Netflix's 'Adolescence' has everyone talking about teen boys and violence — is it a genuine wake-up call or just well-made moral panic?

• C

  Casey5d ago

  The show is excellent. The discourse around the show is exhausting. Both things are true.

  203Reply
• YB

  Yuki B.6d ago

  my son is 14 and after watching this i sat with him for two hours just talking. we've never talked like that before. if it's 'moral panic' then moral panic works

  201Reply
• A

  Avery6d ago

  I watched all four episodes in one sitting and cried twice. That's not moral panic. That's a mirror.

  187Reply
• L2

  Liam 213d ago

  the show is a masterpiece and also the conversation it started will burn out in three weeks and nothing will change. that's the actual tragedy. we'll talk about the next show next month.

  176Reply
• T

  Taylor2d ago

  Great television. Real problem. Oversimplified solutions being proposed in response. All three of those things are true simultaneously and we need to be able to hold all three without collapsing them into each other.

  168Reply
• LK

  Liam K.5d ago

  The performance by the kid playing Jamie is the best performance I have seen from a child actor maybe ever. Full stop. The courtroom episode destroyed me.

  165Reply
• C

  Casey3d ago

  The show answers the 'why did nobody see it coming' question in a way that feels devastating because the answer is: everyone saw pieces of it and chose the easier interpretation every single time.

  161Reply
• J

  Jordan5d ago

  My husband watched it and said 'I was that boy at 13.' He didn't become violent but he said he understood exactly how it starts. That conversation alone was worth four episodes.

  156Reply
• S9

  Sam 924d ago

  As a man in my 30s I genuinely found the show uncomfortable because I recognized parts of my own teenage psychology in Jamie. Not the violence. But the shame, the feeling of being ranked and found wanting. That part is universal and the show nails it.

  147Reply
• R

  Riley2d ago

  I've been a social worker for 12 years. The family dynamics in the show are the most accurate portrayal of how violence hides in plain sight within normal-seeming homes that I have ever seen on screen. It is not panicking. It is precise.

  144Reply
• O

  Omar6d ago

  The single-take format is genuinely one of the most impressive technical achievements I've seen on television in years. Whatever you think about the message, the craft alone earns serious discussion.

  143Reply
• S

  Sam4d ago

  The moral panic framing is mostly from people who haven't watched it. The show is genuinely careful and nuanced. It doesn't say all boys are dangerous. It asks how we let one specific boy fall through every single crack at once.

  138Reply
• QS

  Quinn S.5d ago

  I work in a school and I can tell you the dynamics shown in that show are REAL. The way boys talk about girls using that coded language, the hierarchies, the shame. I see it every single day. This is not fiction.

  134Reply
• T

  Theo2d ago

  What I keep thinking about is how the show implies the parents' devices were just as full of noise and distraction as their son's. There's a scene where the father is scrolling while Jamie is trying to talk to him. It lasts about four seconds. It wrecked me.

  131Reply
• JK

  Jordan K.4d ago

  The episode with the psychologist is the best hour of television this year. That single conversation contains more insight about adolescent male psychology than most academic papers I've read.

  122Reply
• O

  Omar3d ago

  I study radicalization professionally and the pipeline shown in the series is simplified for drama but not fundamentally wrong. The emotional logic that moves a boy from 'feeling rejected' to 'ideology that explains the rejection' is documented and real.

  119Reply
• RL

  Ravi L.4d ago

  i think people who say its moral panic have not actually spent time on the parts of the internet the show is referencing. i have. its bad. its really really bad and its aimed directly at 12 year old boys

  118Reply
• C

  Casey5d ago

  The hysteria argument drives me insane. Yes previous panics were overblown. That doesn't mean every concern about youth and technology is automatically wrong. At some point the boy who cried wolf actually encounters a wolf.

  112Reply
• QR

  Quinn R.4d ago

  I tried to watch it and couldn't finish. Not because it was bad. Because it was too good and too close to things I've seen happen in my own family. That's what good art does.

  109Reply
• R2

  Riley 212d ago

  i don't understand how someone can watch episode two and still say 'moral panic.' the interview room scene alone should end that argument

  105Reply
• J

  Jordan3d ago

  I find it interesting that the conversation is entirely focused on boys. The victim in the show is a girl. Where is the equivalent cultural reckoning about what we're teaching girls about their own safety and worth?

  103Reply
• P

  Priya5d ago

  I showed episode three to my year 10 class with parental permission and the discussion afterward was the most honest conversation about masculinity I have ever had in fifteen years of teaching. The show does something textbooks cannot.

