Adolescence

I found this miniseries completely on accident after coming home from work one night, and I am so glad I did. I've been properly kept-up with the rise of the ideological culture war of manosphere content since before the rise of the Tate Brothers. Seeing incidents stemming from online harassment campaigns such as GamerGate, the shooting perpetrated by self-proclaimed incel Elliot Rodger, and the rise (and then death) of early manosphere influencer Kevin Samuels only pointed to a single outcome for the future: Things are only going to get worse. Adolescence paints a very nasty picture of how the next generation of young boys are going to grow up without proper role models. Someone who sets the right example of how to treat women, how to treat people different from themselves, and how to treat our shared space. These young boys are going to mature with crooked views on women, people of color, and people in authority. With the rise of right-wing patriarchal political pundits and grifters being the main source of information of the outside world of some of these kids, we are going to lose an entire generation of upstanding and respectful men to the disease of anti-feminist rhetoric. Jamie is one of these boys. His upbringing at home, although unaware of his detrimental view of women in his life, was pretty much normal. For the first time these thought patterns stemmed from outside of the household. Jamie's parents, Eddie and Manda, are unaware of how impressionable a teenager is to a balding man in his forties with no wife, no kids and subpar debate skills telling them that independent women are the reason you can't look up girl's skirts anymore, and illegal immigrants and progressive policies are the reason you can't find a job. Impressionable teens will listen to a podcast like #whatever, where men like Andrew Wilson debate OnlyFans models with little to no debate skills on women's rights, and act as if his point is more worthwhile because he controls the medium of discussion. In episode 2, Luke has to be explained who Andrew Tate is and what the 80/20 rule is by his son, and immediately passes it off as complete nonsense, not understanding the sway it has on the terminally online population of adolescent boys. There is a technological and cultural disconnect between these parents and their children, and for the first time, it doesn't start at the house, but on the internet. The call of action in Adolescence is one that I think will permeate through worldwide culture for decades to come. To some kids, the damage has already been done. What needs to come next is a cultural reset to which content should be accessible to impressionable children, and a global conversation to how parents monitor and discuss these cultural topics. Influencers such as the Tate Brothers, Myron Gaines, Clavicular, Tim Pool, Sneako, Hamza Ahmed, Theo Von, Tommy Robinson, Adin Ross, Andrew Schulz, The NELK Boys, Joe Rogan, The entire Daily Wire crew of ultra-nationalist political pundits, and the late (and not-so great) Charlie Kirk are worth fucking dirt and should be avoided at all costs. The camel's back has already been broken, and it's time to have that conversation. To borrow a quote from George Carlin speaking on Andrew Dice Clay's standup from 1990, in which he punched down in his routines: "I think his core audience are young, white males who are threatened by these groups. I think a lot of these guys aren’t sure of their manhood, because that’s a problem when you’re going through adolescence. You know, ‘Am I really, could I be, I hope I’m not one of them.’ And the women who assert themselves and are competent are a threat to these men, and so are immigrants in terms of jobs."