The teenager dissects the Netflix drama with worried parents

“It’s just weird to talk about your sexual feelings to your parents,” said Ben *, 15.

Her parents, Sophie and Martin, two professionals in his forties, nod. They discuss the types of “big problems” that Ben’s social media is launched, and for Ben, their conversations on sex and pornography are “the worst”.

The family – less Ben’s little sister, who is too young to join the discussion – are gathered in their living room to dissect the drama of Netflix shattered adolescence, which they watched the day before.

The series follows the history of the 13 -year -old protagonist, Jamie, who is accused of having murdered a female peer after being exposed to misogynist online equipment and subject to cyberbullying.

The two parents of Ben concern the behavior of their own son who is affected by the material to which he is exposed, and Ben, who worries himself, tries to set limits on his own phone.

Given their concerns and how they overlap the themes of adolescence, the family agreed to watch the program together and allowed BBC News to sit on their discussion, which went from the relevance of Andrew Tate to find out if boys and girls can be friends.

Ben seated on the sofa in the living room, scrolling on his phone before the start of the conversation.

Parents take their place in the air despite the difficult subjects they are about to discuss. Photos of dear beings line the shelves in the family living room and a piano stands against the wall.

Sophie and Martin worked hard to create a “very open” household, says Sophie, where “all the subjects are on the table”. Looking at the program, Sophie made a list of things to say with Ben.

A confident and frank adolescent, Ben is very appreciated by the other students of his unique state secondary school. But the qualities that make him popular with his peers often make him trouble with his teachers, who give him detentions or send him to isolation for having done what his mother describes as “inappropriate comments”.

In the show, Jamie and his peers use the language associated with the “Manosphere” – websites and online forums favoring misogyny and opposition to feminism – and incel culture. Incels, abbreviated for involuntary singles, are men who blame women because they cannot find a sexual partner. It’s an ideology This has been linked to terrorist attacks and murders in recent years.

Perhaps surprisingly, “Incel” was not a familiar term for Ben, and his father Martin had to explain it by looking at the program.

“People are simply called” virgins “. I have never heard” INCEL “before,” says Ben to his parents. He suggests that the term could have “deposited” social media for young people in recent years, reflecting the pace to which the conversation has moved online.

Ben tells his parents that there are elements of the program he recognizes, including his representation of fighting and cyberbullying at school. But he thinks that it is only a “rough image” of what is to be a teenager today, and that he was mainly designed for “an adult who is not online”.

For example, he neglects to show the good side of social media alongside his dangers, he says, and some details – including secret emoji codes that a character claims that children use – Ring False.

It is for this reason that Martin, who says he loved the trendy drama, also thinks that the series plays on the “worst nightmare” of each parent about the use of their child’s phone, which means that it sometimes promotes theater on realism in an attempt to “shock” adults in action.

Andrew Tate, influencer and central figure in the dark world of the manosphere, is mentioned by his name in the drama and was the cause of many concerns among parents and teachers. But Ben said that even if Andrew Tate was “popular” in his school about two years ago, he is now “old news”.

Ben noticed the way in which Tate combines health and well-being with politics. “Some of his things, like” the exercise for an hour a day “- fairly right, that’s right. But then he combines it with extreme right ideas, like” the man should go out and work and the woman should stay at home “”, says Ben.

Both parents agree that Tate is not to blame for misogyny. As far as they are concerned, it is symptomatic of a “more important social problem”.

This problem is clearly represented in the dark image, adolescence paintings for male-feminine friendships in the era of social networks. Protagonist Jamie has no female friends and seems to see relations with sex opposite to a lens of domination and manipulation.

Sophie fears that the interactions between boys and girls are distant and impersonal in the peer group of Ben. She says Ben does not have many opportunities to mix with girls her age.

And she fears that her son gets most of his information on how to interact with girls from social networks. “It’s really twisted,” she said. “They don’t know how to behave with each other.”

She asks her son a question: “If you don’t know how to talk to the girls when you feel uncomfortable, if you say to yourself:” Eurgh, I don’t know how to dress “, where are you going to help yourself?”

“Online,” says Ben.

“So it loops the loop,” said her mom. “This is where they get information.”

Ben is not embarrassed that he “uses Chatppt for about two years” to get this kind of advice. “Or Tiktok,” he adds.

Sophie says that Ben learned the most about friendship with the opposite sex during a visit to the house of a cousin, which frequents a mixed school and has friends.

She remembers that Ben’s cousin reprimanded her after Ben asked if the cousin was attracted to a friend.

“I don’t remember that he has annoyed himself with me like that, but okay,” says Ben.

They debate their variable memories of events until they land on a version on which they can agree: “His cousin was like” no, he is my friend. I don’t think of them in this way “”, says Sophie.

“It was really revealing for him,” she said. Turning to Ben, she remembers: “You came back, and you said to yourself:” It’s much better (at my cousin), the girls and the boys are friends. “”

In the drama of Netflix, it is revealed that the victim of Jamie, Katie, had been subjected to misogynistic intimidation after a male classmate shared intimate images of her without her consent.

Jamie’s discussion on this incident with a child psychologist, played by Erin Doherty, is essential to the third acclaimed episode of the program.

Ben also saw this kind of breach of trust among his peers. “There is a guy near here, and (a photo of) his genitals were disclosed during a massive group conversation with many people,” he said. “It was a great thing on Tiktok.”

The series starts with an episode in which the police question Jamie on the sexualized images of adult women whom he shared on his Instagram page, referring to the ease with which young adolescents can access pornography.

This seems familiar to Ben, who thinks that porn is the “biggest problem” among his group of peers. He knows boys who are “dependent” there: “They are counting on this. There are people of my year who will spend such a bad day unless they look at him.”

Ben toriles a little time by speaking of pornography, looking at the wall or playing with his phone.

It seems more comfortable talking about other forms of content regarding the content that young people meet online.

He believes that the “one in 10” videos he looks at on his phone contain painful equipment, including scenes of extreme violence. And Ben’s parents are not illustrated that their son is “safe” simply because he is upstairs on his computer – unlike Jamie’s parents in the series.

For Martin and Sophie, the solution is to give children better opportunities to “participate” in society and build their self -esteem.

They say they also want their son to have a “wide range” of male models to learn. Ben, who stopped to check his phone several times during their discussion, re -engages with the conversation.

He is animated in his praise for his sports coaches, of which he admires the “really strong morality”.

Parents nod, obviously satisfied with his enthusiasm. They say they pack their son’s life with activities to try to get him out of his phone. But it is expensive, they say, and disadvantages the students.

Sophie says of the main character of the show, Jamie: “He has no sport. He does not feel well in his skin. His father looks away when he fails.”

Adolescence shows that children with limited opportunities to build their self -esteem are more “vulnerable” to predatory messages of misogynist influencers, says Sophie.

Both parents agree that technological companies, government, schools and families all have the responsibility to offer young people a convincing alternative to the call of the manosphere mermaid.

They insist that parents cannot do it alone. As Sophie says: “It’s a tsunami and someone gave me an umbrella.”

Ben thinks that what’s going on online is too often rejected by adults as being unimportant to the real world. He thinks it is a mistake; Social media must be treated “as real life – because it’s real life,” he said.

* All the names of this article have been modified.