In what follows, James Goring and I develop a critical, but affective, reading of the Netflix series ‘Adolescence’. As we discussed in our previous blog, the series has provoked significant commentary, analysis, and arguments.
Our aim here is to consider what it might reveal – literally and allegorically – about the increasingly powerful influence of the ‘enshittification’ of platform economies in shaping young men and women’s engagement with each other, with the other, with education, with the world in all its diversity and difference, opportunities and possibilities, inequalities and inequities.
Two key concepts are important in shaping the readings that we present below.
Reflexivity
https://www.quirkos.com/blog/post/reflexivity-positionality-science-qualitative-research/
John Law is an influential English sociologist who has written extensively about how we produce knowledge – in general, but more particularly in the social sciences. He has written about such things as: if the world is complex (it is!), then we need to complexify, not simplify the knowledge we produce about the world; and the methods we use to produce knowledge always include some things, explicitly exclude other things, and leave out other things because we never even thought of them.
Importantly, for our purposes here, he has written about the problems of objectivity, subjectivity, and the positions from which we produce knowledge. In a paper – On the Subject of the Object – from 2000 he observes that:
I have been puzzling for some time about the problem of the public and the private, and the role of the personal in ethnography or history. Let’s put “the personal” into quotes: I have been puzzling for some time about the problem of “the personal” in social science writing: how it works; what it does. My puzzle presents itself in my own writing. The question is whether I should rigorously try to keep the “personal” out. This would be the most common response. But supposing it were let in, then there are other questions: how should it be done? how might it be handled? and what kind of job should it be doing there anyway? (Law 2000, p.1)
This problem of the personal is, in this sense, a problem of and for ‘reflexivity’:
1.“(Word or form) implying subject’s action on himself or itself” (Concise Oxford Dictionary).
2.“(Verb) indicating that subject is same as object” (ibid.).
3.The idea that one is part of what one studies.
4.The rigorous and consistent application of the spirit and methods of critical inquiry to themselves and their own grounds…
5.The self-monitoring and self-accountability associated with the idea that persons and organizations both need to and should monitor their lives and their projects; associated with 4, above…
6.The analysis of the generation of subject and object positions, and in particular the suggestion that they are mutually constituted. This is associated with 4 above…(Law 2000, p.7)
So, in the reading that follows, we will grapple with the sense that can be made of Adolescence. A grappling that will also try to make sense of how we are affected, in an embodied and emotional sense, at the same time as we read the series from where we do critical sociologies of young people and the biocultural habits which shape their lives and experiences.
Allegory
Reminder 1912, Hans Thoma
Allegory…“a symbolic fictional narrative that conveys a meaning not explicitly set forth in the narrative.” In the visual arts, allegory can be used to add additional layers of meaning to the existing depiction. Saraphina Masters, January 7, 2015, Allegory
In the first of our blogs about ‘Adolescence’ we suggested – drawing on my 2011 paper ‘Breath’ and the truths of youth at-risk: allegory and the social scientific imagination – that Tim Winton’s 2008 novel Breath could be read as an allegorical tale about the terror of being ordinary. And of the teenage years as being a time in a life in which the fear of being ordinary compels Winton’s key characters – Pikelet and his mate Loonie – to seek out, sometimes stumble upon, that which promises to make theirs a life less ordinary.
Again, in making that claim we found John Law’s (2004) work in After Method: Mess in Social Science Research, to be helpful.
Allegory, suggests Law (2004, pp. 88-89), is the ‘art of meaning something other and more than what is being said’. Meaning something more requires that allegory also invokes the ‘art of decoding that meaning, reading between the literal lines to understand what is actually being said’.
Allegory, in part because of its often close affinity with metaphor and irony, can be powerful in gesturing towards what might not be apparent at first glance. What is not, at first glance, apparent can strike us as profoundly truthful as its possible meanings emerge or materialise under a particular reading.
Allegory ‘uses what is present as a resource to mess about with absence. It makes manifest what is otherwise invisible. It extends the fields of visibility, and crafts new realities out-there’. Often, also, it has the capacity to do ‘something that is even more artful. This is because it makes space for ambivalence and ambiguity. In allegory, the realities made manifest do not necessarily have to fit together’ (Law 2004, p. 90).
