I Wasn't Going To Write About 'Adolescence' Until I Saw This Substack

now I feel compelled to

Longest stack yet. Cards on the table, I’m advocating for boys. Inspired by talks after talks and after signings and in the street and online and in my head and with people I love. Stimulated by frustration and a need for grounding. Minds are fizzing and all thoughts are welcome. If you feel I’ve missed or tripped on anything, feel free to leave a comment. I only ask that you’re respectful and open. It’s ongoing.

I watched Adolescence. It’s the third time I’ve been moved to tears in a show’s final moments watching Stephen Graham. I almost said ‘reduced’ to tears then. That would have been a fitting hiccup. Why do we even say that? Other memorable sobbing was the end of the ‘This Is England’ series. I watched that alone, on my laptop. On a whatever afternoon. Gut contorted with internal conflict. Tainted with sympathy towards a reformed racist and their impending justice. For those familiar, it was Milky’s pain in that moment too. Fucked me up for real.

Again, without giving too much away, with the final scene in Adolescence I was dealt another emotional knock out. My nose cut wind and my throat closed up. The decision as to whether or not I fought that wave removed from me as the scene progressed. Last line a fallen anchor of remorse. It was overwhelming.

The actors, the directing, the writing. Dream team level collaboration. Ashley Walters too, who I’m honoured to call a friend, I thought was exceptional. Especially in the first episode. The brilliant Faye Marsay, who I acted alongside in my first ever role. A series also written by this show’s writer and co-creator, Jack Thorne. I’ve seen little but ascension from him since. The show is spectacular and necessary and shocking and, yeah, heartbreaking. Very few ‘answers’ or clarity though. Not that it’s particularly needed for a character piece like this. Maybe that was never the goal.

After wiping the tears from my face, gratefully, my mind wandered. What am I being left with? What can I take from this? I texted my friend Ben, from Beyond Equality. Are we meant to be scared of teenage boys now? I said. He helped me realise that even a concern towards the private lives of teenage boys is a positive thing. I really agree with that. He’s right. The ambiguity was enough to inspire conversation. Which is always good. We multiply thoughts by dividing opinions. That’s the mantra. Within reason. Within the hope that people are still able to hold and entertain opinions outside of their own.

Then I began to see the splits occur. People began to zone in on whatever element of the story they found best fit their agenda. Or just whatever they felt best equipped to critique. Agenda feels loaded. But yeah, some people went down the race route. Some people had valid issues with the depiction of certain characters. Some more drawn to certain characters and, yes, slowly the feeling of genuine fear began to emerge. Which lead me to wonder,

Yes, teenage boys are being radicalised on the internet. But aren’t we also?

Again, I held off from commentating. Mainly because, if I’m honest, there were elements of the show that didn’t sit right with me, and whenever I had discussions about it, I could tell that I was triggered and upset. And I promised myself that I would hold off from speaking purely because I was being encouraged to.

Instead, I would continue to watch and listen and take everyone’s view into account and then apply to my own. I was also, as seems to be the way these days, discouraged by the realisation that my view was/is probably unpopular and felt unwilling to shift my energy without good reason.

A friend of mine then sent me a Substack about Adolescence and I had to say something.

You can read the full stack here. But the general point the author is making (I’m assuming everyone’s watched it because the numbers are crazy), is that the element of the story that suggests the boy had been bullied by the victim was unnecessary. Her point is that boys/men don’t need to be bullied into murdering women and girls, they simply need to be rejected. She says that statistics lead us to believe that. She actually goes as far as to say -

But next time, let’s take it another layer deeper. Let’s dare to remember the scariest part of all of this - that a woman just existing is enough to inspire homicidal violence in radicalized men. And that we can’t tell who has been radicalized until it’s too late…

We’re not going to solve this problem if we aren’t brave enough to face how very random the violence is and how deep the hate runs. It’s so much easier to try to package it in seemingly reasonable motives.

That, however, isn’t how the violence inspired by dominance hierarchies works. Whether we’re talking about gender or race or sexuality, it doesn’t matter. It’s all the same. The violence is senseless and arises without provocation.

