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18th January 2024
10:39am GMT
In its early days, Love Island was a formidable force in the world of marketing; shaping viewer preferences, particularly in fashion, tanning trends, and even everyday conversation.
The show held an undeniable sway over its audience, dictating summer style choices, beauty trends and standards and even in some sense, our grips on reality.
Love Island contestants became fashion icons, and their sun-kissed, full glam looks spurred a widespread aim of unachievable aesthetics. Nonetheless, we loved it and never missed an evening of the drama.
The influence extended far beyond appearances, seeping into language as Love Island lingo infiltrated everyday conversation and social media commentary.
Viewers eagerly adopted catchphrases and slang (Maura Higgins' was the queen of this in season 5), creating a linguistic subculture inspired by the show.
Tanning and filler trends also experienced a massive surge, with fans investing in products and treatments used by contestants - past and present - to emulate the style of their favourite islanders.
However these days, interest in the show has changed and the landscape has shifted entirely with female empowerment at the forefront.
This begs the question: 'Does Love Island still have the same hold and influence on viewers?'
Recent figures suggest a slight decline in engagement, indicating that the show may no longer wield the same cultural impact - after all, people are absorbing much snappier content on social media with an emphasis on our authentic selves.
This shows a potential change in viewer preferences entirely as well as an evolving entertainment landscape and saturation of reality TV content (there are literally ENDLESS shows to choose from) - all of which may be contributing to this shift.
In an era where authenticity is increasingly valued, viewers seem to be gravitating towards more genuine and relatable content, shifting their focus away from reality tv for the most part.
We saw this first hand with Molly-Mae Hague’s incredible popularity after the show. Things like ditching the filler, sharing her everyday life online on YouTube and Instagram as well as her struggles as a first-time mum have skyrocketed her to new heights of success.
You could say this shows the public’s desire for more authentic entertainment, so are the days of reality TV's influence slowly coming to a close?
Let us know what you think over on Instagram!
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