This idea that Adolescence can be read as allegory means that we don’t have to hold it to account for whether it is real or not – because it isn’t! But, there can be some powerful ‘truths’ revealed if it is read in particular ways.
To begin this reading, this YouTube commentary on the Top 10 Intense Moments from Adolescence provides a productive background to a number of the responses we develop below – though the choices and commentary are not necessarily things that we completely agree with, and should be read – as a resource – alongside and with the various other resources and links in previous blogs.
Episode 1: The Arrest
The series opens with a dramatic police raid at the Miller family home, where 13-year-old Jamie Miller is arrested for the murder of his classmate, Katie Leonard. The episode delves into the immediate aftermath of the arrest, highlighting the shock and disbelief of Jamie’s family. Eddie, Jamie’s father, expresses his regret and guilt, saying:
“I’m sorry, son. I should have done better.”
The role of Eddie, Jamie’s father, is crucial in this episode. He is portrayed as a protective figure, struggling to come to terms with the reality of his son’s situation. His attempts to shield Jamie from the harshness of the legal process highlight the emotional toll on families involved in such cases. Eddie’s observation underscores his feelings of failure and helplessness.
The episode explores the initial stages of the investigation, presenting evidence such as CCTV footage and social media interactions that paint a damning picture of Jamie’s involvement. The portrayal of Jamie’s online interactions emphasises the role of digital platforms in shaping identities and social dynamics, and by the end of the first episode we understand that this series is about gender based violence, youth identities, toxic masculinity and social alienation.
The Miller family home, particularly Jamie’s bedroom, is depicted as a typical teenager’s space, filled with personal items that hint at his inner world – where a young person feels safe, and known to their parents – a desktop computer, bed, posters, Jamie’s stuff. This is an important space that is visited in the final scene of the final episode by Jamie’s parents, and by the police as he is arrested in this first episode.
The police administration process is depicted in a detailed and procedural manner, showcasing the methodical nature of the investigation. The episode reveals how the parents, and by extension the viewers, are unaware of the specifics of the crime until much later.
The episode sets the stage for a critical examination of how platform economies, through social media, can amplify toxic behaviors and influence young people. However, it also delves deeply into themes of violence, youth, and the impact of social media on identity, truth and behaviour.
Episode 2: The School
In the second episode, the focus shifts to Jamie’s interrogation, school, wider community, and the mounting psychological pressures he faces. It provides a deeper look into Jamie’s psyche, social circles, exploring how his engagement with some of the key tropes of the ‘manosphere’ contributes to his mental state, and how the murder has caused shock and distress for Katie’s best friend.
In a powerful scene Adam, a student and the son of Detective Inspector Luke Bascombe, explains some critical misunderstandings that he has about the case. Adam pulls his father aside:
“It’s not going well because you’re not getting it. You’re not reading what they’re doing, what’s happening.
Insta. You’ve been looking at Insta, right?
So you’ve seen what she wrote? Looks like she’s being nice, right?”
Adam describes the use of emoji language – often misunderstood by adults and adult institutions – where seemingly benign interactions can mask deeper, more harmful communications such those informed by Incel online subculture.
This episode raises questions about how social media platforms, initially designed to connect and engage, can become tools of harassment and alienation, through the enshittification of platforms like Instagram. During the episode our ability to grasp the site of responsibility for these events becomes muddled. At some level we begin to feel empathy for Jamie, and consider how he, Katie, and their classmates are each subjects of a pervasive online Incel language and discourse, albeit at different distances, and in different ways.
The story arc here provokes viewers to consider the broader implications of platform economies on young people’s behaviour and mental health.
The episode closes with a children’s choir singing a haunting a capella version of Sting’s ‘Fragile’
Episode 3: The Confession
The third episode centers on Jamie’s eventual confession and the revelations about his motivations. Through flashbacks and detailed recounting, it tracks the events leading up to the crime.
One of the most emotionally intense scenes takes place in a room at the Standing Secure Training Centre, where Jamie is being detained. The episode details a session between Jamie and Briony Ariston, a clinical psychologist sent to write a report on the accused murderer. This session is crucial as it attempts to delve into Jamie’s psyche and understand his motivations.