Jamie was always going to kill Katie, no matter what she did or did not do. So is every young man who is on the road to this same kind of radicalization.

In spite of my complete understanding as to why this conclusion has been made, I feel a lot of this is in bad faith. The conflation between men/young men/boys in this case is unhelpful. Oftentimes in and around societal discussion, statistics or ‘absolutes’ are thrown in the mixer and naturally the shock engages us. It’s addictive.

Which is why it’s important that information is fair and accurate. Not fear mongering for the sake of it. The world feels like it’s burning to the ground constantly right now purely because of how rapidly bad news spreads. How infectious fear is. Of course there is a need for change. There is always a need to reduce needless violence. But I feel the relaying of fear in of itself has become so rewarding, that providing balance or contrary statistics - ones that can even feel hopeful - are now perceived as insulting or in poor taste. I can give an example of this later.

In just a few paragraphs the author has gone from “rejection”, a raw wound that definitely needs dealing with, to a woman or girl just existing.

I may be way off here. But it’s at points like this. And this is as well as various other examinations of “male rage” and damaging behaviour. That I feel inclined to remind people that the boy in the show is 13 years old. He is a child. I’m very much aware that social media has driven a rise in misogynist retort amongst children. But am I out of line by making it abundantly clear how rare it is that a boy would actually stab a girl to death?

Is it wild for me to say that? That in spite of millions of boys and girls going to school every single day - the amount of tragic cases are thankfully in single figures? That’s if we’re talking about girls. The actual statistical elephant in the classroom - is that boys are at least four times more likely to be stabbed. Yes - by other boys. But does that mean that they are any less innocent? Have we internalised the idea that boys may have had more to do with their own death?

Which reminds me of a paragraph that comes slightly earlier in the Substack I’m referencing. The author writes -

Further, male-on-female violence is statistically much more violent than when men kill other men. The latter typically involves firearms, whereas the former is most frequently accomplished by strangulation, vicious beatings, or stabbings. (Although in the past three years in the U.K., most teenage victims of homicide were killed by stabbing, representing a sharp increase in knife homicides among teenagers, regardless of gender.)

This represents the endpoint of a longer pattern of abuse that is almost always present when femicide occurs. Most men who commit femicide have abused women multiple times before they escalate to murder.

It’s these moments of intellectual dishonesty that get me. It’s these moments where I have to immediately consult with my partner or close friends to prevent myself spiralling into a rabbit hole of male injustice. For clarity. I am firmly against ALL needless violence. I am fully aware of how dangerous men can become to those around them when emotionally disregulated. And how can we approach communal issues fairly when male victims won’t even be recognised? I’m guessing because they themselves are male? The BBM (but it’s by men) Paradox.

Focussing on the “type of death” before bizarrely casting aside being shot as if it’s merely a dangerous handshake is wild to me. The author also focusses those initial statistics on US findings, before returning to our own country and claiming that knife crime had risen “regardless of gender”. As of 2024, knife crime incidences only rose for boys. I’m not sure on the figures this year but you will still be undoubtedly more likely to die as a result of being stabbed if you are a boy. And what is it called when a boy stabs a boy? Is it motivated by hatred then? Is it gendered? Or is it part of the plan?

I vividly remember hearing about the murder that inspired the series. The image of a boy carrying a bunch of flowers and machete at the same time was emblazoned in my mind. I wrote it about it immediately. The whole thing was fucking horrific. The very next day, two 13 year old boys were stabbed to death. Two. In January of this year, a 15 year old boy was stabbed to death at a bus stop in Woolwich. Yesterday, two 15 year old boys were stabbed to death in a park.

If I was to hazard a guess, I would say that the upsurge in knife crime seems to have miraculously occurred in complete unison with the worst living standards in recent memory. Yes, social media has a lot to answer for. But what else are kids meant to rely on when all the youth centres have been closed? When all the arts programs have been defunded? I’m a firm believer that it takes a village to raise a child. Kids are growing up with no guidance because they’ve probably got two parents too exhausted to keep track of them.

