Cierra from Love Island USA's Instagram Has a Secret Weapon—Her Best Friend
There's an almost inconceivable amount of trust you need to have in someone to give them your Instagram password. There's an even higher amount of trust you need to have in someone to give them your Instagram password in order to manage your account while you're across the globe in Fiji, with zero access to your phone, participating in season 7 of Love Island USA. And it's the kind of trust that Cierra Ortega has in her best friend MJ Hedderman, whom she granted the honor of running her socials while she stars in arguably the summer's biggest show. Cierra tapped Phoenix-based MJ for this task during the 48 hours she had in between finding out she would be on the show and the moment she walked into the villa.
Since then, MJ's posts on Cierra's account, which range from reaction memes to impassioned takedowns of a man who's done her dirty, have gone viral for their wit and honesty. And they read as a departure from the inoffensive 'Watch Love Island USA on Peacock tonight' posts that many contestants' social media admins rely on.
MJ and Cierra, both content creators, originally met through a mutual friend four years ago and have now reached that classic stage of friendship when you help your pal's IG grow from 32k to 634k followers in four weeks. (One that I have yet to experience but would very much like to, @ all my friends.)
And MJ is taking her role incredibly seriously. She knows she isn't just posting but also managing her friend's public perception and laying the groundwork for post-villa business opportunities. These efforts all come from a place of deep love and respect for her bestie. We caught up with MJ about her approach to making posts go viral, why she doesn't regret throwing Nic shade, and the famous fans who are now following Cierra's journey.
We knew in March that she was interviewing, but our friend group has known for years that she'd be perfect for the show. The second she told us she was interviewing, we were like, 'Oh, so you're going on Love Island.' She's like, 'Girl, I literally won't know until two days before I have to leave.' Every time she met with the producers, they didn't tell her to get her hopes up. Then, literally on a Friday afternoon, she texted our group chat that she was leaving the next Monday. I knew she was going the whole time. I was like, 'Oh my god, pack your bags, pick your outfits, start buying your jewelry,' because she loves to accessorize. She's literally a walking Pinterest board. And I just think she's the best-dressed on the show ever. But I'm also so biased.
It was super casual. She had brought it up a few months before, and then a couple of days before she left, she got an email from the producers asking who was going to run her account when she was gone. And I was the first one to respond to her ask in the group chat. I'm also chronically online, so our friends were like, 'You know what? You have fun. We'll be here if you need us.' They've been very supportive. We have a group chat called 'Got a Text,' and I send them anything I think might be slightly problematic. Like, 'Hey, how do you feel about me calling Nic 'Boo Boo the Clown'?' They're like, 'Go for it!' But yeah, no one was clawing for it. On TikTok, I've been getting comments from people being like, 'I would kill to do this.' And I'm like, girl, I'm doing an unpaid internship. But I'm having such a blast, so I can't complain.
Honestly, I didn't go into it with any social strategy whatsoever. For the first post, I screenshotted some things from the Love Island Instagram and was like, 'Who do we think the hottest in the villa is?' Then my emotions got involved when I saw that Nic was treating Cierra like an option. My first thought was like, Girl, we need to hire an Etsy witch to find her real man.
It's exactly what I would text in the group chat to my friends. And then it snowballed from there. I watch each episode fully locked in, with captions and everything. Then I rewatch the episode with the captions off, and I try to find the perfect screen grabs. The way I get all these perfect photos of her is that I sit in a completely dark room so there's no reflection on my screen, and I just zoom in and take pictures. It's hard when someone's talking to get the perfect image, so I have to go back five or six times to get the perfect frame. So now my entire camera is just pictures of Cierra's face.
But I go through all of them, find the best ones, and then if any of them call to me, like she's making a funny face or something, I'm like, 'Oh, this could be a funny meme.' There was one where she was looking surprised, and I said, 'Me acting surprised when I already went through his phone' or something. There's not much strategy. It's more just the first thing that pops into my head, and whatever I would text in our group chat.
