Netflix's 'Adolescence' shows a teenage boy becoming a killer — did the show actually get modern boyhood right, or did it miss the point entirely?

• P
  Priya4d ago

  My teenage daughter watched it and said "mom, boys at school literally talk like that, this isn't exaggerated." I almost fell out of my chair. I thought I was watching fiction. She was watching a documentary.

  201
• Y
  Yuki5d ago

  I watched all four episodes in one sitting and literally couldn't sleep after. The single-take format made it feel like you were trapped in that house with the family. I have a 13-year-old son and the whole time I was watching I kept thinking... do I actually know what he's looking at online? Do I actually know him? It shook me to my core.

  187
• K
  Kofi3d ago

  I grew up with an absent father and got deep into red pill content around age 15. Someone showed me Adolescence and I sat there recognizing almost every step of my own journey. I was lucky to have a teacher who caught it. Most boys don't have that. The show is accurate, at least for me.

  176
• P2
  Priya 215d ago

  As someone who works with at-risk youth for a living, this show captures something real. The slow grooming of boys by online communities that tell them they're losers who deserve to be angry — it's not fiction. I see it every week. The show is uncomfortable because it should be.

  171
• P
  Priya2d ago

  I teach high school English. I have watched three students over the past two years go through what looks like the early stages of what the show depicts. Not violence. Just the language, the memes, the "females" framing, the hostility. I reported my concerns each time. Nothing happened. The show made me feel seen and hopeless at the same time.

  162
• JK
  Jamie K.4d ago

  Watched it with my husband and we had the best/worst conversation of our marriage afterward. We have two boys aged 10 and 14. We realized we have absolutely no consistent rules about screen time or monitoring. We're fixing that now. Sometimes a TV show is actually useful.

  156
• LT
  Liam T.4d ago

  episode 4 destroyed me. the dad sitting in the car. i don't want to spoil it but wow. Stephen Graham is from another planet talent wise.

  145
• D_
  Drew _x5d ago

  The therapist episode (episode 3) is one of the greatest single pieces of television I have ever seen. That actress deserves every award available to human civilization.

  143
• R
  Ravi2d ago

  Finished it last night and my first instinct was to call my brother who I haven't spoken to in two years. We had a falling out over stupid family stuff. Life is short and boys don't always know how to ask for connection. That's what the show did to me.

  137
• TM
  Theo M.4d ago

  I'll be honest I thought it was going to be preachy lefty stuff about toxic masculinity and instead it was genuinely nuanced. The dad character especially. He's not a bad father. He tried. That's what makes it devastating instead of just political.

  134
• R
  Reese5d ago

  My problem is that the girl who was killed barely gets to be a character. We spend the whole show in the killer's world, his family's grief, his psychology. Her death is just a plot device. That's a storytelling choice and it says something uncomfortable about whose story the writers thought mattered.

  129
• P
  Priya4d ago

  Honestly the scariest part for me was how normal he seemed at the beginning. Like genuinely funny, kind of charming, you understand why the family is in denial. Evil doesn't always look like evil and that's the whole point.

  119
• TS
  Taylor S.2d ago

  Whether it "got it right" is almost irrelevant to me. The fact that millions of people are now having conversations about online radicalization, about loneliness in boys, about algorithmic responsibility — that happened because of this show. Art doesn't have to be a thesis. It has to start conversations. Mission accomplished.

  114
• QB
  Quinn B.5d ago

  The show does NOT demonize boys. It literally spends an entire episode showing how a normal loving family can produce this outcome. It's asking a systemic question not a "boys are bad" question. People who think it's anti-male watched it wrong.

  112
• L
  Leo3d ago

  To the 16 year old above: the show isn't saying lonely boys are dangerous, it's saying that specific communities PREY on lonely boys and that's a different thing. The villain isn't you, it's the people who found you when you were vulnerable and told you that girls were the enemy.

  108
• T
  Taylor2d ago

  the single take gimmick is also the entire emotional point?? the family can't escape the moment either. there's no cut, no relief, no ability to look away. you're stuck with them the same way they're stuck with what happened. it's not a technical stunt it's the theme

  99
• T
  Theo4d ago

  The incel pipeline is REAL and this show explains it better than any documentary or news article I've read. The sigma male stuff, the red pill stuff, boys as young as 11 are being fed this content by recommendation algorithms. At least the show is putting it in front of parents who would never google this stuff themselves.

  98
• SS
  Sam S.5d ago

  Overrated. Sorry. It's well-made technically but the story essentially says "the internet made him do it" and leaves it there. That's a lazy explanation that lets parents, schools, and society completely off the hook. Feels like prestige TV patting itself on the back.

  94
• A9
  Alex 923d ago

  I'm a boy (16) and I watched this and honestly felt targeted? Like the whole message seemed to be that boys who feel lonely and left out are basically proto-killers waiting to happen. I feel lonely sometimes. That doesn't mean I'm dangerous. It felt like the show had already decided what I am before I opened my mouth.

