“Quick turn on the telly, Love Island is on!”
If you haven’t heard this phrase or something similar, you’re either too old or have a healthy idea of good television.
Many of us have watched one of the varieties of dating shows that parade our screens at around 9pm each night. And I admit I am no exception. I enjoy a bit of reality show drama – “shit TV” as it’s known in my household – as much as anyone else. I was fully invested in the Luca-Grace drama this year. Were they sabotaged? We will never know.
The question is, though, should we be praising these shows that illustrate love as something that can be discovered in weeks, with the top contenders all being half naked, tanned and topped full of filler? Absolutely not.
From ITV and Channel 4 to Netflix, dating shows are spiraling with names such as Too Hot To Handle and MILF Manor becoming normalised. Sorry but middle aged mums romancing someone their son’s age on national TV? Not what I imagine when someone says love.
A recent study by YouGov found that 54 per cent of respondents said that they learn about relationships through dating shows and carry those ideals into their own lives. No wonder Tinder is so popular – no one knows what love looks like anymore!
Dating shows feed off of toxic behaviours for entertainment. Most of the contestants on these shows basically admit that they cannot sustain healthy relationships anyways! Plus everyone knows they’re only there as a veiled attempt to achieve C-list fame.
Dodgy age-gaps, misogyny and sexualisation are the bricks that build these shows.
And women transforming their faces and bodies to look like an influencer is just ridiculous. I don’t know about you but I hope that my future husband doesn’t desire me to have these perverted body modifications. I don’t have the money, for one thing!
All that said, if I got offered eight weeks off in January to be stranded on a hot island…I probably wouldn’t say no
