What Adolescence gets wrong. Violent misogyny wasn’t invented overnight

Totally agree with all of this. I was watching with my 16 year old ds, we had a really good discussion about all the points you mentioned. Ds himself pointed out to me whilst we were watching that the wife was constantly appeasing her husband and trying to talk him down. Imagine that constant walking on eggshells 😢

@WinterFoxes I got the same message from my father - that we should be grateful that he wasn't as bad as his own father. But he was still absolutely foul. It seems to be quite a common thing.

I thought the show got it totally right. The mother spends all of episode 4 pandering to her husband to try and diffuse his anger. Telling him how good he looks in a shirt that doesn't fit, ( his daughter does the same), trying to sing and recall happy times while he's driving; only crying when he can't see.

His anger is explosive and then immediately vanishes, just like his son's, so you imagine they all walked on eggshells. His dad took his artistic son to footie to toughen him up and then wouldn't even look him in the eye when the other dads ( not the kids, their dads!) made fun of him.

The mum very gently says that it would help if they recognised they are partly to blame.

The bit when the father talks about his own dad beating him really struck home for me. My own dad was a difficult, horrible man and a lousy father in many ways, but he thought he was God's gift and that we should constantly praise him for being so wonderful because he wasn't as bad as his own dad. The bar was set so low, he thought perfect parenting meant not being as bad as his own dad. I think this was implied in episode 4 very cleverly.

I agree that knives are an increasingly worrying problem but there is the interlinked issue that some men and boys are prepared to resort to violence if they feel "disrespected". The teenager who murdered Elianne Andam in Croydon went out armed with a knife as he felt disrespected by her friendship group the previous afternoon because they teased him and he told his friends that he couldn't "let this slide".

Cai also said

He is interested in UFC - the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He also found himself watching videos from controversial influencers when they were sent his way, but he says he did not want to be recommended this more extreme content.

In other words, he engaged with violent content, therefore he got violent content. UFC is violent content. People who liked UFC also engage with other violent content, therefore the algorithm recommends this content to users who indicate UFC as an interest.

Cai says he has commented on posts to say that he doesn’t like them, and when he has accidentally liked videos, he has tried to undo it, hoping it will reset the algorithms. But he says he has ended up with more videos taking over his feeds

Again, he engaged with violent content, and therefore got violent content.

According to TikTok, the algorithms are not informed by a user’s gender. But Andrew says the interests teenagers express when they sign up often have the effect of dividing them up along gender lines.

The article supports what I said. What it does also emphasize is the fact that moderation on these sites isn't good enough so there is horrendous content, and that algorithms don't select content based on user age. This could be done but it would be expensive which is why social media companies won't do it (and why they've grabbed onto 'freedom of speech' with both hands).

@CheekySnake https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gdqzxypdzo.amp
‘cai told the BBC he tried to use one of Instagram’s tools and a similar one on TikTok to say he was not interested in violent or misogynistic content - but he says he continued to be recommended it’

@CheekySnake i must not have explained it very well. That isn’t what it shows us. It partly shows that the algorithm is programmed to serve up stereotyped content - girls must be into skincare, boys must be into violence. Even if they don’t click anything violent and try not to see it. It happened within about 3 clicks. I’ll find the programme and article - I’d really urge you to to watch it.

I've seen that before, and while I agree that boys get shown violent content quickly, what that tells us is that boys as a group tend to be more interested in it than girls as a group therefore early on with little user information the algorithm is a blunt tool. But over time, if the boy consistently clicked away/stopped scrolling when that content appeared then the algorithm would stop showing it to him. If it continues, it's because his pattern of use is showing that it holds his interest.

TBH martial arts to knife fights isn't that big a leap.

@CheekySnake just wanted to comment on this, about algorithms. You said ‘The interest has to be there in the first place, obviously, though the child may not even be consciously aware of it. But once it's identified the child is then firmly pushed in that direction.’

Sadly, the interest does not have to be there in the first place. If the algorithm knows the user is a boy or a girl, irrespective of what they’ve said they’ve liked or have already watched, they get very different content. A whistleblower from Google or Meta spoke out about this and Marianna Spring did a programme (possibly panorama?) where she tested this out. A boy who was into martial arts was suddenly being shown knife fight videos. And I think Marianna or another journalist set up various accounts a teenage boys and were horrified how quickly they were being shown violent videos. Let me know if you’d like me to find a link.

I just overheard a depressing conversation about Netflix's Adolescence. Woman to another woman, blamed the female victim saying "Well, she was a bully so that's what you get".

We need to tackle misogyny among women too, who have internalised it and coped with living in patriarchy by denying it exists and turning in other women.

I think there are many parents failing their kids, boys and girls. I mentioned giving them self worth, but also how about teaching them to manage their emotions, teaching them how to communicate etc..

I work in schools, believe me it's not just boys behaviour and attitudes that concern me. So many disengaged (and frankly lazy) parents.

Everyone overlooks all this tho and simply blames it on social media…… even on bbc right now they are talking about it saying are we failing young men

ffs it’s so what about the men !!!