Briony sits across from Jamie, who is visibly tense and guarded as she tries to break through Jamie’s defenses through kindness, provocation, and appeal to Jamie’s condescending ‘banter’ or ‘flirting’. Briony begins by asking Jamie about his understanding of the situation, trying to gauge his emotional and psychological state. Jamie, initially resistant, eventually opens up about his entanglement with harmful online communities. He references:
“manosphere stuff..
the ’80-20 thing,’ 80 percent of women are attracted to 20 percent of men.”
He slowly reveals his deep-seated frustrations and feelings of inadequacy, ugliness, low self-worth and anger.
He expresses frustration and anger, responding to questions about his relationship with Katie:
“I should have killed her, but I didn’t. All I did was …
Look at ya. All hopeful like I’m going to say something important.
I just thought that she might be weak…
I thought when she was that weak…
…she might like me.
Jamie’s awareness of the situation makes the scene all the more harrowing, and his chilling admission underscores the destructive potential of unchecked online environments and the toxic discourses that they can propagate.
Briony, maintaining her professional composure, poignantly asks Jamie:
“Do you understand what death is?”
This question is a pivotal moment in the scene, forcing Jamie to confront the reality and finality of his actions.
Episode 4: The Aftermath
The final episode deals with the aftermath of Jamie’s confession and the impact on his family and community. The narrative shifts to the broader social and political implications of the case across the small village community.
Eddie reflects on the situation in conversation with Jamie’s mum Manda:
“Maybe I took my eye off the ball a little bit…
We thought he was safe didn’t we…
What harm can he do in there?
He told me he was doing the right thing”
Manda says:
“I was a good mum
I am a good mum
Your a good dad, a great dad
But we made him”
Eddie:
“He just kept saying it over and over
He just kept saying ‘It wasn’t me’
Dad, It wasn’t me’
And I believed him”
Becoming Somebody in the Enshittified Biocultural Habitats of Schooling
By way of drawing this reading to some sort of close we want to explore one of any number of possible ways of reading Adolescence as allegory.
In this context we want to focus on the enshittifiication of what Samantha Frost calls the ‘biocultural habits’ in which young people ‘become somebody’, and of schooling as one of the most significant and influential biocultural habits in which young people do this work of ‘becoming somebody’.
In his 1992 book Becoming Somebody: Towards a Social Psychology of School, Phillip Wexler identifies schools as’ intense interactional economies’ in which young people, in a whole variety of ways, and drawing on different sorts of resources, are engaged in the ongoing process of ‘becoming somebody’. Are engaged in the ongoing process of developing, trying out and negotiating forms of identity and belonging in processes and structures that often elude any capacity that they might have to meaningfully shape them.
These are intra- and inter-generational economies that are produced and reproduced through such things as:
- shifting relations of power, forms of discipline, demands for compliance;
- embodied gender and sexual relations and practices and forms of masculinity and femininity;
- intense friendships, forms of bullying and ostracism;
- patterns of consequences of sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and racism;
- judgements made and passed on intellectual, emotional, physical, sporting and other forms of capability;
- and always restricted, but powerful understandings of class, ethnic and racial backgrounds and characteristics.
The depictions of these economies in episode 2 of Adolescence, and in the storylines revealing the echoes of these economies in Jamie’s murder of Katie, the sorts of explanations offered by various characters for why Jamie did what he did, and the reverberations of his actions and their consequences among his peers, and his family, are powerfully allegorical.
In this sense the series – its script, its characterisations, its film-making techniques – ‘uses what is present as a resource to mess about with absence. It makes manifest what is otherwise invisible. It extends the fields of visibility, and crafts new realities out-there’. As allegory Adolescence has the capacity to do ‘something that is even more artful. This is because it makes space for ambivalence and ambiguity. In allegory, the realities made manifest do not necessarily have to fit together’ (Law 2004, p. 90).
So, the interactional economies of this school should NOT be read literally, as some sort of factual docu-drama of any particular school, of ALL schools.
Some schools look and feel like this state, ‘comprehensive’ school. Others don’t. They can be made to look and feel like the multitude of schools, of teachers, of students that have ever been represented in film, in novels, in TV/streaming series – whether as comedy, as drama, as tragedy.
This school, these teachers, these young people, are caught up on a daily basis not only in the production and transmission of officially sanctioned knowledge, but also the joys, the hurt, the pain, the sorrow, the ambiguities and ambivalences of intense human interactions.
