I forced myself to watch Love Island last week, telling myself it is now an important modern phenomenon. A phenomenon akin to a mountain of plastic in the sea, but important nonetheless. I watched it because I am weak and impressionable and young people at work were talking about it as if it was a brave, unheralded, innovative tour de force.
I resisted at first, but the pressure was relentless. “It’s addictive!” they cried. (Like cheap synthetic drugs bought off the internet?). “It’s brilliant!” (Like Trump’s 400-watt dog teeth?). “It’s so funny!” (Like a comedy night compered by Lee Hurst?) “You have to watch it,” was the battle cry, and I didn’t want to seem like a desiccated fuddy-duddy, so I thought I’d give it a bash.
Now, I know the deal. This isn’t my first reality TV rodeo. I know that Love Island used to be, and still very much is, a traditional ITV2 idiot buffet. It’s a Jet2 holiday to Halkidiki where you get botulism, Legionnaires’ disease and a tattoo of Tweety Pie. But because we are in the global doldrums, Love Island has become a thing. It is 2018 in a nutshell. Bold, brash, too orange and dimmer than David Davis – it’s essentially what we deserve. Even George Osborne watches it.
I’m sick of the sight of them, bouncing around, not knowing how to spell properly, flaunting their permatanned flesh in lime green bikinis and silver budgie smugglers
I’d never actually seen it properly though. And when I did, it scared me. Now I don’t want to piss on their chips, because young people are our future and I might need them to sign a consent form on my behalf one day, but I think the time has finally come when I JUST DON’T CARE what they get up to. I’m sick of the sight of them, bouncing around, not knowing how to spell properly, flaunting their permatanned flesh in lime green bikinis and silver budgie smugglers. So full of a sense of their own importance in the social firmament, completely oblivious to the concept of receding gums, spouting the biggest amount of shite you’ve ever heard in your life, rutting and preening and generally just being absolute tools.
I used to be able to handle it, back when reality TV young people were my peers, and I could accurately deconstruct how crap they were using up-to-date reference points. Now I don’t even know what those things are on their faces and why they have lumpy filled lips like balloon animals. I don’t understand the PLOT of Love Island. Are they sex workers? What are they doing?
