‘Adolescence’ Is A Must-Watch For Parents Of Young Boys. But Here’s What It Gets Wrong About Incel Culture.

Note: This article contains spoilers about the show “Adolescence.”

In just three weeks, the British crime drama “Adolescence” became the ninth most-watched Netflix series of all time. It’s not hard to see why: The show is compelling stuff, following a working-class family after they learn their 13-year-old son, Jamie, has been accused of stabbing a female classmate to death.

Along the way, we ― along with Jamie’s parents ― learn that the boy had been bullied by his peers and fallen into the “manosphere” online ― a dark rabbit hole where YouTubers and bro podcasters mask their misogyny in self-help and “pickup artist”-style dating advice.

For parents ― especially for those raising young boys ― it’s a terrifying, almost horror movie-level depiction of how incel culture, bullying and nascent misogyny can coalesce and drive an otherwise average teen into stark violence. (In Jamie’s case, he’s got intergenerational anger issues his father passed onto him to contend with, too.)

Kirk Honda, a therapist and host of “Psychology In Seattle,” a YouTube channel that explores psychology topics in pop culture, said he isn’t surprised the show has taken off.

“Every parent I know struggles with the uneasy truth that their child either already has ― or will eventually have ― access to the darkest corners of the internet,” Honda told HuffPost.

Honda found a scene toward the end of the series particularly devastating because of its realism. In the scene, Jamie’s parents sit in anguish on their bed, realizing they thought their son was safe because he was physically home, behind a closed door.

“Parents obsess over safety: They lock their doors, teach their kids to look both ways, vet their friends and set curfews,” he said. “But how do you protect your child from something you can’t see? From algorithms you don’t understand? From ideologies you’ve never even heard of?”

Because it’s so watchable ― it’s only four episodes ― and seemingly so topical, Prime Minister Keir Starmer wants the TV show to be shown in schools in the United Kingdom ― though not everyone thinks that’s a good idea. (More on that later.)

What does the show get right about how young boys slip into incel culture online? What does it get very wrong? We talked to therapists who’ve worked with young men and researchers who study how misogyny operates online to get some answers.

Incels (involuntary celibates) are part of an online subculture of men who build their identity around their perceived inability to find women. (For example, Elliot Rodger, a 22-year-old who killed six people and took his own life in 2014 near the University of California, Santa Barbara, has since become a cult hero for some incels. Before his rampage, Rodger wrote a rambling, 141-page manifesto about his lack of romantic success and his rage toward women.)

The manosphere is a sprawling online network ― made up of podcasts, YouTube channels, TikTok pages and forums ― aimed at those same disgruntled men. Online “manfluencers” tell young men that women are inherently inferior and can easily be exploited and steered into a romantic or sexual relationship. (Andrew Tate, a key figure in the manosphere who gets name-checked in the show, was arrested two years ago for allegedly forming a criminal gang with his brother to exploit and sexually assault women.)

“Adolescence” absolutely nails how easy it can be for young boys to get exploited by such harmful ideologies, said Grace Walker, a marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles. (Grown men can get pulled into it, too; Jamie’s father mentions how a manosphere YouTube video cued up after an exercise video he was watching.)

“Boys like Jamie aren’t born hateful. They’re often disconnected from themselves, raised to suppress vulnerability, idolize stoicism and fear softness,” Walker said.

She knows because she’s spent much of her career working in outpatient and inpatient treatment centers with adolescent boys and young adult men who share similarities to Jamie’s psyche. Figures like Tate offer them a false sense of power and identity, especially when they’re feeling small, rejected and unseen.

“The show helps us to see that this isn’t just about bad influence — it’s about what rushes in to fill the silence when emotional development is neglected,” Walker said.

What’s powerful is that the show doesn’t vilify the parents, Walker said. It shows how easy it is to be lulled into a false sense of security when your child isn’t acting out in obvious ways.

“But the emotional withdrawal, secrecy and online immersion modeled by Jamie are all forms of acting out ― we just haven’t always been taught to see them that way,” she said.

