This year, commentary around Love Island feels more intense than ever. It might be due the 18 months of on-and-off lockdown, or the fact we weren’t treated to a summer Love Island last year, but either way: social media is incredibly toxic right now.
We noted it first the week before Love Island started, when Chloe Burrows was sent death threats after a five-second preview clip where she joked about being ‘partial to married men’. Most recently, Sharon Gaffka opened up about receiving them too. ‘I expected some trolling but I didn’t expect death threats, or violent and racist messages,’ she wrote for Grazia. ‘I didn’t expect VoiceNotes from people saying they would stab me in the street if they saw me, or telling me to end my own life.’
Now, concerns are turning towards Faye Winter – and how she will react when she sees the commentary currently circulating about her. Faye became the resident villa villain this week after shouting at Teddy Soares over a movie night clip that saw him flirting with Clarisse Juliette.
There’s no doubt that she went too far, particularly with her name-calling and aggression, but in last night’s episode, she admitted she ‘reacted in the wrong way’ - telling Millie Court that she is ‘so jealous’ in a relationship. She also mentioned that she wished one of her friends had told her she was over-reacting at the time she was confronting Teddy – something viewers were screaming themselves for at the time.
Despite Faye’s regret, viewers are still adamantly against her – something we so often see with women in Love Island. But just like Kaz Kamwi seems to have been given the ‘villain edit’ prior to the dumping on Sunday night, we must bear in mind that we only see carefully curated clips of a 24-hour period. On multiple occasions this series, viewers have found unaired clips from Love Island Aftersun that completely changed their perspective on an incident or couple, often asking ‘Why weren’t we shown this in the main show?!’
But regardless of whether Faye’s confrontation with Teddy was edited in a specific way or not, the fact remains that trolling and death threats are never acceptable. You might believe she reacted wrongly in the situation, or even ‘abusively’ as some have alleged, but that never excuses mass abuse towards her.
In fact, given what we know about Faye’s emotional wellbeing, the level of hate, trolling and death threats she is no doubt receiving is highly concerning. This is a woman who, on national television, has been open about her struggle with feeling vulnerable and thus being hurt. She’s clearly had her struggles, earlier in the season telling Hugo Hammond that she was once so insecure about her looks she cried every single day. More than anyone, she’s been clear that she has – and most likely still does – deal with emotional and mental burdens.
While we certainly can’t pathologize her, many viewers who suffer with PTSD noted her behaviour on Friday night’s episode was contingent with someone suffering. A common theme of the commentary was that Faye needed emotional support from a therapist – particularly during the time that she was self-sabotaging and later, verbally attacking Teddy.
It’s beyond many to diagnose her based off a TV show, of course, but it’s certainly more empathetic to assume she could use some emotional support versus villainising her. Particularly, when we know how much abuse she’s already received. This weekend, her family had to turn the comments off on her Instagram account due to the level of death threats sent to her account, only turning them back on today.
‘We understand that fans of Love Island have opinions on Friday night's episode,’ they wrote on Instagram. ‘While we don't want to comment on the events of the show, we ask everyone to remember: You are watching a highly edited TV show which is created for entertainment - you can never see the full picture.
Faye is human, she may not always get things right.
'Faye is human. She may not always get things right. There are human beings managing the islander's social media pages who will be seriously affected by your comments. We ask that everyone please remembers this before commenting or messaging. We make no apology for turning off comments, blocking and deleting, to protect the mental well-being of ourselves and Faye when she comes out. We would encourage anyone struggling to do the same thing.’
Clearly, her family is worried about how Faye will cope mentally when she sees the trolling – and are themselves struggling with the level of abuse. So rather than choosing to pile onto the hatred towards her, perhaps it’s time we rally around the islander with support and ensure that no matter how she leaves the show, the burden of said trolling doesn’t stay with her.
Read More:
Love Island’s Sharon Gaffka: 'I Expected Some Trolling But I Didn't Expect Death Threats'
Love Island’s Faye Self-Sabotaging With Teddy Is Very Relatable
This Is The Most Complained About Love Island Moment Of All Time