STEPHEN GRAHAM: It takes a village to raise a child. And Jack said to me, “Yeah, but it also takes a village to destroy a child.” And that was kind of what we based our whole thing on. We weren’t pointing the finger at anybody. We were just saying maybe we’re all accountable in some way, shape, or form.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Welcome to We Disrupt this Broadcast. I’m your host, Gabe González. Today we’ll be talking about Adolescence, the Emmy award-winning mini series that offers an unflinching look at the aftermath of a violent act committed by a 13-year-old boy. Adolescence is an international phenomenon. It has sparked conversations, news segments, and educational programs across the globe.
The series unpacks the complex and many factors that can contribute to young men becoming violently inducted into a cult of misogyny. It also depicts the intricate web of social, emotional, and psychological factors that could normalize violence against women for young men, and it does so through a deeply intimate lens.
In today’s episode, we talk to Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, writers and co-creators of Adolescence. After diving deep into the creative process behind making the show, we talk to Dr. Harriet Over, a professor of psychology whose research focuses on the manosphere, an ideological movement that targets boys and young men. Stick around. We’ll be right back.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Welcome back today, Jeff Jones, executive Director of the Peabodys, and We Disrupt this Broadcast Executive Producer, talks to Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, two of the major creative forces behind Adolescence. Graham also stars as Eddie Miller, the father of the young man behind the violent murder of his classmate.
JEFFREY JONES: Welcome, Stephen Graham, Jack Thorne. Thank you so much for being on We Disrupt this Broadcast.
STEPHEN GRAHAM: Thank you for having us.
JACK THORNE: Thank you for having us.
JEFFREY JONES: For us at the podcast, one of the hallmarks of entertainment stories that matter is the social component. So not just how it leads the individual to feel or think differently, but how it leads us to talk about the themes and issues explored in the stories.
So when this show debuted in March, it was truly a global phenomenon and set off a firestorm of public conversation. Why do you think this story has resonated so deeply? Jack, let’s start with you.
JACK THORNE: I think sometimes you get lucky in your moment and you catch the right moment in the cycle of the world. And culturally, we seem to capture that wave for some reason. And I think also, you know, it was made with love about something that Stephen and I and Phil and everyone that worked on this show cared an awful lot about, which is what’s happening to our boys, and trying to get a sense of how extremism is seeping into the mainstream. And we were horrified by what we were finding when we were researching this show, and we’re grateful it’s provoked a conversation after the show aired.
JEFFREY JONES: And for our listeners, Phil, is Philip Barantini, the director of Adolescence. Jack, I know you both did research into the online manosphere. Take us into the dark world you saw online, and how did that shape the story here?
JACK THORNE: The thing that interested me and Stephen was not the people at the top of the manosphere, not the people who get the millions of hits. The thing that interested us was kids talking to other kids. And so when we were looking into those spaces, what we were doing was spending a lot of time watching and consuming content from 14, 15, 16 year olds aimed at other 14, 15, 16 year olds, which could be talking about Minecraft, could be talking about K-Pop, but then seeped into a discussion about how they felt about their day, how they felt about the girls in their class.
And you saw this sort of ideology, because it is an ideology, coming in round the sides, you know, seeping in, and infected those kids. And Jamie is not someone that you can put a label on. You can’t call Jamie an incel. You can’t call Jamie a product to the manosphere even. But the ideas have taken hold in his brain. Some of the ideas.
JEFFREY JONES: And how about you, Stephen, your thoughts?
STEPHEN GRAHAM: Jack described the television as the empathy box, which I think is the most wonderful observation I’ve ever heard a human being describe a television in my life, because that’s exactly what it can be. Do you know what I mean? It can be many things, but the fact that it is an empathy box, I just, that image in my mind of the television being, or any device we have these days, being an empathy box.
And so we set off on this journey. Do you know what I mean? To try and understand what it is today that me and Jack had nothing to do with when we were kids. And then I told Jack about the story and the situation of a friend of mine whose daughter goes to a private school. It’s a big private school in London, and then there’s another friend whose daughter goes to a comprehensive school.
And both of these girls. And that’s why it was not just that, you know, it wasn’t a kind of social commentary on kind of where you are from, or any kind of working class mentality or anything like that. This particular thing goes right across the structure. Do you know what I mean? So both ends of that spectrum.
