The new season of “Love Island: USA” was officially released over the summer, and the fanfare that has followed so far has been anything but small.
“Love Island” is a widely admired reality TV series where contestants are sent on a tropical vacation to find love amongst each other. The winning couple at the end of the series wins a grand prize of $100,000.
Several social media posts across nearly every platform have shown their love and support for this year’s cast.
Some contestants, of course, are favored more than their co-stars.
While certain contestants are adored and have hundreds upon thousands of fan edits, others have been the target of cruel jokes and unnecessary attacks online.
Whether it’s attacks on their appearance, personality or behavior, all of these keyboard warriors alike have not held back.
Like every other reality show, “Love Island” is filled to the brim with drama to keep the ratings up.
What some fail to realize is that these television feuds we watch are almost always staged or edited in some form to make words and actions seem more severe than they actually are.
Even worse, some viewers fail to realize these people aren’t characters in a movie, but real living people just like them.
Hate being sent out to contestants isn’t in a vacuum especially when you post it publicly for the world to see.
Although every contestant garners their fair share of hate comments online, some contestants receive it more than others.
It has gotten to the point where simply looking up their name on social media is filled with loathing words and vitriol.
When going to their personal accounts, you see their comments have been limited or completely shut off due to thousands of nasty comments.
It makes me wonder if people think about their impacts on others before they speak, or if they simply don’t care or think it doesn’t matter because of contestants’ current popularity and status.
Words do impact people no matter how much money they have or how famous they are.
Arguably, fame makes things worse because the entire world is available to evaluate you, rather than your small circle of friends, family and acquaintances.
Love Island hate has gone so far even to the point of resulting in suicide deaths in previous years.
2016 contestant Sophie Gradon’s death isn’t an anomaly. Both 2017 contestant Mike Thalassitis and former host Caroline Flack took their own lives due to the amount of public backlash they received.
In 2018, Gradon committed suicide due to online attacks and 20 days following her death, so did her boyfriend, Aaron Armstrong, according to a 2019 BBC article.
In a 2018 Radio Aire interview three months before her death, she spoke about the cyberbullying she received.
“The harsh reality is that it can end up with that victim taking their own life as we’ve seen in the media,” Gradon said.
Her chilling statement should serve as a reminder for viewers to think before they speak so hatefully.
