Adolescence Is Thoughtful Television, Not Thoughtful Policy

By Jacob Anderson, management consultant and freelance writer on public policy, culture and the Church.

“Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled. In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us”.  [Titus 2:6-8]

Though the initial conversation is fading around Adolescence - a Netflix fictional series exploring the theme of overly online young men - comments from politicians and critics about how it might inform national policy are still very present. Comparable to the media storm after Mr Bates v The Post Office, an ITV show exposing a miscarriage of justice in the 2000s, many people expect Adolescence to mark a watershed moment in the national conversation around extremism and online culture. Sir Keir Starmer, after watching the show, declared Adolescence had “lit a touch paper” around the issues it explores, while creators Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham called for “radical actions” from banning smartphones for under-16s, to creating a new digital age of consent.  

However, one all-important difference is that Mr Bates v The Post Office described true events while Adolescence is both fictional and quietly implausible It puts the spotlight on a worrying and misunderstood issue, but calls for immediate, sweeping policy changes are unhelpful. Instead, Adolescence creates an opportunity for the Church to step up and offer clear, distinctive answers.  

As a story it is relentlessly compelling. The show details the radicalisation of a 13-year-old boy, Jamie, who goes on to murder a girl in his school. Framed as a ‘whydunnit’ rather than a ‘whodunnit’, since it becomes obvious after the first episode that he is the culprit, it explores how Jamie, an ordinary 13-year-old from a happy family, is warped by forces beyond his control into a violent killer.  

More than compelling, it is tragic and terrifying. Co-creator and actor Stephen Graham’s visceral heartbreak as Jamie’s father is haunting. The CCTV footage of a girl repeatedly stabbed is grainy enough to hide details but quite clear enough to make one’s skin crawl with the brutality. And through it all the question of why? constantly demands attention.  

Partial explanations of the motive through a series of police interviews at Jamie’s school feel unsatisfying, which leaves a lingering fear of sinister forces beyond our understanding or control. Partial explanations of the motive also make Adolescence a poor basis for policy. In a Guardian interview, co-creator Jack Thorne explicitly said that the plot of Adolescence came first and the motive was retroactively bolted on. He writes that “we couldn’t figure out a motive. Then someone I work with said: ‘I think you should look into ‘incel’ culture.’” After researching incel culture, Thorne knew he had found a fitting villain. The artistic license taken in Adolescence is fine, provided it is not considered a typical pattern of male radicalisation.  

There is no strong evidence linking the amorphous villain of the manosphere to a rise in male-on-female violence or violence more generally. Knife crime is going up, as some outlets report, but this is not driven by Jamie-type boys angry at women and the world. Several terror incidents have been linked to incel culture and the online right, but it is disingenuous to conflate the manosphere with the UK’s knife crime problem, or to imply that young men taken in by the online right are driving a surge in violent crime. Incel culture’s influence is more subtle.  

Due to its subtlety incel culture is never defined neatly, which serves an important didactic purpose but reveals the genuine lack of understanding both creators and the wider public have around it. In one scene, the police detective is educated by his teenage son on the hidden meanings of emojis. His son explains that the 💯(100) emoji refers to a dark truth of sexual dynamics frequently circulated in incel forums, that 80% of women are attracted to 20% of men, which breeds frustration and resentment for those 80% of men who are largely undesired (hence the phrase ‘incel’ to mean ‘involuntary celibate’).  

This was picked up in multiple articles to demonstrate the coded, pictorial language Gen-Z use compared to previous generations, but it is also an entirely fictional translation of the emoji. Whether or not the show’s creators knew this, it demonstrates the ambiguity and ironies which suffuse Gen Z online culture.  

Gen Z have their own vocabulary, accelerated by shared online communities, but less understood is their distinctive ironic, edgy humour that defines both their generation and the new right-wing internet, which thrives off controversy and layered meanings. Andrew Tate uses this provocative, edgy style to elicit reactions from different audiences: teens gleefully quote him while older generations recoil at his shocking language. And throughout it all, the mask of irony obscures both creator and consumer from the full meaning’. 