The girls were both asked by boyfriends to send them pictures of themselves naked, do you know what I mean? Or to show their breasts or something like that. So we kind of, we had to try and learn to understand this whole new way of being a kid, basically. And when we were kids at four o’clock, it stopped.
I had a little bit of an incident when I was bullied, and there was many incidents at school, but at four o’clock you actually got a bit of respite, you know what I mean? Well, today you don’t have a respite. Today they have these, that go 24 hours a day.
JACK THORNE: There’s an amazing statistic that Smartphone Free Childhood, which is campaigning for a social media ban for under fourteens, they’ve got this amazing statistic that they do as part of their talk, which is in the last 10 years, the instance of kids in our country being injured outside, and this is NHS statistics, have dropped by 70%. In that same time, the instances of self-harm have risen by 93%. So we’ve got these kids that are trapped at home and doing damage to themselves.
JEFFREY JONES: My teenage son, his headmaster a couple years ago, said that 90 to 95% of the problems they get in the principal’s office is related to the phone and social media.
JACK THORNE: Yeah, my son’s headmaster said the same thing.
STEPHEN GRAHAM: I said right at the very beginning, I said, “it takes a village to raise a child.” And Jack being, and Jack and the beautiful man that Jack has, Jack said to me, yeah, but it also takes a village to destroy a child. And that was kind of what we based our whole thing on. Do you know what I mean? And we weren’t pointing the finger at anybody. We were just saying maybe we’re all accountable in some way, shape or form.
There’s this thing that we have no knowledge of. The internet hasn’t been around that long, really, if you look at it in the scale of great things. So there’s this new thing that we’re trying to manage, and again, that has just as big an influence on teaching, as you’ve just said, Jeff, on teaching our children about all kinds of things. Do you know what I mean? The beauty of it. It can teach them about the stars and what stardust is, and that we’ve all got a bit of stardust in us. It can explain that to them. It can also teach them some things that we may not have in our own moral compass.
They’re subject to these kind of radical ways of thinking, be that left or right or whatever. I’m just saying they have this opportunity for those young brains that haven’t been fully formed to be pounded with this kind of information, and that’s something that we need to be mindful about. Look, we’re artists. Without art, humanity has no soul.
So alls we did is we made something and put it out there and it’s subjective. Then you can take from it what you so choose. We just went, have a look at this. This is something we should look at. That’s all we did.
JEFFREY JONES: You know, there’s a second facet of this show that is so meaningful and beautiful to me after a tragedy such as a teen committing murder or grotesque acts of violence, it seems we all kind of quickly turn into sociologists and political scientists, like what are the societal causes and who’s to blame and what regulations should be in place? But Adolescence, it seems to me, wants us to sit with and live through the deeply personal shock and grief and recovery that the violence has on the family and the community. And you take us through a journey of all that very, very intensely. Is that the right read of the show?
JACK THORNE: I think yes, that is exactly what we were trying to do and I’m really pleased you took that from it. And as Stephen said, we wanted to provoke questions, not answers. And when you have a problem, there is always the, “let’s find an answer for it as quickly as possible”, because that’s what we do as humans; we just rush towards solutions rather than necessarily sitting in the doubt.
That said, I do think that there is a technology problem that we need to address as a society to save our young kids from this sort of menace to their plastic brains. You know, the richest people in the history of the world have created a product which relies on addiction. In the UK, we’ve banned energy drinks for under 16 year olds. They’re not allowed to drink Monster or any of that stuff anymore, and yet the internet, they’re allowed to consume freely, and I do think that the government could act on that.
JEFFREY JONES: Well, let me talk to Stephen though, about your acting and performance in bringing Jack’s narrative to life. And in particular, it’s on this question. Episodes one and four in particular demonstrate this trajectory that your character takes of shock and disbelief to shame and internalization of grief and self blame. You know, you’re a parent. You watch such horrors unfold in the news. What did you draw upon to help you craft, which was a deeply affecting performance of that trajectory from, “This is not happening, and that’s not my son.
It’s not my family,” to “Oh my hell, life has changed, deeply,” and the grief that’s associated with that?
