Love Island is Wank

I used to need to be liked. I didn't want to bring things up and have my friends roll their eyes at me, but I am just too angry at the world. I know I am young and un-influential, but I have a lot of beef at the world and need to get my beef with Love Island off my chest.

I'm not really in the loop with Love Island, I would watch the odd episode now and then when my sister was watching it but from what I've picked up from the show is that they're not supportive of feminist movements. The show encourages bitchiness and nastiness between contestants, otherwise it's labelled as boring, but fuck me- there is barely any love in the world nowadays. The last thing that the world needs is a TV show that runs on gossip and villainizes ordinary, good people. The show shits on the concept of girls supporting girls, as an audience we're encouraged to pick sides/ favourites, they add in new girls to create drama and it  just doesn't show the sort of female interaction that should be shown on television.(ladies we live in a patriarchal world, we got to be there for one another am I right or am I right xx). Moving on from this, the show doesn't encourage emotionality within male friendships. It turns male friendships into 'bromances' which is funny and fine, but we're all aware of suicide being the leading cause of death in young men, yet we mock situations where men show vulnerabilities in their friendships? Seems a bit dumb if you ask me. I know it's not only Love Island that creates a farce out of male friendships, but the show is so desperate for laughs that they seem to erase all forms of genuineness in the boys emotions, but society is so fucked up now we can't afford for shows that dominate the media to be focused only on humor...especially humour that maintains toxic expectations for men.

(if you want to read more about my opinion of men / male friendships you can have a look here) 

Also, peoples reaction to the show is vicious. I've already seen a Facebook post passing judgement on the contestants personalities by their appearance. I refuse to accept it when people tell me to just let these people have their fun. Can we stop normalizing the complete judgement of people by their appearance? It infiltrates our perception of the normal world. We shouldn't encourage judgmental behaviors, we shouldn't teach young people it's okay to make assumptions off someones appearance. 

This show makes money off the talk , it wants us to judge, to joke, to insult, but to this I say - no!! 

It is honestly nothing more than a recipe for sadness and life-long self esteem issues. It teaches you you are nothing more than your appearance, that people will always scrutinize you until they find your flaws and also coaxes us into thinking that it is okay/ expected of us to scrutinize others. This show and our reaction to it normalizes superficiality and it is so fucking dumb!! We spend so much time promoting self love, advocating for body confidence just for summer to be dominated by a TV show that is fueled by malicious gossip and judgmental behaviors. 

Do we discuss the lack of diversity? The token black contestants, because the show can't be slandered for being racist since they have a few people of colour in the villa. Do we mention the lack of Asian people on the show? Is it because they don't want to be part of such a malicious and toxic show, or is it because the show wishes to carry on the disgusting white superiority complex? It is a show for beautiful people, those who are above average in every sense of the word yet the beauty that partakes in the show is how beauty would have been defined decades ago. My friend was asking me earlier if I had seen the 'curvy girl' of this season. The curvy girl. THE CURVY GIRL. Aka, the girl who is an average weight, the girl who isn't as toned as the others yet still has an idealized  figure. Also... the girl. The one girl- don't worry guys, they have at least one contestant who isn't entirely modelesque therefore it can't be called out for being fatist. I haven't seen the contestants for this year, but I'm assuming they all have bodies that are outside the norm. When can we begin to normalize some chub? Show boys with soft bellies, girls with small boobs, people whose arms wiggle when they dance. Eating disorders ruin lives, and once they've effected you they are sort of there to stay. Here's some numbers for you just to put it into persperctive:
-90% of teenagers are unhappy with their body
-Only 46% of people who experience an eating disorder fully recover
-Anoroxia has the highest mortality rate out of all the psychiatric disorders.

 The show continues the idealization of a body type that is unattainable to most - showing people who can afford nutritionists/ personal trainers/ plastic surgery/ people who just naturally have a desired figure. Kudos to the contestants for achieving such a body, but the show warps our understanding of bodily normalcy. It is not the cause of the problem I know, but it does not help. Summer is a hard time for most, the concept of a  'beach body'  still exists and this show does nothing to challenge that, but it should. The mental state of the general public is too fragile to have a show dominate the media that does nothing to support body issues/ male vulnerability / women supporting women. 

One final thing, the most outrageous of them all, is that the show triggers mental health problems within ex-contestants. It may not have entirely been the show, perhaps there were some underlying issues (I'm not fully aware of the whole thing) but I know some ex- contestants have spoken up about developing mental health difficulties/ mental illness since leaving the show. Also, Sophia Gradon, her boyfriend Aaron Armstrong and Mike Thalassitis committed suicide, all having direct links to the show. Suicide isn't something anyone comes back from, once you experience the suicide of a loved one it will haunt you forever. I am blessed to have never experienced it, but I know people who have and it seems like the sort of heartbreak that can never truly heal. Suicide is awful, it just is so awful and we should be doing what we can to prevent it. If it's not enough that the show has been linked to mental illness, surely it is enough that it has been linked to suicide- a preventable, untimely death. If there were a show that caused critical physical harm to contestants it would be cancelled, yet debilitating mental illnesses and suicide? Not a problem apparently. (would like to take this time to shout out to the government and the media for still not taking mental health seriously and the NHS mental health cuts that are destroying lives xx u guys suck xxx)

But for real, it is about time ITV invested in heartwarming, uplifting TV shows. If you want a drama, go and watch a drama that doesn't put everyone's mental wellbeing at stake. We're in a mental health crisis. We can't afford to be dismantling the concept of self love for the sake of entertainment.

me, feelin happy last summer. don't need love island to have a good summer! I had had a twister, hanging with a mate, having a good time void of Love Island

Not to shit on everyone's fun but Love Island is an actual piece of wank and defending it as a source of entertainment is wank. Watch Gilmore Girls, watch Mr. Robot, watch Gavin and Stacey, watch a show that won't make you pinch your chub in the mirror, a show that doesn't encourage the macho male stereotype. Or if you do watch the show, just be aware of the toxicity that radiates from it and know:
- Not to compare yourself to the people on the show.
-Not to judge the contestants of the show too harshly- it is snippets of their day, manipulated to make it more entertaining and scandalous to watch.
-They're real people who have feelings and vulnerabilities. Words hurt. 

My anger isn't directed to people who watch it, it is directed at those who cast it, who manipulate it to villanise and heroise and mock the contestants, who only care for entertaining the public rather than their well being.

That is all. Peace x