Ultimately, while highlighting a very real issue, policies based on fictional dramas to solve a set of poorly understood, online ideas are unlikely to succeed. Banning smartphones in schools, raising the digital age of consent from 13 to 16 (preventing under-16s from using social media), and introducing positive male role models to offset the influence of men like Tate all have their place, but Keir Starmer was also correct to highlight that “it's a cultural issue, and therefore we're going to have to look more broadly, work as a society on this, and discuss it”.  

Meanwhile, government-manufactured male role models are a blunt instrument because role models cannot be mass-produced. The edgy, right-wing manosphere characters are a world away from established politics and gain power precisely from their location on the margins. The conversation around Adolescence demonstrates the worrying extent to which we turn to government interventions to solve everything from poverty, to policing, to thorny social issues without any clear cause or solution.  

The value of Adolescence is precisely in its lesson that there is no smoking gun, only the powerful undercurrents of anger, sexual frustration, jealousy, loneliness and misogyny coalescing in the moral (de-)formation of Jamie. No forum, person or website can be singularly blamed for Jamie’s descent, which serves as a warning to anyone looking for easy solutions. As Starmer concluded, “there isn’t an obvious policy response”.  

Into this area the Church can speak with unrivalled authority and insight. Without an appropriate idea of personhood and moral formation, we will always reach for solutions that give the impression of doing something, without considering their efficacy. When addressing incel culture, without an understanding of male powerlessness and purposelessness in the 21st century, there is no hope of winning the hearts of these teenage boys. They need something far more powerful and counter-cultural.  

In a safe, polite world where the natural risk appetite or aggression of boys has limited outlet, coupled with the sexualisation of children and teenagers through social media (and porn - which the series leaves largely unmentioned), male frustration is pent up without an obvious outlet. Porn, drugs, video games, and other sanitised ‘outlets’ stupefy young men into quiet oblivion.  

Lacking a strong sense of purpose or identity, these boys, teens and young men withdraw to the confines of their room, consuming cynical, radical content while society assumes they are fine. Adolescence’s brilliance is showing how the bedroom is not a sanctuary for children but a warzone, where imagination, desire and emotion are constantly being moulded.  

Manosphere influencers promise a path out of mundanity, encouraging resistance to a boring, safe life through action. For boys primed on a diet of hopelessness, finding an avenue for their frustration and a role model affirming that frustration is a breath of fresh air. In Jamie’s scenario, he acts out in extraordinary violence after years of utter passivity. This is his mechanism for regaining agency and proving he has a will; he is a person who can shape the world in his image, no matter how horrific that image is.  

Therefore, whatever comes after Adolescence must fight the war on the terrain of desire and emotion. It is not enough to ban smartphones, raise the digital age of consent, or manufacture male role models. Without a holistic idea of what it means to live a purpose-driven, fruitful life, particularly as a young man, policy solutions will always fall flat.  

The Church is one of few places with a positive vision for masculinity still intact. Scripture affirms the inherent goodness of gender and outlines distinct roles and aspirations for men and women. The Church calls men to discipline their desires, treat women in the Church with all purity and respect, seek to create a godly, ordered family, and cultivate the virtues church leadership demands. It also calls older men to instruct younger men, and younger men to respect older men. At least in the evangelical church, deep, cross-generational relationships are rare, but when done well create a trellis for church-wide flourishing.  

Especially as young men gravitate in record-breaking numbers to the Church, the Church must ask whether it is ready for these young men. Do we crave their energy and adventure? Do we know what godly masculinity looks like, and do we have pathways for men to reach that goal? Just as importantly, do we know how to break those cycles of addiction, cynicism and despair that increasingly define young men? This is not an easy task, but the Church has a responsibility to grapple with these issues because it alone has the depth to understand and overcome them.  

We must not bury or undermine men’s natural instinct for competition, aggression and adventure, else it will resurface in ugly places, or create a generation of lonely, purposeless men who do not give all they can offer to this world. Quelling male appetite through ersatz alternatives like pornography and video games creates hollow shells of men who can be made puppets by stronger wills. Instead, we must affirm the goodness of maleness, encourage deep and lasting relationships in the Church between older and younger men, and channel male energy into the task of building God’s Kingdom on earth.  

Men can do mighty things for the Lord when they are allowed. Adolescence highlights the tragedy of misdirected masculinity; the Church can provide a compelling alternative. 

The views and opinions expressed above are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the Jubilee Centre or its trustees.