STEPHEN GRAHAM: I plucked for Eddie in particular, a few male figures from my life in particular, my Uncle Eddie. Yeah, it was a bit surreal, but in respect to that, my Uncle Eddie is a wonderful man. He, you know, he’s been a big part of my life growing up and everything.
My relationship with my father, Pops, is wonderful. We have a beautiful relationship, me and my dad. We’ve always communicated, you know what I mean? He’s always hugged me and told me he loves me. So that’s what I have carried forward to Alfie and to Grace. But my Uncle Eddie is a different man. His heart is huge, but he finds it difficult to communicate that kind of love.
My uncle Eddie lost his son, our Edward, many years ago now, and no parents should have to go through that. And then my Auntie Vera passed; and my uncle Eddie is a very stoic man. And after they both passed on, we were in his kitchen and I’d seen him at two funerals, one of the loss of his son and one loss of his wife, and I’d never seen him shed a tear. I’d seen him hold it together completely. I’d never seen him shed a tear. And we were just having a cup of tea in his kitchen and I just said, “how are you doing Eddie? Are you okay?” And he went, “Do you know what lad? I’m not too bad. Even sometimes though, I catch myself shouting her name upstairs and I shout to her and I forget she’s not there.”
And to me, the power in that moment, you know what I mean? It’s something that resonates with me and something that I’ll keep in my heart forever and, and it was just that simplicity, but the pain and the grief that was in that little sentence and in that moment that he shared with me, I wanted to carry that forward with Eddie.
And to me, Eddie, the character that we created, myself and Jack and Phil, and all the other wonderful actors around, we created a family that were a loving, caring family who were just trying to simply do their best. And I remember having a conversation with Jack when we came up with a little moment when we were walking through it.
And it’s that moment of, you know, that moment where you look your own son in the eyes or your own daughter, and you say, “Did you? Tell me the truth.” And they say, “Honest, I didn’t. I didn’t do it”. And you just go, “Okay, well he didn’t do it”. And you believe them because one, you want to believe them. You don’t want to believe the alternative, so you truly believe them.
So we found a little moment in the room where he’s given that from his son, and he walks in there and he’s like, “He never did it. He didn’t do it. Let’s go”. And so then the impact of when he sees the video, he’s poleaxed. Do you know what I mean? Because everything he thought his son could never do, he actually sees his son do it. And then like you said, you know, then it’s about the kind of, how do we cope with that?
CLIP: Adolescence
Look at me. I’m gonna ask you once, okay? No matter what’s happened, no matter what you’ve done, what you haven’t done, I want you to tell me the truth. Did you do it?
No.
Promise?
Promise.
Okay. Okay, then everything’s gonna be all right then, isn’t it? Okay.
JEFFREY JONES: So a lot has been made of the one shot that is, there’s not a traditional multi-camera situation or the editing between these shots, but a single continuous shot. For a whole episode, which does invoke in some levels theater. But with the camera as you’re saying, it’s so much more than that. And I think what surprised me as a viewer was how much it increased the narrative tension in every scene. Were you fully aware, Jack, going in, of the effect that this technique would have?
JACK THORNE: The beautiful thing about the one shot was it was about power being shared, genuinely shared, and everyone feeling powerful in their moment. You know, obviously the director is given immense power in the one shot. I think the writing is also given immense power because you don’t have the edit process, so the writing becomes the document on which the story’s based; but the people that truly get the power, the people that truly control every aspect of how this story’s told are the actors and the actors’ faces. And the best moments in this show are dialogue free. The best moments in this show are just about the twitch of an eyebrow.
You know, my favorite moment in the whole show is when Jamie is strip searched and you’re just watching Eddie’s face, and how an actor can take you through such complications with just a twitch of an eyebrow. And that’s why we had the most magnificent company doing the most magnificent things led by the most magnificent actor, Stephen Graham.
STEPHEN GRAHAM: We also said at the very beginning, what we want to try and do is make a family sit down together and watch it without these in their hands. I suppose that’s part of the technique where we have that opportunity to grab you from the beginning. And then not let you go. There’s moments when you can breathe and there’s moments when, you know, like the pace of it has its own rhythm. But we take you on a journey.