  93
• OS
  Omar S.3d ago

  The fact that this is NUMBER ONE in dozens of countries simultaneously means the anxiety it taps into is universal. Parents everywhere are scared about the same thing regardless of culture. That's significant.

  90
• DR
  Drew R.4d ago

  This show is why I support phone bans in schools, age verification for social media, and algorithmic accountability laws. Full stop. We know what the rabbit holes lead to and we keep doing nothing because tech companies lobby against regulation. The show should make people angry at policy makers not just at a fictional teenager.

  88
• M
  Marco2d ago

  it's a 4 episode limited series not a policy document. you don't have to walk away with a 10 point plan. sometimes the point is just to feel the weight of something and take it seriously. why does TV have to solve everything for people to say it was worth making

  86
• T
  Taylor2d ago

  Genuine question: should parents actually monitor their kids' phones and social media? Because after watching this I desperately want to. But everything I read about teenage psychology says surveillance damages trust and drives behavior underground. What's the right answer? Show doesn't say.

  83
• R
  Ravi3d ago

  Stephen Graham co-wrote this with his wife and they have sons. This was a personal project born out of actual fear for their own children. That authenticity comes through in every scene. This isn't social messaging from executives, it's a parent screaming into the void.

  82
• D
  Drew4d ago

  The show completely ignores that girls are also being radicalized online, just in different directions. Eating disorders, extreme beauty standards, even far-right content. If we're going to have this conversation it needs to be about ALL kids not just boys. The framing feels incomplete.

  77
• Q9
  Quinn 923d ago

  Can we talk about how the detective character was also brilliantly written? He's not a hero either. He has his own blind spots. The show refuses to give you a clean moral authority figure to stand behind and that's brave.

  74
• CT
  Casey T.2d ago

  The show is important. The conversation it created is important. But I'd push back on anyone who thinks watching it makes them understand radicalization. Spend five minutes actually researching what these communities say and what they recruit with. It's far more sophisticated and seductive than the show conveys.

  72
• CR
  Casey R.3d ago

  Hot take: the show is good but the social media discourse around it has been more harmful than helpful. Now every parent is convinced their shy quiet son is secretly being radicalized. Most boys who are awkward and into gaming are just... awkward and into gaming. The moral panic is real.

  71
• L
  Leo3d ago

  The mother character is criminally underwritten and I refuse to accept that as anything other than a flaw. The father gets a whole cinematic episode of grief. The mother gets reactions. That imbalance undermines the show's own message about who we center.

  68
• FS
  Feli S.4d ago

  I don't think the show missed the point but I do think it ended too soon. Four episodes and then... what? What are we supposed to DO with all that? The final episode felt unresolved in a way that was frustrating rather than thought-provoking.

  63
• Y
  Yuki3d ago

  schools should literally show this in PSHE or whatever the equivalent is in your country. not to scare kids but to open up conversations. the problem is schools are too scared of parent complaints to touch anything real

  61
• T
  Theo3d ago

  The show gets the online dynamics basically right but massively oversimplifies how radicalization actually works. It happens over months and years with constant reinforcement. Compressing it into a backstory that fits a 4-episode drama means a lot of the real mechanism gets lost. Good drama, somewhat misleading sociology.

  57
• JT
  Jamie T.3d ago

  Beautifully shot beautifully acted and ultimately kind of toothless on solutions. Great art about a crisis it's not sure how to solve is still great art but let's be honest that it doesn't really tell us what to do next.

  55
• J
  Jordan4d ago

  The single-take cinematography is impressive but it also becomes a distraction. I kept thinking about the logistics of filming it instead of feeling the emotions. Like yes technically amazing. Emotionally I was somewhat removed because of it.

  51
• F
  Feli3d ago

  I think people are confusing "well made" with "accurate." The show is extremely well made. Whether it accurately represents why boys become violent is a completely separate question that requires actual research not a Netflix drama. Conflating the two is how we end up with bad policy.

  48
• F
  Feli4d ago

  anyone else notice netflix dropped this right when there's huge political debate about phone bans in schools? feels like extremely convenient timing. not saying its bad just saying the algorithm knows what its doing

  44
• J
  Jordan2d ago

  The show says incel content radicalizes boys. Research actually says the pathway is more complex — social isolation comes first, then the content finds you. The show reverses the causality slightly which matters because it implies content moderation would fix things when the loneliness epidemic is the actual root. Interesting drama, slightly wrong diagnosis.

  43
• O
  Omar5d ago

  its good but people are acting like no show has ever addressed this stuff before. have they never seen euphoria? this isnt revolutionary its just british and filmed in one take so critics lost their minds

  38

More debates people can't stop arguing about