Love Island USA ended recently, and Big Brother Naija just started. While the second one is not a dating show, BBN is famous for birthing relationships, aka ships, between contestants every season. With a track record of two marriages coming out of nine seasons, ships will always be an important part of the show.
Why do viewers enjoy shipping couples on TV shows so much? Sometimes, I think it is because love is a beautiful thing, and seeing it generally makes us feel good as humans. Women, especially, enjoy shipping strangers because it allows them to experience various types of relationships through the lens of other women. At other times, it’s simply due to the couple’s chemistry and visual appeal, as humans are drawn to beauty.
Ellsy, who is a chronic shipper, says, “I enjoy shipping because I love love. It’s so beautiful to watch two individuals from different backgrounds coming on a show to find each other and build or start their relationship. When I see a couple who are cute and go with the values I believe in, I ship.”
Shipping is a source of pleasure for hopeless romantics and the romance book girlies and boys. Seeing them meet each other (usually for the first time), interact with each other, and start a romance often feels like a romance book come to life, where the protagonists begin their love story when you start the book and experience their relationship blossoming with every page you flip. For people who enjoy shipping, aka shippers, being part of a real love story is thrilling and exciting.
But the difference between a book and a movie is that the story ends for the viewer where the writer stops. In a typical romance story, the couple starts an official relationship, gets engaged, gets married, or has kids. Most of the time, we don’t know what happens after, but the viewer leaves the book or the movie with the feel-good assumption that love reigned and the couple is going to live happily ever after.
That’s the difference between shipping people in a writer’s fantasy world and shipping people in real life on a reality TV show. The shipping continues after the show is over and the couple returns from the enclosed setting to the real world.
The “happily ever after” mindset, however, remains the same. Shippers expect their ships to continue their relationship after the show or, for the more whimsical ones, to get married, have kids, and continue that fantasy of happily ever after. Shipping people in real life brings a satisfaction that a book lacks because there are constant updates on the relationship even after the show, and it’s, well, real.
Ellsy, who recently shipped the winners of Perfect Match Xtra, says, “With my recent ship, I see myself in the ship with them. I don’t know why, but when I see them, I’m always happy and want to see them more. And I don’t want them to lose each other. I pray for them always cos it’s forever with them.”
Shippers can get very invested in the continuity of their ships, especially in Africa. After watching several seasons of Big Brother Naija and Love Island UK and USA, it’s obvious that other demographics are not as invested in ships as Africans are. Other demographics take it a lot more lightly, enjoy the show and the contestants, and continue supporting their favourites on their socials post-show. While some can go crazy over their couples, they’re generally more realistic about the outcomes and handle breakups with more grace. And since the men are usually the cause of messy breakups, lay the blame exactly where it should be.
Culturally, Africans expect all relationships to end in marriage. This means that when viewers ship a couple on a show, they expect them to follow through post-show with a relationship that should end in marriage. The fact that, statistically, that rarely happens still doesn’t help manage expectations. When a breakup happens, some shippers take it personally, as though they were participants in the relationship. It also becomes a gotcha moment against the lady in the couple, especially from the ops of the ship, and you’re sure to find “he used and dumped her” and “I knew it wouldn’t last” comments. (Oshey, psychic and relationship guru ?)
Never mind that people break up real relationships all the time. Hell, even married couples sometimes get divorced.
However, I believe that the reason some African shippers become so invested in their favourites’ relationships, to the extent of obsession and wanting to control them, is because they dedicate so much time, energy, and financial resources to the couple during and after the show. Unlike foreign dating shows like Love Island, where fans vote for their favourite couples simply by downloading an app, African shows usually require spending money in one way or another to vote for your favourite couple. The winners of Ghana’s TV3 Network’s dating show Perfect Match Xtra won with a total of over $124,000 in final votes cast for only the winning couple. The amount voted by their fans just in the finale week is more than the $100,000 prize awarded to the winners of Love Island USA. The fans voted 8 weeks out of the 10 weeks the show ran, and the winning fanbase had voted almost the Ghanaian cedi equivalent of $5,000, in the penultimate week. To top off that feat, they had more money and a fully paid baecation waiting for their winners in the hotel after their win. They have since been given more cash and gifts worth thousands of dollars.
Given the significant investment that shippers make in their ships, it’s not surprising that many become deeply invested in them after the show and tend to have strong opinions about the couple’s relationship and how it should be navigated. Some form an unhealthy attachment to their favourites and tend to act as though they’re the ones in the relationship, projecting their likes and dislikes and jealousy on the couple. We’ve witnessed shippers getting angry on their faves’ behalf if either of the couple is seen in public with the opposite gender, especially those the fans disapprove of. Many take breakups personally, with some saying they were heartbroken and sick when their ships ended. A clear example is Kidd Waya and Erica Nlewedim’s shippers from Big Brother Season 5 holding an Instagram Live to pray for their couple when things were going sour. There are also recordings of shippers crashing out on Twitter Spaces and Instagram Lives when ships tank, showing how serious this can be for them.
Shipping can be fun when done without expectations. I wish that most shippers would take shipping couples in reality TV shows as they would a summer fling: fun and pleasurable but with no serious expectations. Relationships can only be confirmed after they have been tested under real-life conditions. Strong feelings can develop in enclosed spaces when you’re constantly exposed to someone you’re attracted to. However, this doesn’t mean that you’ll be compatible in the long term under the multitude of external influences and conditions that affect relationships out here. Family influence, proximity to each other’s home base, exposure to more options, conflicting schedules, and different goals are some of the factors that may sour a wonderful on-screen romance in the real world.
As a shipper, it’s best to detach and move on after the show. However, that can be hard when you love a couple so much and are invested in their story. So if you can’t move on right after the show, enjoy the initial post-show lovey-dovey moments as much as you can without putting too much pressure, expectations, and projections on the couple. Remember that it takes more than two people liking each other for a relationship to work out in real life, and these are people, not fictional characters. Allow them to navigate their new relationship in their own time and on their own terms. At the end of the day, they have to do what works best for them—even if it is breaking up post-show. A breakup doesn’t mean the romance was fake. It just means that they may not be compatible for the long term, and that’s okay. They should be able to find better matches without being afraid of how their fans will react to them separating or dating other people.
As a new season of BBN begins, I wish shippers all the best. Enjoy your ships, go crazy over the “awwwwn moments,” and ignore the self-proclaimed “brand-builders” who hate seeing their favourites in ships and are often condescending to shippers for shipping people who are romantically involved on a show.
I get it, love is sweet, and when we see a couple that seems to be in love, we want to see it last forever, because, why not? (Haters of beautiful things, I’m not talking to you.)
But don’t get too involved and wrapped up in a relationship that is not yours or act as though you’re a partner in it. At the end of the day, relationships are unpredictable, especially ones that you have no control over.