I've noticed with a lot of other islanders—because I've been checking out their accounts—there are no opinions. It's more like, 'We love our girl! Watch Love Island.' Honestly, even though I'm an influencer and it's my job to tell people to buy stuff, as a consumer, I hate being told what to do. If I'm following someone on Love Island, it's probably because I'm already watching the show and I'm already invested. So I did not feel the need to add hashtags or to tell people where to watch it because people are already doing that. And I honestly think the content has engaged better by not doing that. I'm also very opinionated, so it's been very hard for me to, like, not put my opinions in the posts. But I could be a lot more opinionated, which is exactly what I'm doing on my own TikTok.
I also wanted to create a space on Cierra's account that she would also find funny, because she has an incredible sense of humor. Before she went to the villa, the only thing she texted me was, 'Have fun. Make memes. Be silly. You can make fun of me!' I think it's working because people see how much love is going into the post. Every time I'm writing these, I'm literally pouring my heart out.
I've been a full-time influencer since 2021. So this is not necessarily easy, especially given the number of followers that she's gained in the past week—she's gained, I think, 100,000 in less than eight hours—but it helps. Like, knowing how to block certain hate words and block comments. The second I see any type of hateful comment, I take all the keywords and I put them into the hidden word option on Instagram, so then no one can comment anything terrible. The beauty of working in this industry is that you kind of become numb to it after a while. You realize that the people sending hate aren't saying that because they genuinely hate you. Maybe they do, but it's probably because they don't love themselves enough. It's definitely challenging at times, dealing with the influx of people, but it's manageable. Granted, I've been focusing 100 percent more on her Instagram than I have mine, but I know that she has so much potential for growth while in the villa, so I might as well focus on this for her for six weeks and set her up for life.
That's what I'm saying. There are a lot of people on the show, like Huda for example, who could be getting a bad edit. That happened to Cierra in the beginning, with the whole Bell-A and Nic situation. Cierra was literally getting death threats in her DMs. I feel like one way to combat that beforehand is by creating a good perception on her Instagram. Her DMs are insane. Half of them are fans; a portion are athletes. And then there's the famous people, like Julia Fox followed her.
I've been texting her updates every single day, like, 'You just hit 600k, Julia Fox just followed you, Kim Kardashian just reposted your Skims ad on her story.' [Editor's note: Cierra won't be seeing these texts until she's out of the villa because, again, she does not have her phone.] I just know she's going to freak out when she's out of the villa. Our friend Johnnie, who was on the show a couple years ago said, you really have no idea what the public thinks. That's the scariest part. But Cierra's in good hands.
What was your relationship to reality TV like before this?
I've never watched Love Island USA before. Cierra's the one who got me into reality TV. She got me into Big Brother, she's been begging me to watch Love Is Blind for years, and she forced me to watch the Vanderpump Rules finale where Ariana rips Tom a new one. And she kept pausing it to provide context.
I look at them occasionally just to see what the vibe is. But honestly, I'm booked and busy with this account. I do check them out to see where they are growth-wise. It's not a competition, but I am a very competitive person, and since it's not my account I'm very much looking at it like a business where I'm like, 'Okay, how much growth can we get in six weeks?' Especially because, when the whole Huda/Jeremiah situation was going on, Cierra wasn't getting any screen time. So I was like, This is my time to shine. If I can make posts go viral, she'll gain followers from just existing on Instagram. Granted, when she has screen time, she eats it. Everyone's like, 'She's been coached. She's media trained.' No, she is just genuinely that eloquent and witty in real life. She's a Libra.
