I cringed the first time I heard one of Love Island’s Mitchel Taylor tell new bombshell Charlotte Summer ‘Wow, you look amazing’ after she revealed she’s 30 years old – the oldest contestant in Love Island history. But to be honest, as a 28-year-old woman that still ventures into raves and festivals filled with Gen-Z, I wasn’t truly surprised by the reaction.
Then it happened again with Tyrique Hyde, and again with Zachariah Noble (both adding the strangely backhanded ‘You look good, though’ after finding out Charlotte’s age) and I began to recall all the times I’ve heard the phrase myself when bonding with randoms in a nightclub smoking area, ever since I entered my late 20s and apparently the era where you wither away into a grey, wrinkled prune.
It doesn’t help that the three men surprised by Charlotte’s fabulous looks at the grand age of 30 are some of the oldest in the villa (while Tyrique is only 24, Zach is 25, and Mitchell 27). Surely these men have interacted with at least some young millennials in their normal life. Surely, I mean SURELY, they can’t actually be surprised that someone a mere three to-five years older than them isn’t a decrepit skeleton waiting for death?
Frankly, the entire ordeal reminded me why this show just doesn’t quite hit home the way it used to for those of us ageing out of the show’s contestant pool. For millennials, Love Island is simply losing its charm. ‘I want to get into it because everyone in work is watching, but I can’t bring myself to sit through 20-year-olds awkwardly flirting and having terrible banter,’ agrees 33-year-old Lucy Ryan, from Manchester. ‘It physically makes me cringe to watch now.’
Viewing figures tell the same story. According to ITV, Love Island’s digital launch attracted the biggest 16–24-year-old audience on any commercial channel since the World Cup in 2022. The young’uns are loving it then, millennials are just not quite there anymore.
Perhaps having a 30-year-old on the line up will draw in more millennial viewers, keen to understand how the dynamics of a more experienced woman will play into such a formulaic production. It might be a tough watch if early conversations are anything to go by, but Charlotte is certainly on course to spice things up (or teach them about cooking spices once they’ve moved out of mummy and daddies house, either option seems likely).