This was also the aspect of Adolescence that I felt most let down by. Leaving viewers with the idea that a child can have a “happy upbringing” and yet become a murderer because of the internet. Perhaps I’m being naive but - no. I simply do not believe that’s true. Not from all my years of reading and therapy and retreats and life and love and family and discussion and curiosity. That’s not how it works.

One of my best friends has an 18 year old boy. Loving, sweet, maybe a little too innocent. When he speaks, I see my friend. His facial expressions, intonations. In fact, his dad is even apparent in his aspirations. In episode 4 of Adolescence, Stephen Graham’s character makes the point that he was brutally beaten by his dad, so he promised he’d never treat his own boy like that, now his boy is a murderer.

But am I meant to read this as a dad battling with where it went wrong? Or is he wondering if beating his child would have prevented him becoming a murderer? Or have we lost sight of what constitutes being a parent nowadays? Do we look into eyes as much as we do screens?

The mother too makes the point that she feels as though they did their best. I’ve only seen my friend Donna discuss the mother. And even then, I hope she doesn’t mind me saying, she felt she had to pull back a little. Critiquing the dad seems to be free game. Overlooking the mother’s equal responsibility - not so much. This is a 13 year old boy that we’re talking about. Do we really believe that a boy can feel indifferent towards his mother because of the internet?

I feel as though we miss an opportunity to delve deeper into what can contribute to a fractured home life for a young boy. Was his dad working too much? That would make a lot of sense. So, in fact, they could have been more present as parents but were unable to because of financial restraints? Because of the cost of living? That’s immediately more grounded to me. Is the mum as passive as she seems?

I remember watching a documentary called Three Identical Strangers. The whole thing was essentially a social experiment surrounding nature and nurture. Would three identical male twins separated at birth and raised differently meet mutual paths? In short - no. Two of the twins were raised in warm, loving environments with one particular dad supposedly emanating joy and encouragement. They found each other in their teens and intertwined their adopted families. The third was raised in a regimented home with a traumatised ex soldier and ended up killing himself. I’m sorry to be crass. But that is the reality. Children need connection.

Unless the child in the show is legitimately a psychopath - which is a possibility - the ground must have been at least sown at home first. If it’s a ‘We Need To Talk About Kevin’ vibe then, sure. But I don’t feel as though it was framed liked that. Actual psychopath is the only real possibility in the instance of ‘murderer with happy upbringing’. For clarity, this is in the case of murder. I do believe that young minds can be brainwashed. Groomed. Confused and turned upside down. But murderous without adult intervention? Not sure.

I was lucky enough to go to a screening of Adolescence before it came out. During the Q&A, Jack Thorne made the point that during his research for the film, he had to admit that he himself may have been radicalised as a teen if presented with the online content that he found. He let that revelation sit in the theatre. It was probably the most poignant moment in the discussion. He didn’t elaborate further. But I too in my research have seen the tactics used to radicalise boys - and within some of these current societal conversations - I can see why.

The first step to radicalising a boy is convincing them that nobody cares about them. That the only person they can rely on is themselves and they can’t trust a soul. I see it all the time and it’s heartbreaking. Within that framework, all that they need is a handful of confirmations and they look for more advice from the person or network that gave them that outlook. And who else are boys going to listen to when they’re only seen as perpetrators?

Up until the age of 18, boys are majorly at risk of being abused themselves. By adults, mainly. Yes, men and also some women. We’ve gone from fighting violence against women and children to violence against women and girls. Can we not just fight needless violence and abuse? Can we not do what we can to improve parenting and safeguarding?

Right now in the UK, with current legislation, if you are a man being abused in a relationship, which is more common than any statistic will show, you are considered a ‘male victim of violence against women and girls’. Is it a stretch to consider that unhelpful? Men need to be part of shifting attitudes and behaviour and I’m not sure this helps. Especially knowing that most abusers have been abused.

The BBM paradox could do with disappearing because there are millions of innocent boys and men that are completely unified in wanting to eradicate the same behaviours as women and girls do. It’ll be harder to do that if their own hardships are dismissed as ‘simply part of the male experience’. There is so much nuance to being a boy and a man. There are so many factors that connect and divide us. Factors that, in a lot of cases, make for more compelling conversation.