JEFFREY JONES: Episode two, which takes place at Jamie’s school, felt particularly tense. How did that episode come together?
JACK THORNE: Just to give credit to someone else in our show. A lot of episode two was the result of the influence of Hannah, Stephen’s wife Hannah, who’s also Mrs. Bailey in it, and she was a teacher. I worked in a school; and we felt like we needed to see inside this education system.
And we talked a lot about the schools that we’ve seen. And it was so interesting the reaction to it because there was sort of two different reactions. There was a reaction of some teachers who went, no way, no schools are like that. That doesn’t happen. And there were other schools that said, you’ve got that spot on. And that speaks to where our education currently is in our country, which is some schools are being left to sink. Those that aren’t seeing the sinking just don’t believe it’s happening, but it is.
CLIP: Adolescence
We got all that Instagram stuff wrong.
What do you mean?
Caty was bullying Jamie.
Oh no.
That’s what it was. Incel stuff. You know what that is.
Yeah, I do.
No, I don’t know what that is. What is it?
It’s the, um, involuntary celibate stuff. It’s the Andrew Tate shite.
Oh.
Fucking hell. I’ve heard the boys talking about him.
JEFFREY JONES: So Owen Cooper, who plays Jamie Miller is a first time actor and his first day on the set is rehearsing and eventually shooting episode three. For our listeners, this is the most intense episode and I would say demanding for an actor. So, Stephen, why start him there?
STEPHEN GRAHAM: One, logistics. Two, it was kind of a really great way for everybody to begin because it was the most contained. It didn’t have as many moving parts, should we say. Do you know what I mean? It basically, we built the most wonderful set and then that gave us the opportunity to really kind of bed ourselves in. So it was a perfect opportunity, one for Owen as well, as a young actor, do you know what I mean? To cut his teeth. But two, for our crew to cement themselves and to get to know each other completely and to really immerse themselves within this journey that we were gonna take ourselves on for the next, what, four months, five months, or whatever it was.
But to go back to Owen, he just had this natural ability and this natural gift. And it was difficult. It was very difficult because he’s a million miles away from Jamie. He’s nothing like Jamie, do you know what I mean? He’s charming, he’s charismatic, he’s got a big group of mates. He’s great at football. He’s wonderful. So Jamie was a million miles away from him.
JEFFREY JONES: I wanna talk about masculinity outside of the discussion of online misogyny and manosphere, and incel culture and all that. And in particular, let’s stay on Jamie. You’ve brilliantly constructed this tension, it seems to me, within Jamie in that episode three, between a terrified child craving consoling from a mother figure, and a wannabe sexualized man who understands that rage and anger are his means of control and intimidation, or at least that’s my reading.
Of course, it’s, you know, gendered rage at women that’s at the center of this show. Was that part of what you were after here, this display of the dual aspects of this child and wannabe nascent masculinity? Jack?
JACK THORNE: Yes, absolutely. But also, he doesn’t understand any of that. You know, he doesn’t have an understanding of any of what’s inside him. And he’s very confused and he’s very messed up and he doesn’t have a clear sense of himself. And I think the main thing he’s doing in the room at the beginning is trying to conceal and trying to deny and trying to create a relationship with the one person who he finds interesting in his life at the moment, that he’s lost in this brutal place and he doesn’t have anyone to talk to about anything.
And then this very interesting, attractive person comes into his life that cares about what he thinks about the world. And I think the first half of that meeting, as a result, is about him trying to manipulate her, but he doesn’t have the means to manipulate her. And then slowly but surely things drip off him, and then the truer self, the self that he doesn’t want people to see starts to come out. It’s like paint being stripped.
STEPHEN GRAHAM: Yeah. Yeah. Completely. And then in the same respects, you know, let’s look at it in a black and white context, let’s say. Eddie’s a good father. Eddie’s a really good father, Eddie provides for them. Eddie’s worked his ass off to put a roof over the head, along with his wife as well. It’s an equal team, it’s an equal partnership. So he’s worked his ass off and he’s tried his best to be the best kind of man he possibly can be. He has not come from a home where he was given hugs or he was told he was loved at Christmas and things like that. He wasn’t, he hasn’t come from that particular environment and we seed, we sow little seeds of that within that wonderful episode three. Do you know what I mean? Where she speaks a little bit about his granddad and things like that. So we get to see that.
