If you haven’t yet seen Adolescence from Netflix – the drama about the boy, Jamie Miller, radicalised by the misogynistic content in the manosphere who is arrested for the murder of a female peer – I recommend you watch it immediately.
The four-part dramas series centres around Jamie, 13, being arrested at the outset and us gradually getting to see what led him to commit the crime he’s seen to have perpetrated.
“He’s 13…” is one of the first things we hear his dad, played in an award-worthy performance by Steven Graham, say as the officers and detectives swarm his house at six a.m. on an ordinary day that turns out to be anything but ordinary.
The incredible story which unfolds over the four one-take episodes unveils Jamie’s secret life, the harmful ‘red-pill’ / manosphere / ‘incel’ content he’s been consuming, the way he and his friends use Instagram and emojis are used to humiliate and bully one another, the brutality of teenage relationships – online and in person – and how Jamie (and all teens using social media to some extent) are groomed to start to feel inadequate, ugly and worthless. It is this worthlessness and poor self-image that leads so many young people to turn to the suggestions they find online and amplify amongst their friends – body sculpting, diets, make-up, sexting and in the case of many boys and young men, hyper-masculinity and the idea that to avoid becoming ‘involuntarily celibate’ they need to become ‘more of a man’ because of spurious ideas such as the 80:20 rule, that 80% of women and girls would ONLY date or fancy 20% of men and boys. The idea that both men and boys are under pressure to become ‘superior or High Value’ men and that women are ‘too choosy’ or have ‘unrealistically high’ standards…both of which aren’t necessarily true but if it helps men with microphones increase their audience and therefore incomes, they will do what sells…despite the impact it’s having on real men and boys.
The influencer mentioned in the series “f*(<ing Andrew Tate” is, as I’ve said many times, the tip of the misogynistic manosphere iceberg alongside men like Myron from the Fresh n’ Fit podcast and other figures like Joe Rogan, Jordan B Peterson and alleged serial sex-offender Russell Brand – all of whom have capitalised on the income-incentivised social media platforms to make money and influence young men and boys. Their version of traditional / hyper / ‘toxic’ / dominance-based masculinity is built on the suppression of women and girls and pointing the blame at ‘feminism’ and ‘man-hating feminists’ – it’s a classic case of DARVO: Deny Accuse Reverse Victim and Offender which is a very common tactic amongst abusive and controlling people.
What we see in Adolescence is a snapshot of the way these narratives play out in one boy, in one school, in one town and the effect it has on everyone around him. Jamie is not painted as the victim at the exclusion of the girl he killed, Katie Leonard, neither is he excluded from blame, but it is revealed that gradually he became drawn into malign influences he found online which were suggesting that unless he took action, the humiliation he felt would get worst. That ‘real men’ don’t get shamed online and that he wouldn’t get what he was entitled to unless he took some action.
The reason he took the action he did isn’t fully explained but the confusion he feels from the competing forces of his own emotions, the narratives of the content he was consuming, the bullying he felt from boys and girls around him, the social pressure he felt to avoid humiliation – which Andrew Hampton in Working With Boys says is what boys would do *anything* to avoid – and enact come form of revenge is palpable. Episode three is a dense, challenging and raw scene which takes place almost entirely in one room between Jamie and a psychologist played by Erin Doherty which slowly unpicks his views and attitudes, his confusion and ultimately the misogyny and attitudes he has learned. What we see is how difficult it is to open up discussions around ‘masculinities’ with young men and boys and how there is a certain narrative around other people wanting to call all masculinity ‘toxic’ or open debate around it. This is part of the process of indoctrination and the propaganda techniques used by influencers to confuse young men and to suggest any debates are a form of criticism, something I’ve seen time and time again and regularly refer to as manufactured male victimhood and which therefore means opening debates around the topic is difficult and fraught with pitfalls.
The final episode focuses on the family as Jamie moves towards trial over a year later…we see his challenged parents and his sister Lisa trying to cope with rumours and vandalism and that feeling of blame and wonder if their actions had impacted on Jamie and his behaviour.
We see Mum and Dad, Eddie and Manda Miller, emotionally unpicking where they are and whether they could have foreseen or prevented Jamie’s actions ask a number of questions:
“He was just in his room wasn’t he?
We thought he was safe didn’t we?
What harm can he do in there?
We thought we were doing the right thing.
We didn’t know what he was going to do.
Shouldn’t we have done more though?”
“How did we make her (Lisa)?
The same way we made him…”
What we are left with is a sense that Jamie’s parents (like so many I would argue) have no real idea what the influences are on young people. That they are blaming themselves for the ways technology has enabled – and in some ways – democratised bullying and abuse.
The final acknowledgement has to be that peers continue to be the most powerful influence on young people and that increasingly adulthood and adult themes are slipping into childhood with damaging consequences. At the risk of sounding like a 90s-era conservative politician, we need more parents to step into their role and understand the influences on their children – however difficult and unsavoury it might seem. A number of reviews have reflected on the fact that the boys in Adolescence don’t show much empathy – something I’m very keen on exploring in workshops and something that parents can actively work to develop I both boys and girls. Without much empathy, judgement and other unsavoury reactions become easier.
Teachers – like parents – are over-stretched and often over-worked and work in environments that are complicated, fast moving and frequently confrontational so cannot be expected to solve all the issues that they’re presented with…however being as the workforce is 75% female and it’s estimated that 80% of PSHE / RSE teachers are also female (the vast majority of all attendees of teacher CPD conferences where I’ve delivered content about sexism and misogyny have been women) I think it’s really important that we start to move towards PSHE and RSE being delivered by 50:50 male / female staff so we can see men leading on or at least involved with the emotional and personal development of boys.
Adolescence has not uncovered much that teachers and those of us working in the positive relationships space, but I for one hope that it has opened the eyes of parents and guardians to the ways that technology and influencers are impacting on the development of their young people and also highlighted how difficult it can be to talk about these issues with already volatile and confused young people.
Without wanting to sound like a hippie throwback, the important things to cohesive relationships haven’t changed but may have become a bit lost in recent years:
Empathy, guidance, kindness, love, support and interest cannot be replaced but can be forgotten or lost.
It’s up to us as parents, adults, guardians and role-models to make sure they are brought back to counteract the divisive nature of social media and to help ground our young people with their own powerful self-managed compass.
Bernie.
What Makes A Man: Masculinity workshops.
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For more of my blogs about some of the issues raised here, please see the following:
How Influencers impact on young peoples’ attitudes and behaviours.
How young people are experiencing and perpetrating violence.
How social media algorithms target young men and boy with misogynistic and violent content.
Why empathy and kindness are vital in men and boys.
How consent is being confused by social media narratives.