He Must Be Gay — He Wears Nail Vanish!
Love Island is back for another Season, which means the social media keyboard warriors are back at it, and this time, their naivety towards sexuality and masculinity is coming out…
Will Young is a contestant on the 2023 Winter Love Island series, which is currently being filmed in South Africa. Better known as “Farmer Will”, he was scouted from TikTok, where he has 1.5 million followers from making content with his sheep on the farm, whether this is dancing with them or rescuing them from muddy puddles!
If you decide to check Twitter after an episode of Love Island, the comments come to reveal something quite naïve and shocking. People are equating Farmer Wills masculinity to his sexuality. They are equating what they THINK being a ‘real man’ looks like and pushing that narrative onto him in a negative way.
For some context, on the show Farmer Will can be seen skipping round the bedroom hand in hand with Jessie (his current love interest — pre Casa Amor), wearing nail vanish and being there to give the girls ladvice. These traits do not stereotypically coincide with the typical Love Island boy (and thank God for this switch up!) but because of this people cannot seem to wrap their head around the fact he can be feminine, and straight. They seem to think, from watching a forty-five-minute TV show, they know him better than he knows himself, and that he needs to “just come out already”.
Having ‘feminine’ traits does not mean that he is gay, because these gender stereotypes are exactly that — STEREOTYPES! They don’t exist! They’re made up! Why should people feel bad for living their life according to their genuine traits and morals? Should they change their morals and values to live their life based off of what society tells them is normal? I mean, how boring would it be if we were all the same?
There is so much to unpack with why these comments are wrong. Firstly, as far as we all know, Will has not commented or said anything about his sexuality, but given that he is on Love Island — a show which is focused on heterosexual relationships — I think it’s a fair assumption that he is attracted to women! He may be bisexual, he may be straight, he may also not want to comment on any of this, but people’s persistent comments may make him feel as though he has to. He may not have it figured out, he may not want to continue being his genuine self because he may now feel scrutinised and backed into a corner.
Even if Will was bisexual and he chose to go on the show, there’s no issue with that — bisexual people exist, and they don’t use this label to cover up the fact that they are secretly gay, they just actually…exist.
It is very easy to forget that with social media and TV shows today, people choose how they are perceived and Farmer Will chose to brand himself as this quirky farmer on TikTok. This means we only know what he is choosing to show! He may have more masculine traits, but he doesn’t show this side on TikTok, nor do the Love Island producers promote that side of him because they know that is not his brand.
Aside from all of this, as of right now, Farmer Will hasn’t seen any of these comments. But people from the LGBTQ+ community have. And the fact that people are assuming his sexuality based off of his looks and personality traits just further reinforces outdated notions of what sexuality looks like. Sexuality is a spectrum and doesn’t come in a shape or size, a tone of voice or a nail vanish shade — but when looking at all of the comments on social media about how Farmer Will absolutely MUST be gay because of the way he walks, or the way he dresses, will this message ever get across?
The fact there is SO much talk about his sexuality also pushes the idea that being gay IS something that is worth all this debate, because it IS such a weird thing. When, no, it’s not. It’s normal.
Whilst Love Island is meant to be light-hearted entertainment for us viewers to watch, it is a shame that such negative comments can come from the show. Luckily, ITV2 has taken precautions for the Islanders this year, as they are not allowed to have their friends/family post on their personal Instagrams, to avoid negative comments which have come about in previous years.
To end on a positive note, not all hope is lost, and there are some people who share the same viewpoint on this topic…
Hopefully the negative comments won’t dappen Farmer Wills sparkle because his personality is really refreshing and entertaining to watch!
