The prevalence of love teams in the local scene eventually transformed into a cultural fixture among viewers, which in turn, has further fueled the showbiz industry to provide opportunities and exposures for on-screen couples to maintain their popularity. In the early days, Mary Walter and Gregorio Fernandez’s tandem was considered as the precursor of the love team phenomenon in the Philippine cinema after creating effective silent movies during the 1920s. Meanwhile, the resounding success of Western media’s celebrity pairings, such as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (Brangelina) who turned into real life lovers, aggravated the power of love teams as movie or television lead pairings are now expected to translate their on-screen love story to the off-screen.

At present, the rising love teams are deemed to follow a certain formulaic make: good-looking young celebrities, often of foreign mix or a child of a celebrity, whose on-screen personas depict the contrast between wealth and poverty. While the inception of shipping culture in the Philippine media is intended to bring entertainment and romantic excitement, this phenomenon has blurred the lines between what’s real and what’s fictional. Like usual fanatics, devoted love team supporters tend to forget that on-screen couples are still merely actors trained to entertain them. Thus, these actors should not be forced to bring their chemistry off-screen for the sake of feeding the fantasies of their supporters.