In the 21st century, social media and digital spaces have started to blur the line between the concepts of influence and indoctrination. In Netflix’s limited series Adolescence, writers have managed to morph the viewer’s experience from just a teen drama to a more criminological insight into the developing minds of young teens.
As per Netflix’s description, the series follows the family of Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old boy who is arrested for the murder of a teenage girl who goes to his school. Throughout the show, they touch on how students in Jamie’s school are struggling to define themselves in a world obsessed with online validation, power, and perception. It’s because of these social pressures that Adolescence dives into the dark corner of digital culture, such as the red pill ideology. The “Red Pill” is a term that stems from the 1999 film The Matrix, and it has become the framework for individuals prominent in the online “manosphere” or incels, where men believe that they are oppressed in modern society, and it is a collection of beliefs rooted in misogyny and opposition to feminism.
From a criminological standpoint, Adolescence serves as a powerful case study into modern teenage deviance. The characters’ choices reflect many criminological theories, such as labeling theory, social learning theory, strain theory, and moral panic. Together, these frameworks reveal that Adolescence is not just a random story about a troubled boy; it reflects how social systems, digital spaces, and inequality work together to produce the deviance that society fears.
Labeling Theory
From the very first episode, watching this show through a criminological lens allows us as viewers to see how society enables the creation of deviant behavior. One major way society engraves this into a teenage community is through the lens of labeling theory. Labeling theory, by sociologist Howard Becker, explains that people don’t become “bad” or “deviant” on their own; it is how society reacts to them that shapes who they become. In Adolescence, this is shown in the way Jamie reacts to his father’s touch when it’s revealed he was the killer. He believed his father would be proud of him, that he earned the title of being a ‘man.’ But now that he is labeled a killer, watchers can see how labels start to change how Jamie sees himself, too. Edwin Lemert backs this by suggesting two types of deviance: primary and secondary. What we see here is secondary deviance, because being labeled a criminal or a killer has made Jamie internalize that he has done something bad. On the other hand, if this were to have been a smaller crime, such as petty theft, that would be considered primary deviance because the act done doesn’t affect the way Jamie and society view him. This is exactly what Becker meant by the self-fulfilling prophecy; once someone is branded as a certain “type,” it’s hard to be seen as anything else. This is also portrayed in the series finale, where Jamie’s family is being harassed by other people in the neighborhood, and although the label of killer isn’t geared toward them, they are the “family of a killer.” The show also ties into Erving Goffman’s idea of stigma, where being seen as different or “messed up” isolates individuals even more. What makes Adolescence so powerful is how it doesn’t just show a teenager making a bad choice; it shows how adults, schools, and society help create those choices by labeling them before they even have a chance to figure out who they are. In the end, it’s not really about “bad kids” at all; it’s about what happens when people are constantly told they’re not good enough, in real life and in the media.
Social Learning Theory
Social learning theory, proposed by psychologist Albert Bandura, extends this analysis by emphasizing how deviant behavior is learned through observation, imitation, and reinforcement. For Jamie, the digital “manosphere” became his “classroom” where he learned what was right and wrong. The influencers in these social media spaces act as regular mentors, but they are modeling behaviors that reward aggression and misogyny. The repetition of this ideology not only online, but in social spaces with peers, and even in his own home, allows Jamie to view these ideas as correct. Teens, and especially young boys, end up imitating the aggression, defiance, and hypermasculinity they see that’s glorified online, especially once it’s seen as a trend. Every like and share acts as positive reinforcement that blurs the boundary between the idea of self-expression and social validation. The show mirrors how an online ecosystem can serve as natural cultivation for the normalization of violent behavior.
Strain Theory
While imitation and influence can explain how the deviancy in society spreads, Strain theory explains why it begins. Strain theory was developed by sociologist Robert K. Merton and was eventually expanded on by other criminologists. The theory argues that when individuals are unable to achieve socially approved goals, such as popularity through legitimate means, they experience strain. In order to relieve that strain, which in this case refers to Jamie’s anger and low self-esteem, individuals like Jamie may turn to deviance as an alternative way to gain control of the situation. In Adolescence, Jamie embodies this concept because he has grown up in a generation that glorifies success, dominance, and control, as seen in his idolization of his father and other men on social media. This is why he struggled with finding his place in a system that is meant to remind him of a man’s shortcomings, as is part of the mindset of these incels. The online communities filled with this type of rhetoric allow Jamie to find validation in his anger, transforming his feelings of inadequacy into hostility toward society. His deviance, or his urge to kill his classmate, was therefore not born from this innate evil he possessed but from the structural imbalance built from the societal pressure in this new digital era.
Moral Panic
Ultimately, the public’s reaction to this popular drama reflects a deeper social anxiety or moral panic. Stanley Cohen described moral panics as a phenomenon that happens when society singles out a group or behavior as a threat to its values, and that’s exactly what happens throughout the show. Fortunately, the show has given many people the chance to self-reflect. People are now more interested in looking at why someone like Jamie ends up on this path, and what could be done to prevent it, instead of only having the conversation of “How do we stop people like this?” The reality is that the older generations who have created these social media platforms grew up knowing its dangers, but nowadays, although the dangers are known, they are treated as something that won’t affect them. So right now, young kids don’t fully understand the grasp that social media has on them and their daily lives. And how being left unattended in spaces that are not designed with their developing minds at the core of their function can lead to very severe consequences, like the one we see with Jamie.
In the end, Adolescence isn’t just a fictional drama that depicts one boy’s downfall. It is a reflection of the world that helped shape him into who he became. It goes to show how easily fear and misunderstanding can morph into judgment, and how the stories we see perceived in the media often illustrate society better than what we, the people, claim to portray. If anything, Jamie’s story should stand as a reminder that deviance doesn’t grow in isolation; it is nurtured by the very society that fears it.
Mercado is a guest blogger at UITAC Publishing. UITAC’s mission is to provide high-quality, affordable, and socially responsible online course materials.
Images used in this blog:
- “Just a sudden attempt to express the concept of crime” by mengmengniu is free to use under the Unsplash License. This image has not been altered.
- “A group if miniture figures” by etactics is free to use under the Unsplash License. This image has not been altered.
- “Social media apps on the phone in dark ambience” by berctk is free to use under the Unsplash License. This image has not been altered.
