Adolescence is the latest show that is on people’s minds and lips. For those of you who've been living under a rock, this show, which is streaming on Netflix, follows a 13-year-old boy (Owen Cooper) who's accused of murdering his schoolmate Katie.
Noted for its use of continuous filming across four episodes, the show has also gained traction for starting conversations around children's Internet/social media usage, their being drawn into incel culture and if parents really know what their children are consuming. It's even taught people about what some otherwise innocent emoji really mean.
So how are these issues starting conversations, and could it bring about changes to schools and the law? Let's find out.
What is incel culture?
The story of the term incel is fascinating to read about, and it wasn’t always about single men who blame women for their single, non-dating status. Short for “involuntary celibate” – and initially shortened to “invcel” and then “incel” – the movement was the brainchild of a Canadian, Alana. She created a website called Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project in 1997 after struggling in her dating life and wanting to seek others like her. The site acted as an innocent, safe space for those who had been unlucky in dating and love, and it gained popularity.
Unfortunately, like the term “woke”, the word incel ended up taking another meaning besides its original one. In the case of “incel”, it changed from referring to single people of any gender, to single men who couldn’t find female romantic partners. Alana told BBC News how, years after starting her website, she came across the story of Elliott Rodger, who created and distributed a document about his hate of women and how frustrated he was about being a virgin. He went on a shooting and stabbing spree in Isla Vista, California in 2014, and shockingly, some members of the incel community saw the 22-year-old as a hero.
One of them, Alek Minassian, called him a “supreme gentleman”. In 2018, Minassian would go on to drive a van into a group of pedestrians in Toronto, Ontario, killing 11 people and injuring 15 others. This is just one example of “incels” as modern people know them – men who blame women for their lack of relationship activity and take out their anger on them.
Adolescence and its portrayal of incels
In Adolescence, characters reference incel culture in relation to Katie’s murder and Jamie’s activities on social media, as well as his views on women and girls. In the third episode, a psychiatrist asks Jamie about this, and his feelings about himself, trying to understand why he lacks female friends, despite being attracted to girls and engaging in sexual activity with them.
His revelation that he and two boys were targets for bullying, combined with him asking the psychiatrist if he likes him as a person and Katie’s use of the exploding red pill emoji and allusion to the 80/20 rule in the Instagram comments, give an insight into Jamie’s state of mind and beliefs about himself and what Katie thought of him. This is made even clearer when Jamie mentions a time where no one in school liked Katie, and he thought she would find him attractive. However, while he was drawn to the online incel culture, he said he didn’t believe in their movement and just wanted to investigate it out of curiosity.
Adolescence and the secret language of social media
Social media has come under scrutiny recently from parents, teachers, and specialists due to its impact on children’s mental health. Studies and news reports show that children and young people sometimes experience anxiety and depression due to comparisons between themselves and their peers, insecurity, bullying and potential exposure to harmful content. Adolescence shows that there’s a whole other world with its own language, as demonstrated when DI Bascombe’s son Adam tells him what certain emojis mean.
For instance, Adam points out that the seemingly innocent hearts have different colours for different meanings – purple for lust, red for love, yellow for interest, pink showing interest, but not in sex – and references the red and blue pills representing a call to action and seeing the world as it wants to be seen, respectively. The fact Bascombe says that he didn’t know about the hidden meanings and their affiliation with the culture of incels just shows that parents have a lot to learn about how young people communicate on the internet and their views on women, men and relationships.
Andrew Tate, known for promoting misogynistic views on social media platforms, also gets name-checked by DS Frank and headteacher Mrs Fenumore. The latter mentions that she has heard some of the male students talking about him, which brings to mind real-life news stories about how boys are engaging with Tate and sharing his harmful philosophies. Parents, carers and educators have expressed concern about his influence on young people, particularly boys. Netflix has now made the series available for schools to stream for free, showing the importance of its message.
Bringing our fears to life
All in all, Adolescence serves as a cautionary tale as to what children are capable of coming across and communicating on the internet, and the possibility of a child being arrested on suspicion of murder. The idea of a child getting taken from their family and put in custody is something no one wants to experience, or even think about, yet the show puts us through that in the first episode, focusing not just on Jamie, but his dad, the detectives, his psychiatrist and the solicitor too.
Adolescence is streaming on Netflix now. Read our Adolescence review here for more info.
0 Comments