  99Reply
• L

  Leo6d ago

  Here's my issue: the show presents the incel-to-violence pipeline as basically inevitable once a boy goes down that rabbit hole online. That's not accurate and it stigmatizes millions of lonely, awkward teenage boys who will never hurt anyone.

  98Reply
• R

  Ravi4d ago

  declining overall violence doesn't mean the specific ideological radicalization pipeline is declining. those are two different things and conflating them is a bad faith argument

  94Reply
• LL

  Leo L.2d ago

  The fact that government officials are watching a Netflix show and calling emergency meetings proves two things: the show is powerful, and our actual policy-making on tech regulation has been embarrassingly reactive for years.

  92Reply
• A

  Alex5d ago

  Okay but can we talk about how the show basically lets the parents off the hook by the end? The father is portrayed sympathetically when he absolutely enabled the environment Jamie grew up in. That felt like a cop-out.

  89Reply
• R

  Ravi5d ago

  The format isn't a gimmick. Removing the ability to cut forces the viewer into the same unbroken time as the characters. You can't look away the way an edit lets you. That IS the point.

  88Reply
• O

  Omar3d ago

  honestly the real question is whether schools will actually use this as a teaching tool or whether administrators will be too scared of parents complaining. i already know the answer and it depresses me

  87Reply
• O

  Omar4d ago

  can we acknowledge that the show is also about class? a working class family, a boy who feels invisible, a system that failed him repeatedly. everyone's talking about the internet stuff but the class analysis is just as sharp

  85Reply
• Z

  Zara3d ago

  strong point above. the dead girl exists primarily to illuminate the boy's psychology and journey. that's a storytelling choice worth examining even if the show is great

  79Reply
• R

  Ravi5d ago

  lmao people acting like this show invented the concept of boys being radicalized online. researchers have been screaming about this for a decade. it took a netflix drama for anyone to listen??

  76Reply
• L

  Leo2d ago

  just here to say the theme music choice at the end of the final episode was genuinely perfect and i think about it every day and i don't know what that means about me

  74Reply
• J

  Jamie5d ago

  What I find interesting is that politicians are now citing a dramatized fictional show as evidence for policy. That should concern everyone regardless of whether you think the underlying issue is real.

  73Reply
• R

  Ravi4d ago

  THANK YOU. The class dimension is being completely ignored in mainstream coverage because it's less comfortable to talk about than 'bad algorithm bad.'

  71Reply
• Q_

  Quinn _x4d ago

  Statistically, youth violence in most western countries has been declining for thirty years. A show this emotionally powerful can make you feel like we're in a crisis that the data doesn't actually support.

  67Reply
• D

  Drew2d ago

  The people calling it moral panic are the same types who called #MeToo a witch hunt. Some things actually are happening and art that names them is doing important work.

  66Reply
• DM

  Diego M.3d ago

  That concern about contagion effects is legitimate but it applies to every serious art about violence and darkness. If we pulled everything on those grounds we'd have no Dostoevsky, no Crime and Punishment, no serious fiction at all.

  62Reply
• R

  Ravi3d ago

  Disagree that nothing will change. Sustained cultural pressure does shift norms. The conversation about online safety for children is genuinely different now than it was two years ago and shows like this contribute to that shift.

  58Reply
• T

  Taylor3d ago

  it made me want to delete every device in my house and move somewhere with no wifi. i know that's irrational but the feeling was real and i think that feeling is data

  57Reply
• DS

  Drew S.5d ago

  every generation has a 'what is happening to our children' moment. video games, heavy metal, tv, now the internet. most kids turn out fine. this show is beautifully made hysteria

  54Reply
• J

  Jamie3d ago

  hot take: the father's performance is actually better than the kid's. Owen's helplessness and love existing simultaneously is more complex than pure explosive performance. unpopular opinion i know

  48Reply
• NR

  Nina R.4d ago

  My concern is that the show might actually function as inspiration for troubled boys who identify with Jamie rather than as a warning. Has anyone thought about that? We don't let people watch certain content for exactly this reason.

  44Reply
• H

  Hana5d ago

  genuinely think the single take gimmick is slightly overrated. a few moments felt stagey precisely because they couldn't cut. great show but let's not pretend the format is flawless

  41Reply
• D

  Diego2d ago

  whoa comparing this to metoo is a real stretch and kind of undermines your point honestly

  39Reply

More debates people can't stop arguing about