We also see that Eddie is a man of, he smashed the shed up. Now the fact that he smashed the shed up, one that can appear slightly comical in a way, but in the same respect, you know, something happened there or something went down and he fucking smashed the shit out of the shed. So he smashed the shed up, but he didn’t smash his wife up. He didn’t smash his children up. He didn’t smash his home. He took his anger out in a different way. Do you know what I mean? In his own frustrations, whatever that was, that complexity.
CLIP: Adolescence
Does your dad like his job?
He fixes his toilets. What do you think? He works hard, long hours. You get the best money for emergency plumbing out of hours, you know?
Is he funny?
Sometimes.
Loving?
No, that’s weird.
Angry?
I suppose.
How angry does he get?
He’s never hit me.
Okay, go on.
Go on what? Is that what this is all about?
Well, why do you call him angry?
He just gets mad. We all do.
Okay. That’s okay. He’s just angry in a normal way.
He’s pulled the shed down once when he was in a proper rage, but that’s as bad as it gets.
Were you frightened?
No, I thought it was quite funny at the time. Lisa did too. Then Mom sent us upstairs. He’s not like that most of the time. Hardly ever.
STEPHEN GRAHAM: So what he’s doing is that spiritual malady that he suffers from his own relationship with his father. He’s made progress to an extent.
JEFFREY JONES: I’m so glad you brought up Eddie. ‘Cause this question originated with Jamie, but I want to hit both of these. I’m really interested in the concept of male rage as a product of shame. Incel culture, shame, a perceived humiliation and ridicule by Jamie, shame of not measuring up, shame of not being desirable. But you also mentioned in some sense maybe the shame of Eddie as what has happened to him in his community and in his family. Is Adolescence a study in male shame and our inability to deal with it?
STEPHEN GRAHAM: Guilt and shame are something that can destroy a human being, but they come from a perspective of the ego. Do you know what I mean? It’s an egoic state, guilt and shame. And if you carry that guilt and shame, it can destroy you. It can eat you inside. And if you look at it from their perspective, you know, I think a lot of us, you have to do a lot of work on yourself as a, not just as a man, but as a human being.
You have to really look at yourself and you have to be accountable for your actions. Thoughts are thoughts, actions are what we choose to do. If you look at the situation with Jamie, he doesn’t feel like he can talk to his father. And look, and this brings this whole kind of thing in a slight way, full circle.
Alls we wanted to do was to create conversation. And I remember there was a moment when Hannah said, “that bedroom door should have been opened a lot more.” Do you know what I mean? And if we can create an opportunity where fathers and mothers can open the bedroom doors to their children and say, how are you? What’s going on? Well then our job is complete. Do you know what I mean? If we have done that, and I’ll tell you what, we have done that, ’cause I’ve been told we’ve done that, in Tesco in the Co-op, at the 40 and everything. Do you know what I mean? I’ve been told we’ve done it. And this kind of awards thing that all of the glittery, shiny stuff is beautiful and it’s lovely and it’s wonderful.
It’s all part of the process. But to have randoms come up to you in the Co-op or, well, there’s many supermarkets out there, not just the Co-op, but to have random people. And even in LA, last night when we were getting milk and stuff like that, this lovely old fella. I was with our Alfie, we were getting some protein shakes and this lovely, old fellow came over to me and he was about, must’ve been about 75, and he went, “Excuse me, are you Stephen?”
And I went, “yeah”. And he went, “I just wanna say thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for that piece of work. It was beautiful. What I did was I phoned my grandson straight away and asked him how he was.”
And I was like, and I started crying. Do you know what I mean? Because if we have the opportunity and the capability to do that. This is it. This is it. We’ve smashed it through the empathy box. We’ve made that man; we have had an impact on that man having empathy for that story that we’ve just shown, which made him phone his fucking grandkid and say, how are ya? You’re okay? Do you know what I mean?
JEFFREY JONES: Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us, truly a magnificent piece of art and important storytelling for these times, deeply affecting and super well done.
JACK THORNE: Thank you Jeff. Thank you.
