Tag: itv

BOYCOTT LOVE ISLAND PLEASE

~ Loveday ~ 1 Comment

In the last two summers I have written two blog posts about Love Island; one completely slating it for the trash that it is, and the other seeing the entertaining side of it. So, now we’re in the middle of a new season it is time for another post. Only this one will be different, this one will be even angrier than my first post despite not having seen a single episode of the new series… because people have died because of this show. And it is still being aired.

I want to start with the facts, the harsh and upsetting truth to explain why I have boycotted Love Island this year, which is that Sophie Gradon, Aaron Armstrong and Mike Thalassitis all killed themselves as a result of the show. Now before you start shouting me down, claiming it wasn’t the show that killed them but the ‘fame’ or whatever else, ultimately those three people would not have been thrown into the positions they were in if it weren’t for Love Island. The fact that Aaron Armstrong was even a bloody contestant on the show and yet the damage it did to his girlfriend in turn caused so much damage to him is heartbreaking and incredibly concerning. How does Jeremy Kyle get axed after one suicide but Love Island keeps going after three suicides? Because Love Island makes ITV more money; it sucks the entire nation in and turns love into a game, making you believe you need that Love Island water bottle if you want to be happy.

What I find increasingly worrying is the number of ‘proper’ adults watching the show. I am so shocked by how many of my friends’ parents watch Love Island religiously while their children boycott it. My parents’ generation, in my opinion, should know better than to get hooked on such a toxic show. How is it toxic, you may be thinking, let’s cover some bases again like I did in my last two posts (Here and Here):

DIVERSITY. Um… what diversity…??? The fact that the only dark-skinned, black woman has been ‘dumped’ from the island and the token ‘plus-size’ contestant is barely bigger than a size 12 is depressing. The girls have had work done, some obviously more so than others and there is a distinct lack of wobbly bits which just make it unrealistic and upsetting. How many people are looking at their own ‘bikini body’ in comparison to the Love Islanders’ bodies and wishing they looked different? How many young girls’ self-esteem are we damaging and do we have to keep damaging until we wake up and realise what we’re doing?

ENTERTAINMENT VS REALITY. Okay, so why is it entertaining to watch other people get mugged off and rejected on TV? Why do we enjoy watching people cry as their very new relationships get ripped apart by a random new person entering the villa? I think it is absolutely crazy that these people think they love each other after knowing one another for a few days… but I can fully imagine what the heightened environment would do to their perspective on life and love. A day can feel like a week in the villa, and those who stay in the villa from the beginning until the end will most likely forget aspects of their life outside of the ‘Love Island Bubble’; so obviously she thinks she loves him and they will live happily ever after outside the villa… but bring reality back into the picture, give them expectations and responsibilities and it will all come tumbling down. The reason it (excuse my language, I’m angry) fucks with their heads so much when they leave the villa is because they suddenly have this audience watching their every move and very quickly have to return to reality, but their reality has changed. These people used to be ‘nobodies’ in comparison, now they are judged for everything they do. What they wear, how they speak, who they’re seen with, what they advertise… it’s a minefield which they have to try to navigate with no preparation at all. A person in the villa could think the nation love him/her, only to be ‘dumped from the island’ (I hate that expression) and discover that everyone hated him/her. This person can now sit at home for hours reading everything anyone has ever written about him/her on the internet… They can begin to believe the horrible things they are reading because, let’s be honest, if hundreds or even thousands of people were claiming you were a bitch, or a slut, or a fuckboy, or just a horrible person, you would start to believe it too eventually. Ultimately this show changes people’s lives forever, whether they expect it or not, and it is designed to entertain you. Aspects of the show are planned and staged. You are not watching a reality, but your opinions of the contestants are shaping their new reality outside of the villa based on the one hour of carefully selected clips from their 24 hours in the villa and that is not fair.

Okay, so some of you might say, well, they’ve chosen to go on the show so it’s their own fault. But in response to that I ask, would you say it is a person’s own fault for getting skin cancer because they went out in the sun? No. We make choices without knowing what the long term effects might be. Nobody can predict the future and unfortunately I think a lot of the contestants on Love Island are just hoping it will give them a better future. Nobody would enter a show knowing it would make them suicidal in the end. These people just aren’t aware of how powerful social media is. Nobody really is. Social media influences everything and if we read that Georgia (random name) is a ‘homewrecking slut’ (random phrase) over and over again on Twitter, we’ll be intrigued, maybe even watch Georgia on TV and then join the Twitter army against her, adding fuel to the fire than will inevitably engulf Georgia’s life once she has ‘left the villa’ or whatever.

Ultimately, what I want to say is this:

  1. Love Island sets unrealistic body image expectations. Girls, you don’t need surgery or injections or anything to look good. Appearance is superficial and ‘goodness’ comes from within. You could meet the best looking guy in the world but he might have the personality of a slab of concrete and no moral compass.
  2. We need to stop judging and harassing these people on social media because all it is doing is hurting them. We have to think in the rule of three when speaking: is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind? If what you want to say/post does not fulfil two of these criteria, don’t say it or post it!!! The most important to be aware of is necessity because, although it might feel necessary for you to post that ‘Emma is a horrible, fat cow’ (random name again), it is definitely not necessary at all, nor is it kind and frankly it’s probably not true because Emma is probably a human not a cow.
  3. We need to stand up to ITV and say ENOUGH. By watching the show you are putting money into their pockets for what? For people to commit suicide after leaving the villa because they can’t cope anymore? Capitalism can be a great system for creating wealth but, when it overlooks the wellbeing of people to maximise wealth, is that not a sort of breach of human rights? When did money become more important than people? Where’s the balance that we need? Why are we encouraging these businesses to exploit actual human beings for money?

