Enjoy your escape to Love Island
Love Island regularly attracts audiences of millions. looks at what it is that makes the reality show a perennial success.
Love Island has started again. This might mean nothing to you or it could mean a great deal.
The show exploded in popularity last year and was a massive hit. I didn’t watch it and for someone who watches most reality TV shows that was unusual.
This year I wasn’t going to make the same mistake and tuned in from the first thrilling episode when the coupling took place. This might sound like some cult religious ceremonial ritual, but this is how it all begins in Love Island.
This has been a great year for women in terms of equality but let’s not let such things distract from Love Island’s shining moment.
The show opens with the girls lined up in bikinis, high heels, fake tan, full make-up and glorious hair extensions. In walks a topless male contestant and the girls step forward if they find him attractive.
The final say is with the man and he then decides which female to choose. Are you still with me? Once everyone has been placed in a couple the process is complete. Off they all go to a villa in Spain to live for eight weeks.
Or unless you find yourself couple-less and you’re kicked on to a Ryanair flight home.
Couples are even encouraged to get active under the covers, with reports saying contestants are given endless supplies of alcohol.
There was even reports before the show started that one of the contestants, Dani, whose dad is EastEnders actor Danny Dyer gave his daughter permission to have sex while she was in the villa. For this reason and many more, I would not encourage children to watch the show.
Love Island is massive. It launched this month was the highest rating programme at 9pm across all channels in the UK. In total more than five million people tuned in for the first episode in the UK. This is more than double last year’s launch.
It is now ITV2’s biggest TV show in the history of the channel. These are strong viewing figures given that the show is on every evening.
ITV said the first episode had the biggest audience on a British digital channel since the London Olympics showed on BBC Three in 2012.
In Ireland, Love Island is shown on 3e and has reported viewing figures of well over 100,000 per episode. That’s a tenth of the Late Late Toy Show viewers for each episode, every night.
My Twitter and Facebook feeds are packed with people commenting on the latest goings on in the villa and news outlets are jammed with stories about the show.
The whole point of the show is encouraging people to fall in love. The winning couple gets £50,000 and the chance to make millions in commercial and PR deals afterwards.
This year the producers will have got exactly what they were hoping for— a villain and a nice guy. The Villa Villian is Adam, the Lothario of group — who has already been coupled with four women.
Adam literally couldn't care less. #LoveIsland pic.twitter.com/ojbZSXB4cd
— Love Island (@LoveIsland) June 19, 2018
Then there’s the lovely Dr Alex, desperate for love but nobody really wants to know about him. He’s the quiet soul that the viewers desperately want to see find his true love.
This might sound like fiction and maybe it is but for now it’s cold, hard reality for us viewers.
What’s amazing about Love Island is the deeper thoughts it throws up. The girls, so far, have proven to be desperate and weak. The boys are in the driving seat. The girls are turning on each other while the boys get on with things. It can be hard to watch girls acting so vulnerable and easy.
Love Island is now in its fourth season and it’s only growing in popularity. Why is it that this show is so popular? Love sells. People love love. They love seeing people fall in love, flirting, flighting, breaking-up.
We love watching beautiful people, having trivial conversations. One girl didn’t even know what Brexit was.
There’s something thrilling about seeing new relationships play out and the dynamics between men and women. The producers of the show don’t keep us waiting too long for excitement.
Like gladiators fighting in the colosseum, just when it’s getting safe and comforting they throw in some more beautiful people and all is unsettled.
Georgia teaches Hayley a thing or two about #Brexit... pic.twitter.com/T6Hn5DACKl
— Love Island (@LoveIsland) June 9, 2018
The contestants are stunning. Every one of them. They are all thin, tanned, young, fit. It’s great to sit on a couch at an arms length checking out their hair and make-up.
We can see ourselves in many of the scenarios that are playing out in the villa and thinking perhaps of how we would do it differently.
You see in Love Island plenty of conversations you’ve had yourself with girlfriends and boyfriends.
It’s addictive viewing because it’s about real life and the quest for love. There’s not many people out there who do not have ‘finding love’ as the main chapter in their book of life.
The thing with Love Island is it gets us thinking of the past Adams and Zaras in our own lives.
Love Island is appealing to people of all ages too.
There’s something quite satisfying, sitting there watching it as a mother of two children who is happily married and thinking of the mistakes the girls are making when it comes to their interactions with men.
This show is not only entertaining, it makes you feel good.
It’s such an escape from reality, it’s nearly embarrassing but we don’t care. I certainly don’t care. My husband doesn’t seem to care, as he pretends to watch his phone while it’s on.
Why do we watch Love Island and why is it so popular?
It might be an escape for a bit from the real world but in a way, watching the carry on inside the villa makes you feel much better about your own life.