If they do end up together, I will own it! I'm not deleting any of the posts—I called him Boo Boo the Clown for a reason. I will stick to my guns. But I don't think he's a bad guy. I'm looking at it from a best friend's perspective, not from objectively watching the show. When I see her crying about someone who can't commit, it literally makes me see red. But in the context of the show, I do think they are a good couple. They both have weird interests. I just think he needs to get his head screwed on straight and realize the gorgeous goddess that he has in front of him. But I have to remind myself, it is just a show.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Vox
2 hours ago
- Vox
Why is everyone crashing out?
is a culture writer interested in reality TV, movies, pop music, Black media, and celebrity culture. Previously, she wrote for the Daily Beast and contributed to several publications, including Vulture, W Magazine, and Bitch Media. It was abundantly clear to everyone that Huda wasn't doing well. Huda Mustafa, the breakout villain on Love Island USA's seventh season, spiraled after viewers voted to separate her from Jeremiah Brown, with whom she'd developed an intense connection early in the current season. Over several episodes, she eavesdropped on Jeremiah's conversations, interrogated the woman he was re-coupled with, and broke down repeatedly. Her despondent face became a viral meme. Viewers, and later Huda herself, had a simple and notably Gen Z explanation for what she was experiencing: The lovelorn reality star had officially 'crashed out.' Justin Bieber received the same label recently, for his strange behavior on social media and a viral standoff with paparazzi. While some of his fanbase voiced more serious concerns over the state of his mental health, many tagged the singer's antics as telltale signs of a typical 'crashout.' The catchall phrase is shorthand for the unfiltered actions of a person who is angry, anxious, confused, stressed out, or experiencing mental health issues. It can describe a range of behavior, from emotional outbursts to altercations to withdrawals. There are a lot of ways that 'crashing out' can look, but like obscenity, you know it when you see it. The term has floated around on the internet for a while now; Know Your Meme credits its popularity to rapper NBA YoungBoy, who used the term in his 2017 song, 'Stepped On.' Since the 2020s, the concept has been used both humorously and in earnest to discuss the fallout from issues as global as the state of the world, as personal as relationship or work stress, or as low stakes as struggling with a hairstyle. Practically any problem, big or small, can warrant a 'crashout.' One of the most striking things about the phrase is how general it is. Why is a generation raised on pop-psychology jargon, with more access to mental health resources and experience talking about their own needs, painting these episodes with such a broad brush? Is Gen Z abandoning traditional routes of managing their mental health, or has a burnout generation found a more radical way to cope? It's no secret that Gen Z is particularly stressed out. According to a 2024 Harmony Healthcare IT study, nearly half of Gen Zers struggle with mental health issues, with 1 in 3 taking prescription medication for mental health. Anxiety and depression are the most common conditions. The Covid-19 pandemic has been seen as a cause for the Gen Z mental health crisis, while other studies point to social media as a huge factor. Related When TikTok therapy is more lucrative than seeing clients Meanwhile, research suggests that Gen Z might be growing more resistant to traditional therapy. A study in the American Journal of Psychology this year found that 37 percent of participants born between 1997 and 2012 said that seeking counseling was 'mentally weak.' This was a higher percentage than the 27 percent of millennials, Gen Xers, and baby boomers that were surveyed combined. If therapy's relatively unpopular, social media is booming, and it seems like many teenagers and young adults have turned to their favorite influencers and online advice to get through tough times. On TikTok, for example, 'crashouts' are often encouraged as a necessary form of catharsis. Even if you aren't naturally experiencing these outbursts, users posit them as a quick and easy fix for stress and anger. One user, @masonblakee, posted a video of himself looking relaxed in a car with the caption, 'How it feels when you finally crash out on someone after keeping your mouth shut for a while.' Another, @gazellechavez, made a video sharing the supposed benefits of occasionally 'crashing out.' 