JEFFREY JONES: And thank you for joining us. Really appreciate it.
STEPHEN GRAHAM: Cheers.
JACK THORNE: Thank you.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Thank you to Jeff Jones for stepping in today to talk with Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne from Adolescence. I don’t think I have gripped the armrests on my couch as hard as I did watching this show, and as Stephen Graham’s fellow shoppers at the Co-op can attest, I’m not alone. That’s because Adolescence hit a nerve. It reveals something unsettling and true about where we’re at. As our guests mentioned, there’s a responsibility for us to reckon with this collectively.
So after a short break, we’ll be talking to Dr. Harriet Over, a psychologist whose area of study can help shed light on how violence and hate speech is reaching young men as well as some potential solutions. We’ll be right back.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Look, I’ll be honest, I hated being a teenager. My classmates were mean, and I stank all the time, no matter how much spray deodorant I had in my locker. Or maybe because of all the spray deodorant I had in my locker. And growing up, I do remember hateful language being tossed around in the media I consumed. Quite often. But what’s going on right now with young people feels different, and statistically it is. So we’re here now with Dr. Harriet Over, a professor of psychology at the University of York, to talk about this.
Thank you so much for joining us today. How are you?
HARRIET OVER: I’m good. Thank you. Thank you so much for the invite.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: I’m very happy to have you her, but I will say I was intimidated by this topic, so thanks for joining me on this scary, but hopefully educational and productive conversation.
HARRIET OVER: My pleasure.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: So the manosphere can feel like a very broad, sometimes slippery term. I’m wondering in your own words, how would you describe the manosphere?
HARRIET OVER: The manosphere is a loose collection of blogs, forums, and influencers who amplify cultural messages that women are inferior to men and ought to be subordinated to them. It’s composed of a number of sub-communities, including incels, men going their own way, and proponents of the red and black pill who claim that society’s systematically biased in favor of women.
I have a big European grant to study two questions: How is the manosphere influencing the behavior and experiences of young people? And how can we intervene to encourage more egalitarian gender attitudes among children and young people?
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Wow. I’m curious, how are regular teens influenced by this, particularly young men, but I’d imagine young women as well?
HARRIET OVER: The manosphere has grown in popularity over the last 10 years or so. In the UK, 80% of 16 to 17-year-old boys have watched Andrew Tate content, who’s the notorious, misogynistic influencer, and up to 25% of young men in the UK agree with his views about women. We did a survey with school teachers here in the UK and what we found was that 76% of secondary school teachers, so that’s people teaching children aged 11 and up, were extremely concerned about how misogyny was influencing their pupils.
And 60% of primary school teachers were also extremely worried. So that’s teachers teaching children between the ages of four and 11. And when we asked them to explain what sorts of things are you seeing among their pupils, one of her primary school teachers said a little boy had told her it’s okay to hurt women because Andrew Tate does it.
And another primary school teacher told us about a group of boys in one of her classes who had inserted a little girl’s picture into a porn app and was showing it to her and saying, this is how you ought to be. Another theme that came out of these analysis is that pupils are disrespecting female teachers. So, when teachers try to discipline them, they’ll say, I don’t have to listen to you ’cause you’re a woman. You should get back in the kitchen, and things like that.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Wow. So given that you are enmeshed in researching this phenomenon and how it’s impacting young children and teachers, what was your reaction to watching Adolescence? Did you watch it? Was it something that maybe felt a bit too close to home?
HARRIET OVER: I did watch it and it’s funny you should say that because my, when I saw that it had come out, I thought, oh my goodness, I’m gonna have to watch this for work. And then I was just completely gripped by it ’cause it was such fantastic TV. And by the end of the final episode I was sobbing. So I thought it was such a powerful way to introduce people to the themes.
One of the scenes that I felt was particularly powerful was when the dad goes up to the boy’s room and he’s holding the teddy bear and like realizing that he thought his little boy was safe. So I think we often, as parents, we have this notion that if the kids are in our house, then they must be safe. And actually, if they have access to the internet, they’re not safe. And I think this realization that you can’t effectively protect your kids from what they might see online.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Is there something particularly vulnerable about teens and where they’re at developmentally that makes this kind of movement dangerous for them?
