BBC Newsbeat
Getty imagesThe Love Island is back to its 12th series – and it is not just the villa that was upgraded.
After the audience’s figures fell in recent years, the number of tuning in us has been returning to eight levels – the year that gave the Love Island icon to love island icons such as Ikin -Su Kyulklolu, Indiah Pool and Tasha Gauri.
But if we have a type of daily episodes on paper, then there is a social media bomb that is changing the head.
ITV figures shared with BBC newsbeat suggests that the growth of the series on social is carrying forward the success on TV.
The BBC analysis found that the official accounts of Love Island had received 1.8 meter followers since the beginning of 2025, with 1 meter on Tikkok.
EX-Islander Diamanté Laiv BBC Newsbeat states that short-form updates are much more attractive than being committed to the nightly TV show.
“I am a very busy person, so I don’t really have time to sit every day for an hour and just kiss people,” she says.
Getty imagesDiyamte, who appears in Series 11, says she is not surprised that millions of people are updated on their phones.
“It is more popular online because everyone is online, it is easily accessible. Every 10 scroll on Tikok is related to some love island, so you can’t really avoid it.”
She is not alone in staying away from streaming the episode completely.
While the first episode of Series 12 was viewed by 2.6 meter people – almost double the 1.3 m of 2023 – number is still a long way from the day of Love Island, when it is still a long way, Amber Gill and Greg O Shee voted the most popular couple,
But this is still a part of 13m after various official accounts.
There is an explosion in the love island content on Tiktok – with the count of viewing the figures for the entire episode.
The show performs dramatic or fun moments properly, but reactions, analysis and debrifs – where the material makers recur the entire episode in a few minutes – also in large numbers.
According to data collected by the BBC, more than 87,000 tickets have been uploaded in 2025 with a love island or love island UK hashtag.
For the entire 2024, the same data shows that the figure was below 40,000.
ITV/ShutterstockAnthony, known as “Gilslets”, is one of the creators that are feeding that development.
He is making videos about the latest series for his 170,000 followers, and some of his love islands have millions of scenes.
Anthony says that the real draw of Love Island has always been a discourse on social media.
But you need to be up -to -date to participate, and a night show may feel like a long -term commitment for something.
“Sometimes if people remember some episodes, they think they are far behind to catch,” Anthony says.
Super-fan Harriet Fisher, who has been watching the Love Island since the series One, agrees that the ticket has become a place for updates.
She says that the American version of the show, which has overlapped with the UK version this year, is “popping off” on the app, and believes it has increased interest in Love Island.
“The way people are complicating normally with reality TV and love island, she is clearly changing,” she says.
“Tiktok and social media are required to survive to achieve the audience.
“It indicates that the audience of the old can be engaged, but can also get those new audiences.”
But they are having very different relations with the new audience contestants, warning Diament.
ITV/ShutterstockTraditionally, the audience has spent the entire series to learn the islands in an hour -long episode.
Nevertheless, the contestants were not ashamed to guilty selective editing for ever looking bad.
But on social media, the fans are not getting a complete picture compressed with character arcs, compressed in a cut -shaped clip.
“The conversation is being drawn and being taught so I think it makes it even more orkstred,” she says. “This takes reality out of reality TV.”
Grace Henry, Cosmopolitan’s acting entertainment and lifestyle director, agrees that watching the show through social media funds fundamentally.
“We have to keep in mind that these are small clips and the clip can be taken out of the context,” she says.
“We are never going to see the whole picture of how a person is and things change there very quickly.”
But Grace thinks that online infamous reality can work in favor of stars – even if the audience spends less time with them.
Grace HenryShe takes out Yasmin Petate, the name of Yasagipt online, as an islander, which is capable of joining the audience this year.
The video of Yas giving asana lessons has been viewed more than a million times on Tiktok and has been liked tens of thousands on Instagram.
Grace says, “We will still have them and we will have a relationship with them, but they will just come differently.”
“It will be based on viral moments and do they do something big that becomes a meme or social media moment.”
Diamanté agrees and thinks that social clips can also be a better way to create the following than being popular on the series.
With more people reaching more, she says “more brands are watching it and this is the purpose of the game”.
