on the Twitter trends list because tweeps couldn't believe the cast had only two black people and one coloured man in a pool of white people.
Many were appalled by the “lack of diversity” on Love Island SA and agreed that the rainbow nation was not well represented. Social media users held nothing back when they debated over the predominantly white cast and the poor quality of the production overall.
The show trended for hours and was even nicknamed 'Love Island Orania'.
Responding to the backlash, DStv sent a statement to TshisaLIVE in which they apologised for technical issues on the show but insisted they pride themselves in “reflecting diversity and inclusion for all our shows”.
They added that viewers should expect diversity to be more apparent in future episodes of the show.
“We pride ourselves in reflecting diversity and inclusion for all our shows, including Love Island. The many channels and thousands of programme hours we produce are testament to this. Viewers can be assured that this will become more apparent in future episodes of Love Island SA. We hope viewers will keep watching to enjoy the new stars of the show who will be arriving over the next few days.
“We understand viewers’ disappointment in relation to the production quality and would like to apologise for the technical issues experienced yesterday [Sunday] and are working really hard to resolve them,” said Sbu Mpungose, a DStv spokesperson in the statement.
Here are some of the top reactions below:
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