It's unlikely that most of this group will know who she is unless they watch the UK original version of Love Island which I think is on Netflix Stateside, where I believe it does fairly well. And I should preface all of this by saying that I never watched Love Island, and I don't make a habit of reading the tabloid press - online or offline.
Caroline Flack was a TV presenter, who started out presenting kids shows before doing other things. She also did well in a series of Strictly Come Dancing (aka Dancing With the Stars) a few seasons ago. Love Island, you may know, is something of a hit for ITV2 getting the channel its biggest ratings. Anyway, towards the end of last year, she was arrested for assaulting her boyfriend. It all caused quite a tabloid media frenzy, and with a first winter cycle of Love Island imminent, she stood down from presenting that series. The tabloid press of course milked the story for all it was worth, generating multiple front pages. For them, it was the perfect story. And so, with her case due in court soon, we ended up where we are. I'm absolutely not a mental health expert, but the UK charity, The Samaritans, have a really smart media guidelines code for dealing with celebrity suicides ( https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/media-guidelines/), noting you can rarely truly say what the cause of someone's death is. But social media has been alive this weekend with antipathy towards the tabloid press. The press has been swiftly taking down some of their more spiteful pieces. But in turn, they're directing venom towards users of social media for being so hateful. Others have been talking about internet hatred in general. In general, you find nastiness from both the press and individuals. Of course, tabloids only publish stories that sell papers - or more so these days - drive clicks. So there's certainly some schadenfreude going on here. People are clicking on those articles, perhaps even more so as of this weekend. There's obviously an enormous amount of soul-searching going on, and enormous sympathy being shown to Flack's friends and family. Awareness of mental health and the impact of reality TV, tabloid press and social media on people's lives is becoming a major issue. Love Island itself has seen two suicides amongst former contestants, and last year the Jeremy Kyle Show (think a UK version of Jerry Springer) was cancelled following the suicide of a participant in that show. The issues surrounding that show at the time led to a lot of conversation about how much support participants in TV shows - especially reality shows - should get. Should it be months? Years? Clips live on, on platforms like YouTube, forever. In the meantime, Love Island has skipped a couple of episodes (it's basically daily), although I understand ITV does want to bring it back - starting with a memorial episode. Meanwhile, Channel 4 had a series in the can fronted by Flack which they are now not going to broadcast. There's a lot of hand-wringing going on. Adam On Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 12:25 AM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote: > I don’t recall knowing anything about her or her show; had to search our > archives to find this note posted by Bob a few months ago. But my Twitter > feed has been full of posts relating this to social attitudes about mental > illness, which got my attention. Does anyone here have more context on this > young woman and her sad death, apparently suicide as per linked article? > Did she have a publicized history of mental disorder? > > https://apnews.com/40defa2f6da82cdda85a56831c06f60c > > > On Tue, Dec 17, 2019 at 6:37 AM 'Bob Jersey' via TVorNotTV < > tvornottv@googlegroups.com> wrote: > >> Caroline Flack, before she was to leave for South Africa for the next >> series of the itv hit, was arrested for attacking her partner at her home >> this past week. >> >> >> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/love-island-host-caroline-flack-steps-down-assault-charge-1263275 >> (link) >> >> B >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "TVorNotTV" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To view this discussion on the web visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/f0976e95-d924-49c1-b2e9-ceb0f1a7bdaa%40googlegroups.com >> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/f0976e95-d924-49c1-b2e9-ceb0f1a7bdaa%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >> . >> > -- > Sent from Gmail Mobile > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to tvornottv+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkY%2BKpgxiVZ-RB0mAJrKthGOhjC_QXgaq68Bs7dEzgAF%2BSw%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/CAKGtkY%2BKpgxiVZ-RB0mAJrKthGOhjC_QXgaq68Bs7dEzgAF%2BSw%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. 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