“I think parents are watching this and seeing themselves — not as villains, but as people trying their best in the world where parenting now includes monitoring an invisible world that we didn’t grow up with,” Walker said.

The rejection of real-life hobbies in favor of online worlds is absolutely true to life, said William Costello, a doctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin who has published multiple peer-reviewed articles on the psychology of incels.

That said, kids online or texting aren’t generally dropping “dynamite” emojis to suggest a classmate is an incel or a “kidney bean” emoji to self-identify as one.

“The idea that incels are communicating with a secret world of emojis is frankly absurd,” Costello told HuffPost. “Yes, there is a trolling lexicon of incel lingo that may seem opaque to adults, but I honestly have no idea where the writers of the show got this idea about the emojis from.”

Online bullying plays a role in fueling Jamie’s anger toward Katie, the classmate he ends up murdering. Getting bullied is common among incels, Costello said. One 2022 study found that 91% of incels report experiences of bullying compared to 33% of the general population.

Honda thinks one of the most effective choices the show makes is telling the story from an outsider’s perspective: We never get full access to Jamie’s internal world, and we’re just as shocked as his parents are by his actions.

“Instead of that access, we’re offered brief, unsettling glimpses of his growing rage and radicalization,” Honda said. “The parents have been giving Jamie a longer leash, which is age-appropriate, so they wouldn’t know about his quick descent into the ‘red pill’ universe.”

In his parent’s eyes, Jamie goes from an innocent young boy to murdering a classmate overnight. That’s harrowing stuff in the context of a TV drama, but the focus on Jamie’s ultra-violence ― without much exploration of the mental state that fueled it ― may make it a less effective teaching tool for young kids.

“The reality is that most incels actually aren’t violent,” said Matt Pinkett, an educator of more than a decade in the U.K and author of “Boys Do Cry: Improving Boys’ Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools.” (Pinkett also has spent the past few years traveling around U.K. schools educating students about things like misogyny and positive masculinity.)

“I think if we focus on the incels that are going out and committing acts of violence, it could detract from the wider issue at hand, which is the fact that actually, what a lot of young men and boys who turn to incel culture are feeling is insecurity, rejection, guilt and shame,” Pinkett said.

What’s not addressed in the show is that incels often turn their hatred inward rather than project it outward through violence. One of Costello’s studies looking at U.K. students found that 1 in 5 incels contemplated suicide every day for the past two weeks, with a further 33% reporting they thought about it “more than half the days” or “several days.”

That’s why he and Pinkett aren’t necessarily fans of the show being taught in schools.

“Boys who are at the risk of being radicalized already feel on the periphery of society,” Pinkett said, “So to have a teacher standing at the front of the room going ― ‘Oh, look at this guy on ‘Adolescence.’ Look at how confused and angry he is. He’s a horrible person’ ― that could kind of push them further toward ‘inceldom’ when what they need is mental health support.”

One thing the show does accurately depict is how overstretched schools are and how burned out teachers are, Costello said. It speaks to the need for good male role models in schools, he said, a point often made by Richard Reeves, the author of “Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It.”

Jamie’s working-class parents are just as overworked and emotionally tapped out, which is relatable for many parents, Walker said.

“Late-stage capitalism has created a culture where families are stretched thin,” the therapist said. “Parents are working longer hours, support systems are crumbling, and even basic mental health resources are inaccessible or stigmatized.”

When a child like Jamie starts to withdraw, it’s easy for parents to assume they’re just being a “normal teenager.” It’s easy, too, because confronting what’s happening online or emotionally requires time and bandwidth most parents just don’t have.

“The scene where Jamie’s mom says, ‘We just took our eyes off him for a moment’ really hit me, because that’s the reality for so many parents,” Walker said.

“It’s not that parents don’t care. It’s that the system they’re living in doesn’t give them the time, resources or emotional capacity to stay present and deeply attuned to their kids the way that they want to be,” she said. “That’s a very real problem.”