Has TikTok received us hooked once more?

Love Island is again for its twelfth sequence – and it isn’t simply the villa that is had an improve.

After falling viewers figures lately, the variety of us tuning in is returning to sequence eight ranges – the 12 months that delivered Love Island icons like Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu, Indiyah Polack and Tasha Ghouri.

But when every day episodes are our sort on paper, social media is the bombshell that is turning heads.

Figures from ITV shared with BBC Newsbeat counsel the sequence’ progress on socials is outstripping the success it is having on TV.

Evaluation by the BBC discovered that Love Island’s official accounts had gained 1.8m followers because the begin of 2025, with 1m of these on TikTok.

Ex-islander Diamanté Laiv tells BBC Newsbeat the short-form updates are far more interesting than committing to the nightly TV present.

“I am a really busy particular person, so I do not actually have the time to sit down down day-after-day for an hour and simply watch individuals kiss,” she says.

Diamanté, who appeared in sequence 11, says she’s not shocked tens of millions are conserving updated on their telephone.

“It is extra fashionable on-line as a result of everyone’s on-line, it is simply accessible. Each 10 scrolls on TikTok is one thing Love Island-related, so you’ll be able to’t actually keep away from it.”

She’s not alone in staying away from streaming the episodes in full.

Whereas the primary episode of sequence 12 was watched by 2.6m individuals – virtually double 2023’s low of 1.3m – the numbers are nonetheless a good distance off Love Island’s 2019 heyday, when 6m of us tuned in to see Amber Gill and Greg O Shea voted hottest couple.

However that is nonetheless a fraction of the 13m following numerous official accounts on-line.

On TikTok there’s been an explosion in Love Island content material – with view counts for particular person clips outstripping viewing figures for entire episodes.

Dramatic or humorous moments from the present correct are inclined to carry out nicely, however reactions, evaluation, and debriefs – the place content material creators recap entire episodes in a couple of minutes – additionally notch up large numbers.

In response to knowledge gathered by the BBC there have been greater than 87,000 TikTok uploads with a Love Island or Love Island UK hashtag thus far in 2025.

For the entire of 2024, the identical knowledge means that determine was slightly below 40,000.

Anthony, higher often called “giletslays”, is one in all many content material creators who’ve been feeding that progress.

He is been making movies concerning the newest sequence for his 170,000 followers, and a few of his Love Island takes have had tens of millions of views.

Anthony says the true draw of Love Island has at all times been the discourse on social media.

However to participate you must be updated, and a nightly present can really feel like an excessive amount of of a long-term dedication for some.

“Generally if individuals miss a few episodes they really feel they’re too far behind to catch up,” says Anthony.

Tremendous-fan Harriet Fisher, who’s been watching Love Island since sequence one, agrees TikTok has turn out to be the go-to place for updates.

She says the US model of the present, which has overlapped with the UK version this 12 months, is “popping off” on the app, and believes this has boosted curiosity in Love Island total.

“The best way that persons are partaking with actuality TV and Love Island usually is clearly altering,” she says.

“It wants TikTok and social media to outlive, to achieve viewers.

“It reveals that viewers of previous can keep engaged, but additionally get these new viewers in.”

However these new viewers are forming a really totally different relationship with the contestants, Diamanté warns.

Historically, audiences have spent entire sequence attending to know islanders over one-hour episodes.

Even then, contestants have by no means been shy about blaming selective enhancing for making them look dangerous.

However on social media, with character arcs compressed into bite-sized clips, Diamanté worries followers do not get the complete image.

“Conversations are being pulled and tweaked so I really feel prefer it makes it much more orchestrated,” she says. “It sort of takes the fact out of the fact TV.”

Grace Henry, Cosmopolitan’s performing leisure and way of life director, agrees that watching the present through social media basically adjustments the expertise.

“We’ve got to be aware that these are quick clips and clips could be taken out of context,” she says.

“We’re by no means going to see the complete image of how somebody is and issues change in a short time in there.”

However Grace thinks on-line notoriety may work in aspiring actuality stars’ favour – even when it means audiences spend much less time with them.

She singles out Yasmin Pettet, nicknamed YasGPT on-line, as one islander who’s been capable of join with audiences this 12 months.

Movies of Yas giving posture classes have been considered greater than 1,000,000 instances on TikTok and gained tens of 1000’s of likes on Instagram.

“We’ll nonetheless have these individuals and we could have a connection to them, however they may simply come round otherwise,” says Grace.

“It will likely be based mostly on viral moments and whether or not they do one thing large that turns into a meme or a social media second.”

Diamanté agrees and thinks social clips would possibly even be a greater strategy to construct a following than being fashionable on the sequence.

In addition to reaching extra individuals, she says “extra manufacturers are seeing it and that is the intention of the sport”.

Take heed to Newsbeat reside at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays – or hear again right here.