A few days ago, I watched Netflix’s “Adolescence”–and it was deeply unsettling. The four single-shot episodes of this British drama follow Jamie Miller, a baby-faced 13-year-old boy who is accused of brutally murdering his classmate, Katie. But the show wastes no time revealing that Jamie is, in fact, guilty, showing CCTV footage of him stabbing Katie seven times in a parking lot. Instead, it asks a far more urgent question: Why did Jamie murder Katie?
“Adolescence” is a fictional story, but the creators of the show, Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, were inspired by real-life stories of misogynistic young men who used violence against women.
“What’s happening in society where a boy stabs a girl to death? What’s inciting the incident here?” Graham asked in a Netflix interview. “And then it happened again, and it happened again, and it happened again.”
While the show only briefly mentions the “manosphere” –a term used to describe an online ecosystem of communities promoting radical misogyny, male supremacy, and toxic masculinity–its influence on Jamie is painfully clear. It seeps into how Jamie talks and acts, causing him to lash out at women while always respecting men.
Within the manosphere’s online forums, women are ruthlessly objectified and degraded, referred to as ‘holes,’ ‘foids,’ and ‘femoids.’ Feelings of entitlement, particularly sexual entitlement run deep. Incel (involuntary celibate) culture is also a major part of this community, consisting of straight men who blame women for their lack of success in finding relationships with women. Connecting these dangerous ideologies to real-world violence, “Adolescence” shows feelings of insecurity and entitlement that led Jamie to the manosphere.
In the third episode, a psychologist, Briony, draws out the incident that incited the murder. After Katie sent a topless photo of herself to a classmate, the picture circulated around the school without her consent. Taking advantage of her vulnerability, he asks her out thinking she would agree because “she might be weak” since “everyone was calling her a slag, you know, or flat or whatever.” When Katie rejects him by saying she’s not that desperate and mocks him by calling him an ‘incel’ on Instagram, Jamie’s shame calcifies into entitlement and rage. He kills her.
During this episode, Jamie’s misogyny is apparent. He continuously mocks and attempts to assert dominance over Briony, standing over her, yelling in her face, and angrily throwing things when he gets angry.
“Adolescence” refuses to sensationalize the violence, and there are no dramatic shots of the murder. The use of single-shot scenes traps the viewer in the tension, forcing us to sit and witness the discomfort and ugliness of it all. It simply depicts the result of a harmful culture on young boys.
What makes “Adolescence” feel so urgent is how young Jamie is. The manosphere doesn’t just radicalize grown men–it shapes the minds of young boys, reaching them through social media. Misogynistic influencers like Andrew Tate preach about hating and controlling women to their millions of followers, convincing them that women owe men something.
By the final episode, Jamie’s actions aren’t justified or redeemed. There is only grief, confusion, and a broken family asking themselves how it ever got this far. “Adolescence” doesn’t reassure us, it warns us.
As the manosphere continues to grow and reach boys through social media, shows like “Adolescence” are more important now than ever. They not only show us what is happening but force us to ask ourselves why and what we’re going to do about it.