Ailish Fowler

It is impossible to avoid Love Island this year, as much as I have tried and succeeded over the last couple of seasons. If it’s not on your TV it’s on social media, or the news, or in the magazines, or someone is talking about it on your bus on the journey home. I decided to take the plunge and find out what everyone has been raving about. 1 minute 23 seconds in to the first episode and I can’t go on. I have seen more unsolicited skin in that time than I have in the last month. I’d heard the rumours, but never quite expected it to be so, let’s say, in your face.

Oh and of course there’s the token ‘fatty’, who can we just highlight is not in the slightest bit overweight. How can a normal looking guy look so abnormal? His body is better than most men but sat next to the testosterone-infused six-packs that form the majority of the male population of the show, he looks almost ‘chubby’. Find the anomaly seems a much more suitable game for this show, than girls squashing watermelons with their bums.

All in all, it just feels like another programme that perpetuates an unobtainable ideal that the average person can never reach. I went to a talk the other day where a man spoke candidly about social media. He asked the audience: ‘How many times do you put down your phone after scrolling through Instagram and actually feel good about yourself?’. The answer for me, and most others in the crowd, was ‘rarely’. That’s not right. After this, I unfollowed all the fitness inspiration accounts, the Victoria’s Secrets models, the bikini brands, and the reality stars with their pimped-up body-parts and glam squads. What was left was a stream of art, architecture, photography, travel photos, and friends. It was cleansing. I’d recommend it.

Who knows, maybe I’m speaking on behalf of thousands of hushed voices, or maybe I’m just another insecure girl who’s jealous and doesn’t know how to handle it…