'Once you hit rock bottom, there's only one way you can go — up,' she says. Still, professionals are more skeptical of these viral directives, as they're being confronted with them at work. Rebecca Hug, a clinical counselor and core faculty in clinical mental health counseling at University of Phoenix, says she regularly encounters clients who've 'absorbed the idea that emotional 'crashing' is a valid coping strategy.' 'This mindset discourages the development of essential skills like self-regulation, resilience, and perspective-taking,' Hug says. While she says these sorts of reactions are 'developmentally appropriate for teenagers,' it's a more crucial problem for people in early adulthood. New York-based psychologist Sabrina Romanoff shares similar concerns about these viral 'crashing outs,' saying that TikTok has become 'a double-edged sword for mental health.' 'On one hand, it's a space where young people can find validation and connect with people who share similar experiences,' she says. 'On the other hand, it's a platform with a high circulation of unqualified advice, often oversimplifying and promoting unhealthy ideas.' For instance, several videos frame the act of 'crashing out' on other people as a joyful and even empowering experience. But at what point do these emotional eruptions become abusive or signal one's failure in communicating with others? Romanoff adds that there's a danger to the internet automatically labeling these sorts of behaviors as 'crashouts' without acknowledging possible underlying causes. 'When we see repeated posts about these breakdowns, it can inadvertently create a culture where these moments are expected or even glorified rather than seen as a signal that something deeper needs attention,' she says. Prior to the 'crashout' trend, Gen Z had already built a reputation for publicizing their emotional meltdowns online. TikTok and Instagram Stories have become increasingly popular sites for influencers and average users to cry and vent. Hug says viral 'crashouts' reflect how 'emotional dysregulation is increasingly externalized and even socially validated.' Rather than having these intimate moments in private with friends or family members, users can receive immediate support from strangers that they may not receive in real life. This public sharing seems, in part, symptomatic of a loneliness epidemic affecting Gen Z. According to a Pew Research Center study this year, the cohort experiences higher rates of loneliness than previous generations. Related Why weeping online is internet gold However, vulnerability has also proven to be a recipe for virality and a strategy to build loyal audiences. Hug says the visibility of emotional struggles can 'blur the line between authentic expression and performative vulnerability.' Hence, there's an obvious incentive for certain people to discuss and post their crashouts. Not everyone may come from a particularly dire or desperate place. After all, Hug says that many of these posters' concerns seem to reflect 'normal developmental stress rather than clinical pathology.' Still, she says that it's important for young people to develop self-regulation skills and utilize mental health resources rather than normalizing these reactions under the guise of 'crashing out.' Unfortunately, emotional maturity doesn't get as many likes.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Kerry Katona shows true colours in relationship with hunky Celebs Go Dating boyfriend
Kerry Katona has come under fire after her hunky new partner's ex accused her of stealing her man. Mum-of-five Kerry has been in a love bubble with personal trainer Paolo Margaglione, 33, after meeting him on Celebs Go Dating in May. But Paolo's ex, Jessica Smith, 25, claims she was already in a relationship with the dad-of-two – and completely unaware he was filming the dating show, as OK! reports. 'He lied to me the entire time we were together. It was horrendous,' said Jessica, who is a warehouse manager from Holmfirth, Yorkshire. I do not believe that he has one single feeling for Kerry. He only cares about fame and he'll be happy he's now being put out there.' Devastated Jessica spoke out after seeing snaps of Kerry, 44, and Paolo kissing outside a London hotel. She claims he 'repeatedly lied' about taking part in the show – which also stars Love Island's Olivia Hawkins and The Chase's Mark Labbett – and that he told her he was travelling to London for business meetings when he was in fact filming scenes with smitten Kerry. But a source close to the former Atomic Kitten star, who is keeping tight-lipped over the furore, has said that after experiencing her fair share of romantic betrayals herself, she would never knowingly make a move on another woman's man. 'She's not a man-stealer and it's not something nice to be accused of, but she knows her truth and won't let it ruin things,' the source said. 