HARRIET OVER: I think there absolutely is, and a lot of these influencers are targeting teenage boys in particular. And I think there are two ways in which we can think about that vulnerability. So one is that we know that teenagers are particularly concerned about conforming to the views of their peer group and they want to fit in with others.
And that interacts with the type of echo chambers that can be created on social media. Once you start watching this type of content, the recommender algorithm suggests more and more of it to you, and then you can end up in this kind of digital echo chamber where it seems like everybody agrees with you, and that can be very persuasive, particularly for teenagers.
The second element of vulnerability, I think, is a more social one that a lot of these boys are starting to date or starting to want to date for the first time. And what the manosphere does is it offers this lens through which to understand all of the difficulties that go along with dating, right? So for all of us, the experience of dating for the first time was like mired with rejection and humiliation and embarrassment.
And the manosphere takes all of those negative emotions and those insecurities, and it blames them on women.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Now, is there any data that shows that there has been an increase in not just violent words, but violent behavior from young men in different countries across the globe?
HARRIET OVER: If I can take the example of my own country for a minute, which is Britain. We know that there’s been a 37% increase in violence against women and girls since 2018, and there are multiple possible causes that, so the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated lockdowns are presumably one cause, as people were increasingly isolated from their family and support network, they’re at greater risk of intimate partner abuse.
But I think there is a strong argument that the manosphere is also part of a problem. Certainly this increase in violence against women and girls coincides with the increasing popularity of a manosphere. I think if we can talk about your cultural context for a moment, there’s a big overlap between the manosphere and the far right.
So Nick Fuentes, for example, he’s best known as a white supremacist, but he also self-identifies as an incel. And when the Supreme Court issued the ruling that allowed states to ban abortion, he tweeted, “your body, my choice forever,” and that went viral within these manosphere spaces. In fact, you can even buy that slogan on a t-shirt now if you feel so inclined.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Wow. Now, we’ve talked about the manosphere living online, right? Podcasters, influencers, social media, and how the algorithm can kind of quickly feed you more of this content should you come across it. What makes the online manosphere different from other types of misogynistic content we might find in music, TV, film, even video games?
HARRIET OVER: In one sense, it’s all part of the same broader social problem. But I do think that there are aspects of this online world that are particularly troubling. So one is these are old ideas, right? That women are inferior to men, that we’re biologically incapable of rational thought, that members of the LGBT plus community are somehow unnatural or deviant. Those are all ideas that have been part of our culture for a long time. And so the manosphere isn’t inventing anything new, but what it is doing is packaging up those tired old ideas in a format that’s very appealing to young people, and which can be spread very quickly through a social network.
It’s so easy for a child to go online and within seconds, access hate speech. So some of these forums on incel communities, for example, are arguing that rape should be legalized. And a child could go online and find that type of content. And that really does seem different from other types of media. I think another element of it. Is that there’s so little fact checking on a lot of these social media platforms relative to things like print media. So disinformation can spread and seem credible on social media in a way that’s more difficult with other forms of media.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: That’s a great observation. It kind of leads me to my next question, which is what are we to do about it? Right? What are some of the solutions? And it almost seems like they’re tiered, right? There’s the sort of personal or familial, there’s the social, and then there’s the governmental.
HARRIET OVER: So as a psychologist, it’s easiest for me to talk to this familial level and educational level. One thing I think we absolutely need to do is talk to our children about sexism and other forms of bias. I think often parents are reluctant to talk to their children about prejudice because, understandably, they want to shield their kids from horrible things in the world. Like the manosphere is absolutely a horrible place. I sympathize with that. And also maybe some parents fear, oh, they could accidentally make things worse. They might use an out of date term. They might not have all the figures to hand and so on. But I think that that view is mistaken because by the time children are 16, say, they’re gonna have encountered a whole raft of sexist lies.
So in the UK, 80% of 16 and 17-year-old boys have watched Andrew take content. So what we have to ask ourselves as parents and people who care about young people is do we want the first time that children encounter sexist lies to be like from somebody like Andrew Tate, or do we want it. To be from us in a safe environment where they can be constructively challenged?
