The Thing About Love Island.......

If you are UK based or know anyone who is UK based you will probably have heard of a TV Show called Love Island.

The concept is like Big Brother except the aim is to fall in love (and hopefully win the prize money) while in a villa in Spain somewhere. To aid the falling in love process they start with an equal number of girls and guys who 'couple up'. Over the weeks the show airs new guys and girls are introduced and anyone without a partner is 'dumped' from the Island.

Dumping can happen by public vote, Islander vote or because a couple reshuffle leaves you single. At the start people often 'couple up' as friends but towards the end their are 'real couples'. To add to the drama the couples have to share a bed and complete tasks together so it helps that they at least get on.

Here's some of the 2018 cast:

So that's the summary but the thing about Love Island is that it's managed to create a formula that just works. The idea is absurd, the concept ridiculous and yet it works. For 3 seasons it has managed to create couples that actually stay together. There's even been two Love Island babies and wedding.

We missed season one, oblivious to it's existence. Then last year a couple of our friends asked if we were watching it so we tuned in out of curiosity. It was a mistake. A terrible mistake. Our summer became a blur waiting for our nightly update. This year we went in knowingly and once again our summer has become Love Island filled blur.

The thing is when a show is on nightly you have to commit. Miss a night and you miss out. It turns out love in a villa can be a tumultuous affair so you never want to be too far behind (think midnight binge sessions).

The thing with Love Island is not only do you have to keep up with the goings on but you have to learn a whole new language:

Mugged off: someone has pretended to like you but couples up with someone else

Salty: angry/ aggressive

Grafting: Hitting on someone, working to chat them up

Snakey: someone who does something underhand or behind your back

Melt: If you are being a melt you are being lame / soft

Cracking on: Starting a relationship 

Pied: dumped (as in pie-in-your-face)

Extra: Over the top

Stick it on: hitting on someone / chatting them up

Getting the ick: When the person you are with does something to turn you off

The thing is you can NOT avoid Love Island gossip, it lights up Twitter, fills gossip mags, has regular space in national papers, is the topic of office conversations and you can't avoid it anywhere on Facebook. Everyone seems to love it. There are memes, entire threads dedicated to goings on and accounts set up just to talk to fellow fans.

This year one of the challenges the Islanders had to complete included looking after a plastic baby, that baby now has a Twitter account with 39,500 followers, that's right 39,500 followers. You can check it out here: https://twitter.com/hughes_cash

The thing is we aren't the only people talking about why we love Love Island, The Telegraph even put together a list of reasons why clever people like Love Island (see here) reasons include:

• Sweet Escape
• Dumb comedy
• It reminds us of University

The thing is Love Island takes over to such a degree that even shops buy into it. In fact Primark bought out a range of clothes this summer with popular phrases from the show:

The thing is they somehow managed to recruit a cast for season 3 that is strangely similar to season 2. I mean if the formula works don't change it but so far the similarities have included:

• The posh girl (Zara / Camilla) initially comes off prudish and standoff-ish but they end up sleeping with a handsome new boy
• The pocket rocket (Kady/Amber) both got into serious relationships only for them to break up, then make up in public declarations when the boys asked the girls to be their girlfriends
• The exotic girl who may or may not be a bitch (Montana/ Malin) both went from likeable to unlikable because of their snakey behaviour
• The muscle dumbos (Tom / Harley) their bodies may be built like gods but their brains could do with a work out too 
• The feisty, confident, self assured Olivia's. The centre of plenty of drama but with hearts of gold. On both occasions the Olivia's were original Love Islanders that 'tried' and 'pied' a number of suitors before finding the one

It took us at least two weeks to get over mourning the old cast and accept the new cast without comparisons.

So you get the idea - it's addictive, it's entertaining, it has all the attributes of a guilty pleasure, it's ageless, classes, genderless. You can be watching it for the girls in bikini's or men in trunks, for the girls working out or the guys working out. For the drama, for the emotion, for the fact that you love love and want everyone to get their happily ever after. You could love to hate them, want to root for them, get annoyed at them, enjoy the bromances or end up crying as they declare their love - whatever the reasons it's an emotional escape we can't get enough off.

Are you a fellow Love Island fan?

Whose your fav couple?

Whose been your favourite Love Islander?

What will you do when it ends?