Love Island

Everyone loves relationships. It’s just a fact. Magazines and newspapers and websites are filled with articles on who’s with who, who’s dumped who, who just married who. We watch couples get together on television, we fawn over friendships in bands and use the word ‘goals’ a lot in people’s Instagram comments.

Love Island is an extension of that, a seven week, sun-drenched extension. It’s a bunch of hot, extremely toned (no but seriously not one of those boys didn’t have a six pack, most of them had an eight pack) singletons encouraged to couple up and perhaps win a prize at the end.

It’s bikinis and tans and a whole new lexicon. Love Island is relatable, it might be very attractive people dealing with life’s problems in a villa but they’re the same kind of problems we have. ‘Does he like me?’ ‘Where is this relationship going?’ ‘How can I break up with them without it being awful?’

And it’s not just relationships. We watched Camilla deal with the inane Jonny when he didn’t understand feminism and we cheered her on. We wanted to cuddle her when she felt insecure and unsure of herself later on in the series, a feeling most girls know all too well. Camilla went from a shy private person to someone admitting she really liked someone and showing it within seven weeks, and it was wonderful to see.

We got to watch friendships, the girls having each other’s backs, and always running for a catch up after a date or a night in the hideaway. Everyone would squeal and hug and probe the girl in question, whilst the boys exchanged a few words and went on about their day.

Though arguably and favourably the most popular relationship in the villa this whole series was a friendship between two of the lads, the epic bromance of Chris and Kem. Without a doubt if they had coupled up together they’d have walked away the winners no contest. Chris and Kem had an uncomplicated love, they were best friends through and through. They talked, they hugged, they shaved each other’s initials in each other’s pubes, you know, as you do.

Chris entered the villa a cocky twat who said everyone fancied him. He ended the series crying over a plastic baby, being bezzies with Stormzy and being the nation’s sweetheart. When the parents came to visit, Kem’s mum said he could of course come to dinner and Camilla’s mum exclaimed ‘I love cows too!’ at the farm boy. Like Camilla, Chris has come a long way.

Along with watching relationships and friendships twist and turn, flipping in 24 hours as fast as Chris’ raps sometimes, we had the silliness and fun of the show. The challenges, the hilarity of the boys shoving hot dogs in the girl’s bikinis or the rather more brutal Twitter challenge. The games added amusement to the show but a lot of the time they added drama too. And geez do we live for drama.

From Georgia picking Amber’s boyfriend to couple up with(the most shocking moment of the series), or Jonny(an utter bellend) calling Theo an utter bellend, to Gabby being snakey about Montana then Montana being a bit snakey in return. Not least forgetting the entire Casa Amor twist.

Essentially, the series had everything to keep an audience hooked. It had attractive, interesting people, it had friendships, relationships, stupidity, drama, hilarity and above all, humanity. It was a show that brought something new every day and had you chatting to your mates at work about the episode the night before. It had us discussing who our type 100% on paper was, and calling people salty and melts, chatting about grafting and sticking it on, and pieing people off.

People love watching people, people love discussing people and I reckon we should all occasionally shout ‘I got a text!’ across the workplace to remember the great show that was Love Island 2017.

Side notes:

·         Olivia’s dive in the pool. I may not like Olivia but damn that was funny

·         Caroline Flack’s strut every time she walked into the villa. And her ace work on Aftersun, especially her grilling of Jonny, go Caz, go Caz, go Caz.

·         ‘I used to be in Blazin’ Squad’. Oh Marcel

·         Jamie’s avocado on toast

·         I did really like both Gabby and Montana and I think silly mistakes made people turn on them near the end.

·         Muggy Mike. No longer a word to describe the oppressive heat.

·         Ugh Tyla

·         No but seriously what do we do with our lives now?