So what I would say to parents is try to talk to your children about sexism and other forms of bias so they understand how to advocate for themselves, how to support other people and recognize sexist lies for what they are.
Another element of this, I think, is that if you hear your child saying something sexist or repeating sexist lies from the internet, try to gently and constructively challenge them wherever that’s possible. So encourage them to think about the motivations of influencers. Ask them to think whether they can think of any counter examples to the lies that have been told.
And I think by doing that, we help to open up a constructive dialogue rather than shutting down conversations. When we shut down conversations, we risk playing into these influencers’ hands because we know how appealing it can be when somebody’s canceled, suddenly they become even more edgy and popular. So I think trying to talk to children about this in a constructive way is part of the solution as parents and as educators.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: And it does seem like that’s, you know, the first place to initiate these conversations. But I’m curious if during your research you’ve encountered any strategies or potential solutions employed by teachers who are in a bit of this precarious position, right? Because it is their job to educate these children, but they’re also not family members. So what are some angles or strategies that have worked for teachers in your experience?
HARRIET OVER: One of the strategies that we’re testing is something called inoculation theory. So this is an idea from persuasion, that you can, just as you can protect the body from a virus by giving it a weakened form of a toxin, you can protect the mind from misinformation by presenting weakened versions of an argument and then helping people to generate counter arguments. So for example, you might say, well, some people say that women aren’t as smart as men, and then help children to generate counter arguments to that claim.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Absolutely. We’ve been chatting with Dr. Harriet Over. Before I let you go, I am wondering if there’s anything you’d like to leave us with, any final thoughts, anything we didn’t touch on in my questions that you would love to share with our audience?
HARRIET OVER: I am just so happy to be here, and I think the manosphere has flourished in these places in the internet where it can lurk away from scrutiny. And bringing it into the light through Adolescence and through shows like this is just so important and it’s the first step towards social change. So I really appreciate the invitation.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Absolutely. I appreciate you joining us. I’ve gotta say, I, you know, horrified at these topics, but I’m walking away feeling a little less overwhelmed at the totality of it all, right. I feel like you’ve broken it down into digestible pieces we can think about and hopefully act meaningfully and positively on. So I really appreciate this time. Thank you.
HARRIET OVER: Thank you so much.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Thank you again to Stephen Graham, Jack Thorne, and Dr. Harriet Over for joining us on this episode to discuss Adolescence. And of course to Jeff Jones, as always, for co-hosting.
What struck me about all our guests was one common plea: the need to take collective accountability and collective action when it comes to the radicalization of young men. No parent or teacher or government official can take on misogyny or the manosphere alone.
Adolescence is a cautionary tale, but not about something that could or might happen. It’s happening now. And as our guest, Dr. Harriet Over reminds us, acknowledging what’s impacting our kids is the first and sometimes hardest step in finding solutions.
Look, this topic is a tough and truly scary one to unpack for many reasons, which is why we’re grateful shows like Adolescence can encourage us to confront these difficult issues and remind us of our collective responsibility to be the village that raises the child and doesn’t destroy them.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: The Peabody Awards are decided unanimously. So to close out our episode, I bring you, We Disrupt this Broadcast‘s Unanimous Decision where we unanimously pick the most disruptive line of the day.
STEPHEN GRAHAM: Guilt and shame are something that can destroy a human being, but they come from the perspective of the ego.
GABE GONZÁLEZ: Thank you as always for joining us. Believe it or not, that is a wrap on our second season. We will be back. But in the meantime, stay disruptive and we hope to see you soon.
We Disrupt This Broadcast is a Peabody and Center for Media and Social Impact production hosted by me, Gabe González, with on air contributions from Caty Borum and Jeffrey Jones. The show is brought to you by executive producers, Caty Borum, Jeffrey Jones, and Bethany Hall. Producer Jordana Jason. Writers: Sasha Stewart, Jordana Jason, Bethany Hall, Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, and myself, Gabe González. Consulting producer: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong. Associate producer, Bella Green. Graphic designer: Olivia Klaus. Operations producer: Varsha Ramani. The marketing and communications team: Christine Dreyer and Tunishia Singleton. From PRX: the team is Terrence Bernardo, Jennie Cataldo, Edwin Ochoa and Amber Walker. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.