We have to remember that just as women have now realised how bad men are, thanks to the internet and all coming together, men have realised they aren't as great as they have always been told they were. Ego's have been challenged by the global community which arguably has affected them because they have been conditioned prior to this to only look at what other men say and do, not "emotional" women.

I don't think the show did try to pretend it was all down to the online "manosphere". Episode 3 clearly demonstrates Jamie's low self esteem, and low sense of self worth. He believes he was a disappointment to his dad, because he wasn't good at sport. He firmly believes he's ugly (wonder who planted that in his head?). The bullying at school, being spat on /pushed around /tripped up all compounded the feelings of not being good enough, plus if course the online bullying. One of the most important things we can do for our kids is give them self belief and self worth, it will them in good stead to deal with all the shit they have to deal with every day. Somehow Jamie's parents had failed to do that.

Yes we have always had problems with disenfranchised boys and young men, whether they are turning into US school shooters, getting tied up with Islamic terrorism, jumping into gender identities or dragged into Incel culture. The fact there has always been an underlying problem doesn't negate the fact that these new issues are a problem and one that a lot of parents are not really aware of. A lot of boys, a really large amount, spend the majority of their time in their rooms on computers while parents are downstairs thinking they are doing a great job without seeing any looming issues.

Personally I think the issue lies with the fact that young boys are told they are intrinsically better than females from a young age, they get away with more, they win at primary school sports, are allowed to be more violent, they get praised for less. Add in the parenting that holds kids in general to such low expectations and praises them for doing baseline things - you get a generation of boys expecting praise, expecting the world to recognise their intrinsic brilliance. As they get older they become aware enough to look around and see that, in fact, they don't have much going for them at all. That girls are ahead and uninterested in them, that society in moving on without their input, that they might have to put in some effort to have the life they expect, they feel cheated and angry at this.

These cultures offer a short cut, a lazy way to get what you want without having to work, empty praise and a supportive community without hard work. You can shoot up or bomb people and go down in history, with a lot of virgins waiting for you in some cases. You can put on a dress and be praised to high heaven, which is easier than keeping yourself clean and healthy and attractive. You can choose an avatar and be someone else entirely, often thinking this is your true self. You can work the system to get girls rather than brush up on actually being nice to them - shortcuts, praise, a sense of belonging all ready for the taking without anything like studying or exercising or reflecting on your own behaviour.

Of course it's not new, either in fiction or reality.

Hard agree and also note that when a man leaves a family it is unlikely they would have been a positive role model. Their idea of social norms and cultural beliefs that child neglect abandonment is fine are not what any child deserves. Tax dodging to evade maintenance and other petty crimes (which it should not be seen as) should be more regulated.

From what I can tell, other men, so obviously they all blame women.

Excuse me for a derail into the anecdotal, but I want to say something positive to the single mothers of sons here like chaiformeplease :
some of the kindest, most 'human' men I know were brought up by single mothers. Their mothers were their positive role models on how to be a decent, thoughtful, respectful human being, regardless of sex.

I recently spent a few hours in the company of one such young men, who I knew as a little boy, and what impressed me was that he could talk in an amiable manner to the four women he was with, as if <gasp> we were all just people having coffee and a chat. In fact we were mixed: older/ younger/ lesbian/ straight/ female/and one male, but he just fitted in and interacted delightfully.

The principal positive role-modelling he got was from his single mother showing him how to be a good adult human in a world of lots of other kinds of adult humans.
He is now a role model to boys, showing them that being a man doesn't mean copying the Tates or ConorMcGregor.

Anecdotal, I know, but I really wanted to point out that many successful, balanced, respectful men were brought up with an excellent positive role model:
their mother.

Agree this has all been brewing for years

@BorgQueen@chaiformeplease
Where does this leave theories about absent fathers? Aren’t the drug dealers absent fathers? Or does this show that the kid grows up more rounded if the father is absent generally?

I think that there's a lot in this. And it doesn't just affect the violent men. Historically men haven't had to do the juggling act between work around the home (be it cleaning cooking childcare or laundry) as the wife/mother was pretty well forced out of the work force (often after marriage rather than after children). Men don't seem to like not being the centre of attention/looked after at home - hence the almost daily threads here about men who walk out on their responsibilities especially once they are parents. Sadly society is all too well set up to enable them to do this - see the DC EOW, pay a pittance towards their costs which is nowhere near the childcare bill the mother has to enable her to work. So either the state foots the bill for them or the mother is on the bones of her arse working and and doing all the day in day out grunt work of child rearing and domestic labour and Disney Dad waltzes in to show the DC a fun time (or doesn't bother once he's shacked up with the new female support animal cooing all over him).

I think it has been shown in relation to high school shootings that the risk of another shooting goes up in the 6 weeks after one has happened, and that how it is reported on in the media can influence this because people who are that way inclined often feel admiration for the shooter and want to be like them, and so copy them. This was shown in the Nicholas Proctor case, when he talked about wanting to be famous like the shooter at sandy hook. What media they are consuming does have an impact. Centering the victims rather than the perpetrator makes it less appealing to people like him. Yes, media promoting violence against women has always existed, but not in the current form.

It also seems to be the case that all of these boys have a long history of behavioural problems/violence before they kill someone. It doesn't just appear out of the blue in boys who were decent up to that point.