Episode 2 depicts the edge of chaos at which many schools – and the relationships that make them and are made in them – teeter on a continual basis. An edge of chaos in which a multitude of things seem possible, or impossible, and which creates intense demands for school leaders, teachers and students to navigate these ambiguities, uncertainties, (im)possibilities and chaos.
Complexity theories talk about thresholds where uncertainty is the result of complexity. At this edge of chaos change can go in a number of directions with any number of consequences.
This edge of chaos provides no guarantees about who will thrive, who will be damaged, in these interactional economies, and what will be the consequences of these ongoing struggles, challenges and opportunities.
In Adolescence the consequences of key relationships and interactions in this particular economy are tragic for all who become entangled in the webs that lead to Katie’s murder, and the consequences that emerge from that horrendous attack.
And of course these webs, these interactional economies, are not closed systems. They are entangled with, emerge from, and are shaped by a range of influences, structures, institutions and relationships. Governments, businesses, communities, and families have, or want to have, some say in what schools do and why and how they do it – especially when something goes wrong, horribly wrong.
Schools, and the relationships and forms of identity and belonging that they promise – and often don’t deliver on – send their successes and failures, these forms of identity and belonging, out into the world on a continual basis. Whether that is into families, or onto TikTok, and Insta, and X, and Discord, or to shopping centres, or to sports grounds, or to carparks late at night.
This traffic, these flows of identity and belonging and becoming are not one way. They also flow back into schools, into classrooms, into playgrounds..
In a blog we wrote a couple of years ago we introduced Samantha Frost’s concept of humans as ‘biocultural creatures’ who live and thrive, or not, in the ‘biocultural habits’ that support this thriving. Or don’t. As Frost (2016, p.4) observes, all creatures are ‘biocultural in the sense that they develop, grow, persist, and die in an environment or habitat that is the condition for their development, growth, persistence, and death’. She (2016, p.152) suggests that:
If we lean on the idea that “culture” is the conditions, practices, and processes of culturing, then to work with the notion that humans are biocultural creatures is to bring within the ambit of “culture” all the chemical, spatial, thermal, viral, bacteriological, and nutritive factors, as well as all the social, political, aesthetic, and economic practices that in combination, and sometimes at cross-purposes, provide the conditions through which biocultural humans grow into subjects.
The intense interactional economies of schooling, the biocultural habitats of schooling and families, have become enshittified via the processes identified by Doctorow and others and which we wrote about in earlier blogs in this series.
Platform economies are doing many things. And there will continue to be much debate about their benefits, their costs, the harms they might do, the damage that they may cause.
In this context many will impose a standard of factuality on Adolescence, will look for data to explain cause and effects. Why, exactly, did Jamie kill Katie?
Others, such as the conservative English newspaper The Spectator, and its review of the series – ‘I’m bored of toxic masculinity’ – will attempt to hold the allegorical story told here to account in terms of what The Spectator calls ‘reality’, or dismiss it because it apparently serves the nebulous interests of a ‘liberal metropolitan elite’:
Some of the themes touched on in this four-part series are the ‘manosphere’, incels, the things young children are getting up to on social media and online bullying. But are there some parts of the story line that play into the liberal elite narrative? And should MPs really be calling for this fictional plot to be played in schools as an example to kids?
Others, such as Lucy Mangan in her review in The Guardian – Adolescence review – the closest thing to TV perfection in decades – will praise the series because:
Its refusal to offer easy get‑outs (no abusive parents, no dark family secrets), no clear explanation as to what leads one boy to murder and others not, feels brave and real.
The power of Adolescence, as measured to some degree by its commercial success, but also by the debates and discussions and arguments that it provoked, can be put down to many things, some of which Mangan touches on in referencing the ambiguities and ambivalences – about platform economies, about schools, about families, about intense interactional economies – that make the series such compelling drama.
To finish then, we can suggest that when we stumble upon what the English critic James Wood (2008, p.184) calls the ‘blue river of truth’ to be found in texts such as Adolescence, we can enter a space in which we might engage
‘scenes and moments and perfectly placed words in fiction and poetry, in film and drama, which strike us with their truth, which move and sustain us, which shake habits’ house to its foundations’.