'Kerry isn't going to let anyone rain on her parade.' Jess went on to claim that Paolo, who she started dating after he contacted her on Instagram, continued to send her loved-up messages while he was filming the E4 reality show, even telling her he wanted to marry her. But Paolo, who has two daughters from a previous relationship, denies any wrongdoing. 'I was never in a relationship with Jess,' he said. 'We only met up around five times. I was honest with her that I had been offered to go on a dating show and if it were to come to fruition, I would take the opportunity.' He continued, 'I made it clear to Jess that we had to stop talking and seeing each other as I had been offered to go on the show. I have nothing bad to say about Jess – she's a great girl.' Kerry's rumoured new romance comes eight months after her shock split from her former fiancé Ryan Mahoney, who she dated for six years. The pair met online and lived together in Cheshire, with personal trainer Ryan proposing to Kerry in 2020. The relationship broke down last November and Kerry later revealed they had parted over a 'breach of trust'. She said at the time, 'We are no longer together and it's been a really tough week. I never in a million years thought this would happen.' Three-times-married Kerry wed her first husband, Westlife star Brian McFadden, in 2002 and they have two daughters, Molly, 23, and Lilly-Sue, 22. She went on to marry taxi driver Mark Croft, welcoming daughter Heidi, 18, and son Max, 17, before the relationship crumbled after three years together. In 2014, she tied the knot with George Kay, the father of her youngest daughter Dylan-Jorge, 11. Tragically, former rugby league player George died in 2019 following a drug overdose. Celebrity Big Brother star Kerry is certainly no stranger to drama when it comes to her love life, but the source says she has 'learnt the hard way' when it comes to fame-hungry partners and won't be fooled again. 'She's felt that betrayal,' the source said. 'But she's got a smart head on her shoulders and she's totally happy and comfortable with Paolo. 'She has never felt or looked better, and a hunky man was really the only thing missing from her life. She's making good money and everything is on her terms. She's not being controlled or led by anyone.' READ MORE: Save £25 on Stacey Solomon's go-to blender that 'achieves perfect results'
Hypebeast
4 hours ago
- Hypebeast
Matt Reeves Reveals 'The Batman 2' Script Is Finally Complete
Summary The long wait for a definitive update on the highly anticipated sequel toMatt Reeves' acclaimedThe Batmanis finally over. Director Matt Reeves has officially completed the script forThe Batman 2, a crucial step that moves the dark, gritty saga starringRobert Pattinsoncloser to production. This news, confirmed by sources close to the production, ignites excitement among fans eager to delve deeper into Reeves' unique vision of Gotham City. The completion of the script marks a significant milestone following a period of intense development and speculation. Reeves, known for his meticulous and deliberate approach to filmmaking, has taken his time crafting the narrative for this sequel, ensuring it aligns with the grounded, noir-inspired tone that resonated so strongly with audiences and critics alike in the 2022 original. Reeves posted to Instagram the completed script, writing in the caption, 'Parters in Crime (Fighters),' alongside co-writer Mattson Tomlin. The first page of the script appears to be blurred out but a Batman logo can be made out on the top of the page. While plot details remain tightly under wraps, it's widely expected thatThe Batman 2will continue to explore themes of corruption, moral ambiguity, and Bruce Wayne's evolving journey as Gotham's enigmatic vigilante. The ending of the first film, which saw the Riddler incarcerated and a subtle tease of the Joker (played by Barry Keoghan), left ample room for new antagonists and complex character arcs. Speculation is already rampant about which iconic villains might make their full-fledged appearance, and how the burgeoning criminal underworld of Gotham will further challenge Batman. The first film grossed over $772 million USD worldwide and solidified Robert Pattinson's portrayal of Batman as a compelling, detective-driven iteration. With the script now finalized, attention will turn to pre-production, casting announcements (beyond Pattinson's return), and securing a release date, which is anticipated to be in late 2026 or early 2027. The completion of the 'The Batman 2' script is a powerful affirmation of the creative direction set by Matt Reeves. It assures fans that the next chapter in this critically lauded take on the Caped Crusader is well on its way, promising another immersive and intense journey into the heart of Gotham.
