Charge It To The Conformity
Caitlin Small
This season of Love Island All Stars seems to be the gift that keeps giving entertainment-wise, but as always, should serve as a warning lesson to the public watching on. For many of us, it serves its purpose in a ritualistic sense. 9 O’clock comes, and we gather in the living room to sit and witness dramas unfold before us live. Post-mortem dissections occur directly after, as we psycho-analyse the people on our screen, adjudicating the arguments and relationships we have seen developing before us. There is a certain satisfaction gained, that is sure. Who would not want to sit back and laugh at or criticise the actions unfolding before us? Every night, a new opinion is cemented, conforming to the new personas developed, character traits exposed, and redemption arcs solidified.
This was never so overwhelmingly true until we witnessed our own actions showcased in real time inside the very show itself. How delightfully meta.
Newcomer Jessy Potts had arrived, armed with last week’s opinions she had digested online before her entrance. Some would argue that this was reasonable ammunition for stepping into such a volatile situation. Unbeknownst to her, however, the expiry date for such views had long since passed. The response was swift and unforgiving. The audience who had spent the previous week curating and distributing such views had turned on her for merely repeating them. And so she was, as precedent follows, shamed for her lack of backbone or inability to form her own thoughts (by the viewer, no less), charged with inauthenticity. Can anyone else smell the irony?
As it panned out, many of us watched on with splayed fingers over our eyes. It is fair to argue that the show never intended to hold a mirror up to its audience; there were plenty of opportunities to do so elsewhere. However, here it was, a living, breathing demonstration of exactly what happens when one consumes a tidal wave of opinions without an ounce of critical, internally sourced thought.
It was uncomfortable to watch as it was inescapably true that our opinions on the matters before us are rewritten on a tight, weekly schedule. Our views do not evolve or grow; they oscillate. How can it be that with every new episode, a new villain is hanged, drawn and quartered? People we seemed to love, or saw ourselves in, are turned against, the sharp pivot of opinion going unaddressed.
This pattern is observed far beyond the scope of this reality show, series or particular contestant. It’s a reflection of the power of public opinion. Rather than holding a considered, deliberated position, we act as a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the other. This is no new phenomenon either. We often fancy ourselves as a progressive society, evolved from medieval times, but when we pull back the screen, perhaps the only difference is that we no longer hold pitchforks. We no longer publicly execute, but we can inflict a social death.
Take the contestant’s perspective, consider the total psychological whiplash they must feel. Once on the outside, reading the hundreds of thousands of comments, publicly declaring you as a saint one day and a conniving %*@&! the very next.
What’s more, is that quite a lot of this backlash is justified because they are now public figures. Apparently, appearing on a dating reality TV show means that the individual owes the public a moral duty to appear as digestible and even spirited. To contravene that is to betray us in some way. If only we cared to scrutinise our politicians with such fervour…
Long live the parasocial relationship, where we take, digest and do not need to give. It is important to remind ourselves that we do not know these people, and whilst their actions may be questionable (at least), at the end of the day, it really isn’t so serious as to warrant backlash.