There’s a reason boys learn martial arts. We carry weapons out of fear. We also avoid dark parks at night. If I’m in a neighbourhood I don’t know, I’ll tend to walk where there’s street lights. Two male strangers staring at each other for too long can lead to all types of shit. A single punch in a drunken fight can end a life. Happens too often. This isn’t instead of or more important than the behaviours that women and girls must learn in order to stay safe - it’s as well as. I’ve just picked up a martial art because I know I need to be able to defend myself. Everyone should.

My other friend was speaking about how upset her teenage brother became as a result of that whole man vs bear shit. He was in shock about how readily dismissed an entire gender could become. The obvious answer to that question for me is - what kind of bear? and what kind of man? No?

We are not living in a utopia right now. We have to take things into consideration. And we also must appreciate and love the people we have around us. All this separatist mentality does is play directly into the hands of the scammers. We, as men, carry legacies of distance. We are being asked more of our personal capabilities than ever before and it’s difficult. A lot of men do not know love. It’s torn from us very early. Yes by a system designed and upheld by men. At the cost of the majority of men and women.

The bravest act any human being can partake in is having our hearts broken and then loving again. It’s unfathomable. But so rewarding. Else we become the frost we despise. We become manifesters of our own fears. Zoned into acts of terror like repeated numbers. Ignoring every minute of the day leading up to 11:11.

This is not gender exclusive. You understand men struggle with stillness. Calm. Like they should do. We are made to vibrate and keep love at arms length. Don’t believe the bravado. Love is quiet. So, yes, proclaiming to disconnect from “men” will do little but confirm everything that man’s already been told. By his father and friends and school and self. Isolation isn’t alien. If you really want to stress that man out. Tell him that you adore him. And that he’s beautiful. And that you’re thankful that he exists. He won’t know what to do with that. It’ll genuinely hurt him.

The grounds on which these men are radicalised is fertilised by disdain. For decades, women have fought for the freedom to self determine. To have choice as mothers. To have choice as workers. To have adaptability. While men seem to have added more padlocks to the box. Tightened their shoelaces. Identifying with the very system that destroyed them. Berated for being poor or introverted. For having unconventional interests. Kicking them out of the men club and leaving them with only rejection of self as the way back in. Creating sexual separation. A hostility towards fluidity. A rejection of the feminine.

And I know that the anger runs deep. I’ve seen it. No doubt I will again. I’ve had people working within community sectors and on podcasts and for charities telling me about the pushback they receive when opening up a space for men and boys. An angry resistance. From those yet to heal from the harm caused by men. Why should their empathy extend to an enemy? Fuck ‘em. They deserve it.

The kicker is, if you really wanted to hit a man where it hurts - you would love him. There’s little more uncomfortable and torturous than genuine acceptance in the realm of male adulthood. The idea that rejection and distancing from men is some kind of “gotcha” is a misnomer. We are well versed in distance. If the expectation is that we are nothing more than dormant monsters, where is there to go?

Being a teenager has always been messy and horrendous. For boys and for girls. There will always be a testing of boundaries and morality and ethics and status. Whether it’s a playground confrontation or a spread rumour. Doing what we’re not supposed to. These are years where we learn through experience. We quite literally don’t know any better. We, as adults, must hold those boundaries. Lead by example. Whilst remaining grounded. Teenagers might think they’re big but they’re not. They’re struggling to fit into a fucked up world. All of them.

I mentioned earlier that I would give an example of a counter narrative. Just for the sake of balance. Just last year, two teenage boys saved a 62 year old woman from drowning in a river after she hit her head. Around the same time two teenage boys actually jumped onto railway tracks to save a man’s life. Couple of years before two teenage boys talked a woman off of a bridge. One boy a couple of years ago saved a woman who’d fallen out of her mobility scooter onto some tracks. He was coming home from the gym.

Was this because they’re boys? Or because they’re human?

Are we comfortable with sharing uplifting news anymore?

I’m not trying to detract or distract. Just grounding and balance. Connection over everything.