Ronkeslens

Welcome back everyone. If you follow me on Instagram by now you should be able to tell that I was obsessed with the love island tv show. This is my third year watching it and I can just conclude that I will always be a devout watcher. Whilst I find the show really entertaining. I’m not entirely sure love island is the platform to genuinely find love. Imagine the whole nation, judging and deciding the fate of your relationship and forming an opinion about you based on the hourly view they get per day, that’s too much pressure 🥴.

I felt discussing about love island will make a perfect blog post this week. I decided to delay this post till this moment because it makes sense since it just got concluded yesterday.  I am sure not all my readers are familiar with the show; I’ll give a brief description to help paint a picture of the show in your minds. In my opinion, love island is a social experiment, where single people of opposite sexes are put in a confined environment to establish if they will develop a romantic connection. once there’s a connection, the viewers at home are then made to either vote out a couple from the villa or save them. As time goes by, new set of people are added to shake up the existing connections established in the villa. If there is a weak link among the connections established, the new person can easily break up a couple and the uncoupled person will have no choice than to be booted off the villa. That is basically the gist of love island, bear in mind all these are done within a space of two months. Therefore, I maintain that love island is a game of ensuring you are the most liked and has a little to do with love. Sometimes, the contestants are also made to vote the couple they think are least compatible, the couple with the highest number of votes are also dumped from the island.  While some viewers can be convinced that people go there to find love. I’ll say primary motive for people that go on the show is for the juicy price money, a sum of £50,000 to be shared by the winning couple.

I wish I could write about Love Island 19 in detail on this platform, but it will take forever to get through. Every other night over the past two months, I gave updates of each episode and made some prediction on my snap chat and Instagram. I’ll include some inserts below. The winners were Amber and Greg. Amber started the show from the first day, while Greg only went to the villa a few days ago. He is the perfect example of grace, he gets to leave the villa with £25,000. Amber’s story on the show was inspiring, she kept her head up even after being humiliated and was eventually blessed with a perfect gentleman at the end and they won the game.

The different contestants had their different strategies to play the game. Some took the sweet girl/boy approach, others fierce, some decided being provocative will get people’s attention. Some were witty and charismatic. Finally, some people took the villain approach while the others were just grateful for their free vacation and occupied space in the villa. The best game players won. At the end of the day, they provided the viewers with good entertainment and we are indeed grateful for their effort. The producers of the show infused some challenges and tasks to the show to keep it interesting. I’ll say the contestants appeared bored a lot of times. Also, it was apparent that the show was too scripted. I noticed that there was a lot of acting going on. There were so many instances that the contestants said too many similar things or acted in ways that would connote that they had been briefed to act in a certain way or say somethings.

So, I guess the question is why go on love island? My response is why not.  If you have the time, and you are single by any chance and don’t mind prancing around in different bikini sets and floral shorts for two months, go for it. As a reward, you get to develop yourself as a brand. The fame surrounding the show creates a new level of exposure that automatically earns you a celebrity fame status once you leave the villa. We are in an era where people become super rich by social media influencing. The contestants from the show amass a ridiculous number of followers across their social media platforms. When they get out of the villa, different brands reach out to them to promote items and the more their number of followers are, the better it is for them because they get to charge more for promotion. They are also contacted to make appearances at different events in exchange for money. The show basically launches them to a showbiz. However, they are saddled with the ultimate responsibility of sustaining their relevance because newer celebrities will be launched the following year and brands will want fresh faces to promote their businesses. You stand a chance of attaining this stardom by signing up, wonder why I’m promoting this show so much.

Of course, there are two sides to every story. With fame comes criticism and scrutiny from the public. Henceforth, the contestants will be watched by the media, fans and will basically struggle with having a private life. This can be very difficult to transition from being an ordinary person to a celebrity overnight. The nature of the show allows for the audience to form an opinion about you. Sometimes the contestants receive backlash, insults, some even go as far as sending them death threats when they get out the villa. Previous contestants on the show have come out to explain how the show has affected their mental health. Two contestants unfortunately took their lives as a result of depression. So, I guess the contestants will require some sort of coaching and therapy to deal with the fame.

With regards to longevity of the couples from the show, most of the couples usually end up going their separate ways and blame their busy schedules for the strain in their relationship or cheating scandals or they grow apart. From the past two seasons I have watched, only two couples are still together. This season of love island isn’t convincing, and I highly doubt most of them will remain coupled up for long. Only time will tell. Age plays a huge factor on this show, often the contestants are usually in their twenties. Let’s face it, people are still in their exploring phase in their twenties coupled with the newfound fame the contestants acquire. It makes it nearly impossible to find love they seek to establish from show.

The issue of diversity in body sizes and race has been ongoing debate for such a long time. This show is not very representative of different body types and races. It will be nice if more attention is paid to this. The viewers are from a diverse group of people therefore, it makes sense to be more diverse on the show.

I’ll end the blog by saying may the best man win. Will anyone ever consider being on a show like love island? I personally can never consider it. The societal pressure is too much and I just want to live my life. See you all next week. Remember to leave a comment below and share the post with others. As usual, I’m grateful for my readers, you are the best.