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Last year we were their biggest fans, this year we’re shamelessly dragging everything they’ve ever done on our twitter feeds. Why do we love to hate this year’s love islanders?

Our opinions are changing quicker than Alex’s skin colour


It's Love Island season and we can't get enough. There are three times as many viewers than last year's series, and it's safe to say that we're all pretty involved at this point. But with more viewers, comes more internet hate, and I'm starting to see a pattern between what happens on the show and what's said after on social media. This year, we love to hate all of the contestants.

Okay hear me out. Last year we supported everyone that left that villa, even Jess and Dom. Yeah, they were a little bit grating, but we kinda loved how she (sort of) waited for him on the other side.

We were the cheerleaders for last year's main couples. Even the problematic ones, I'm looking at you Chris and Olivia.

I'm not saying that we loved everyone on last year's show, (who can forget Craig and his incessant whining after Queen Cam?) but this year the internet hate is getting a lot more personal. And we keep changing our minds on who we like, after publicly slating them all over twitter.

Take Hayley, for example. Her voice and ridiculously slow pace of speech made us want to tear our hair out, but after Eyal snaked out Alex and played tonsil tennis with Megan, we suddenly considered whether she was right all along.

We're allowed to change our opinions, I get that, but we'd been publicly slating the girl non stop for seven days before when all she'd really done was not fancy a couple of arrogant gym lads that were on the telly. And now she's out of the villa and beginning her new life of promoting protein shakes, she's still receiving the same amount of hate that she received when she was on the show. The only difference is, now she can actually see it.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bkk3R3LAFYK

We're not surprised that she's chosen this career pathway, so why are we dragging her just for doing exactly what all of last year's islanders did?

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As more episodes are aired, twitter is beginning to take back their original opinions of some of the cast, but their original tweets will forever stay online.

A slightly more recent example is Megan. The one name that's been clogging up my twitter feed for all the wrong reasons. After she stole Wes from darling Laura, everyone went in on the girl who had previously stayed out of reach from the teeth and claws of the love island viewers. But when it was revealed that Megan had spent £25,000+ on cosmetic surgery, all hell broke loose.

The fact that all the boys fancy the girl who has paid thousands to look that way is a MASSIVE issue, yes, but we're forgetting that we all really liked Megan just two weeks ago when she told Rosie than Adam had been grafting on her behind her back.

Sure, we can all justify our change of heart by saying that Megan has revealed her true colours etc, but the hoards of abuse she'll face when she leaves the island doesn't bear thinking about. What she did to Laura was shit, but does she really deserve this level of hate that exposes her entire personal life and which she'll probably never be able to live down?

Do this year's islanders know just how big this series is? I don't think so. If they knew just how many online viewers were watching and commenting on their behaviour, I doubt they would have done some of the things they have done in these past four weeks. Remember, these are people who want a career on social media, they'd be stupid to intentionally piss off twitter and instagram in its entirety.

Maybe it's because we value last year's series so much. We don't want to tarnish it by comparing it to this years when one of the islander's behaviour has already been deemed as emotional abuse by Women's Aid. But we can't forget that these contestants have to enter back into the real world at some point. And what would be the most damaging thing of all for them to come back to would be millions of personalised hate splattered all over the very platform on which they want to focus their future career.

I get that Love Island is reality tv, and the islanders knew what they were getting themselves into by applying to the show, but I feel like we're hating this year's cast just because we can. And quite frankly, I'd rather we put all this energy into making sure Jack and Dani stay together, instead.