 

Over and out x

#BoycottLoveIsland

Love Island 2018 – have I been converted?

~ Loveday ~ 1 Comment

I have a love-hate relationship with Love Island because, until it was put on Netflix, I had never properly watched it but I was very against it. I even wrote a blog post about it here and, having reread that, I still agree with a lot of what I said. The difference this year is that I understand why people watch it for entertainment – it is entertaining, I can’t deny that, and you do get hooked onto hoping certain couples work out and whatnot. The show has also handled sex much more sensibly this year, introducing rules after the chaos of last season. However, I still have some issues…

The GIRLS – this has been posted about everywhere already but, there is NO body diversity among the women on the show. All of them are slim, toned, no ‘wobbly bits’ and have probably had work done; which is fine but where are the curvy girls, or the ‘normal’ girls? I get it, attractive people make more people watch, fair enough, but the fact that the only diversity is that Samira is mixed-race is appalling in my opinion.

The GENERAL SHOW – I know I said it was entertaining, and it is, but it’s also sort of brainwashing us… I read a tweet last night that bothered me.img_4436.png

This bothered me because, yes the way Adam behaved was not on, but you can’t just brand every guy that is remotely similar to Adam as someone to be avoided. We also have no idea what Alex might do, he could prove to be exactly the same as Adam, or worse. My point is, every single bloody person is different so WHY do we compare people and assume everyone of a certain appearance or background will behave like one person…

At the end of the day these people have known each other just over a week and we, the audience, know them even less than that because we see snippets from just 1 hour of their 24 hour day… We do not know what these people are truly like, so don’t go idolising one and demonising another because you don’t know what goes on if the cameras don’t show you.

I mean, I’m literally watching Love Island now as I write this and I love it, so I don’t want it to stop but I think people, especially young girls, need to know how unrealistic the entire show is.

Unpopular opinion: I like Eyal

I HATE LOVE ISLAND

~ Loveday ~ 4 Comments

Confession: I do NOT watch Love Island. WHAT?! HOW!? BLASPHEMY! You say. It’s true, I do not watch Love Island. Sorry, I’ll stop saying that now, I know it’s hurting some of you. 

However, in order to be able to appropriately argue my corner I had to endure two episodes of it, just to get the gist – frankly it was hell on earth, worse than my previous bout of tonsilitis this month. 

Let me explain why I have this bitter hatred towards that show from watching only two episodes, wincing at the number of times they say “d’you know what I mean?” and wondering whether I should start a drinking game with it in an attempt to enjoy myself a little more. 

THE GIRLS. Okay, you’re not all stupid, you’re fully aware the girls have had work done. But, there are fourteen year old, twelve year old, ten year old girls watching that! If I had watched girls like that running around in bikinis EVERY DAY when I was ten, I’d definitely have felt even more self-conscious than I did anyway about my body – my lack of perky breasts, my tiny lips and my not perfectly curled thick eyelashes. Yes, you and I know that these women have had work done, but there are so many girls out there who will now strive to look like these women, some of them so much so that they will push their bodies to unhealthy levels. Let’s not beat around the bush, eating disorders such as anorexia affect so many people, please can we just stop adding to that number ITV? It’s not fair to push these subconscious ideals onto young, impressionable girls without them realising. 

THE RELATIONSHIPS. So the premise of the show is to create relationships, yeah? With a bit of drama sprinkled here and there. But these people have known each other all of one month and they’re already saying they love each other?! That’s something we did when we were twelve and it was ridiculous – but there are twelve year olds watching this who will think it is completely normal to tell someone you barely know that they’re the love of your life. It isn’t, in case you didn’t realise. Okay, yes, sometimes you do just know but that’s a very rare exception. In the episode I watched whatsherface and whatshisname (after doing some research I discovered I am referring to Olivia and Chris…or maybe it’s Tyla and Jonny – you tell me) were saying how much they love each other but can’t be themselves around each other. Let me just say, if you can’t make it work in the first month it’s very unlikely it will work beyond that. But then there will be massive drama if one of them gets with someone else, and I’m pretty sure there’s some love triangle between Tyla and Jonny and someone – inevitable when you essentially hot box a bunch of single people looking for love. “Looking for love”, I regret that choice of words because if they’re looking for love they wouldn’t be on a dating show designed to ENTERTAIN people A.K.A designed to create drama in early relationships. Put simply, the people on Love Island are looking for fame, which is absolutely fine, but don’t mislabel it please. 

THE SEX. Okay, I’m not prudish and I have no issue with what order people decide to do things in when it comes to sex and relationships. But, in a time when rape culture is rife and young men’s attitude towards sex with women is, generally speaking, misogynistic, why are we being presented with a norm of sex (and everything else under the sun) before actually getting into a relationship? The problem being that it sets up a new option of “persuasion” (I prefer the word “pressure” in this case though) whereby men can say “we don’t have to be in a relationship to do this” – which you don’t, if that’s what you’re comfortable with, but don’t publish it on national television for all the country to see and be influenced by. ITV, you are essentially giving men a scapegoat for being called out on sexual pressure. 

Maybe I’m old-fashioned and need to relax a bit, but with every rant/message/natter I post I hope to make a difference to the media-controlled, still bustling with inequality society we live in. We should live in a world where women and men don’t feel pressure to look a certain way because of the media, where relationships mean more than just a label of “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” and where sex isn’t a poker chip in the game of love. If I can take any step to get closer to reaching that point, I can be proud of something I have achieved. 

HOPE YOU ENJOYED MY RANT. Over and out.