So I recently watched Adolescence, a Netflix show released on March 13th 2025. It’s a bit of a gritty show, about a 13 year old kid who killed a classmate for reasons we’ll find out later. It was quite the series. I’m still processing it, but I’ve been thinking about what it says about who we are.
It makes me wonder about the future. Specifically, the future of young people. I feel this sense of fear, of inevitable doom about what’s to come for us. We are becoming further divided, both politically and socially, and with that divide, we are becoming isolated. No longer do the young generations read classics or study great speeches; we don’t learn to speak grammatically correct English, and we don’t learn to appreciate our history. We are becoming indifferent to the older generations, as they cannot communicate with us, nor can we with them. We are not taught to understand ourselves, nor to understand others. We cannot speak to one another. When an adult asks how we’re feeling, it’s “kinda chopped 67 67 ngl”. There is this fear I feel that when I grow up, when the next generations after us, it will be the same. We will forever be stuck in our own world, our own times.
This is bad enough, but I believe that in two or three generations, the traditional professions shall become obsolete. Lawyers, politicians, writers, no longer shall they be in demand. There is this growing gap between the academic, intellectual professions and the newer generations. When no one respects your profession, when no one requires teachers and scientists, they shall become professions regarded in the same light as alchemists and plague doctors. The new minds of the generations will be celebrities and social media stars, but I can’t for the life of me decide what we can do about it. We will fracture as a society when parents and elders become obsolete. No longer will we need to read to write when our language regresses. Already, we resemble a clan-like society, where age and social culture define who we are. One will not find friends by pursuing common interests. One can only do so by delving into the new internet societies and fringe groups. The time has passed when we ask our older siblings how to ask a girl out, or what sex is. Now we look to the likes of Andrew Tate. Isn’t that terrifying?
Furthermore, this growing isolation of different groups has already led to violence. We see that with the rise in political assassinations, school shootings, and hate crimes. Let’s talk about school shootings specifically. The United States Government Accountability Office states that half of the school shootings were committed by current or former students, and this is from 2010-2019, so the statistic is likely higher than that today. What are we supposed to do about them? Adults can’t comprehend this kind of problem. It’s foreign to them, the idea that someone would take a gun to their school and turn it on people their own age, people they know. People they’ve talked to, sat next to, and eaten with. Only we, the new generation, can understand the mentality, and so it’s up to us to address this problem. The people in Congress can’t do anything, and we need to accept that. It’s always ideological concerns, partisan divides, grandstanding, and filibustering. The fact of the matter is, they do this to hide the fact that they have no damn clue what to do. Only we can create social reform. Sure, you can call your Congressperson, lobby them to ban guns or to put metal detectors in schools, but that’s not going to solve the problem. The problem is that younger generations are simply unable to connect with the generations before them, and so they look to each other. We take shelter in these extreme theories and beliefs that have no factual basis, but are the only things we have to explain what we see around us.
On a slightly different note, let’s talk about the show Adolescence itself. One thing I think it does so beautifully is how it tells its story. We don’t watch from Jamie’s perspective; we watch from that of his parents. A show from his perspective would be much too difficult to understand, nor would it appeal to many people. A show from a completely outside perspective would be too difficult to relate to. It would be too foreign. By watching the show from his parents’ perspective, we are given a close, but not too close, view of Jamie’s mind. We are just close enough to make the story feel real, but not too close as to scare us away. (I think of A Clockwork Orange, a story told from the main character’s perspective. The reader’s uncomfortable proximity to Alex and his Droogs makes it a very difficult book to read and digest. It’s almost nauseating.) What Adolescence does is it spans across generations by showing us how Jamie’s parents deal with his crime. The last scene of the show is poetic in that way. We see his dad sitting on Jamie’s bed, crying and clutching Jamie’s old stuffed animal as he says, “I’m sorry, son. I should have done better.” We are connected to his dad in that scene, and through him, we can see Jamie. Frankly, this is what we need; this intergenerational sense of empathy. I’m reminded of my earlier point, that today’s professions will eventually become obsolete because of our distance from the professions of the “old world.” Watch the show, and you’ll see what I mean. It does something to you, something that cannot be done by scrolling through crime statistics and school shooting reports. I’m confused now because of what I said when I framed it as something bad and undesirable, the disappearance of today’s professions. Maybe it’s not quite a bad thing, though. The scientists and the researchers and the reporters who crafted statistics and reports that I read, maybe they’re not needed. They didn’t affect me as much as the show did. Their work didn’t affect me as much as the work of actors. Of pop culture. So I really don’t know what to make of it.
All in all, when you watch Adolescence, don’t focus on Jamie alone; make sure to also focus on his parents. Only through them can we truly see Jamie, and only through them can we truly see what we have become.
