Abstract
Adolescence (2025) is a hit television show that has sparked widespread debate in both the press and in government houses. In this collaboratively written response, we consider how the show might index relatively new social phenomena – that is, involuntary celibate (incel) culture, social isolation, anxiety about young people's engagement with social mediascapes – but also reproduce older social fears, such as threats to hegemonic institutions and the 'power' of media. In particular, we discuss the multiple ways that Stephen Graham et al.'s production at both the aesthetic and representational levels, grapples with structures, such as patriarchy, class and state institutional power (e.g. the prison, the school, the psychiatric discourse) through an attention to how 'symbols' are articulated through the programme, but also how Adolescence sparked more popular 'hot takes', hand wringing and celebration. We conclude that the show is compelling because it reproduces and problematizes through the immediacy of the one-take style the well-worn themes of vulnerable youth and family in peril.