Why the Emmy-Winning 'Adolescence' Is Today’s Most Important Commentary on Masculinity, Vulnerability, and Incel Culture

By Stella Speridon-Violet

When Netflix’s Adolescence snagged an Emmy this year, it wasn’t just a win for prestige television; it was a cultural gut punch. This show didn’t win by producing perfectly cut and designed episodes made for TikTok editors. 

It won because it cracked open the dark, festering corners of the internet where incel ideology thrives, and forced us to look, in real time. 

Just raw, unfiltered life, made up of one-take episodes, and that’s exactly why so many people didn’t know what to do with it.

Image Sourced through Pinterest

We’re quick to label something “boring” when it forces us to sit with ourselves without constant overstimulation, jump cuts, or a star-studded cast. But Adolescence isn’t boring, it’s a mirror. A brutal, unflinching reflection of what we’ve lost and what we’re still losing: our attention span, our critical thinking, and our ability to process reality without the need for constant noise.

This isn’t just about TV. It’s about evolution, or de-evolution. Are we moving forward as a culture, or slowly erasing ourselves? 

Trading the limitless capacity of our minds for the hollow comfort of overstimulation? Every time we dismiss depth as “boring,” we’re admitting how much we’ve abandoned our own potential.

And while we’re numbing ourselves on social media, entire subcultures are taking advantage. 

Image Sourced through Glamour

The main subject Adolescence dares to discuss is one often overlooked by older generations, not because they don’t care, but because they don’t understand.  

When you hear the term “incel” or “red pilled,” it may mean something to you, or maybe you associate it with a certain group or specific ideology. Meanwhile, older generations blankly stare and dismiss these phrases as Gen-Z or Gen Alpha “slang” or something too complicated for them to understand.

This so-called “red pill” community has turned the internet into a weapon, feeding boys scripts about dominance, control, and resentment. Emojis have become their shorthand, hieroglyphs of an ideology parents don’t even know exists.

And the deeper boys fall into it, the darker it gets. A 2023 research article titled, Swallowing and spitting out the red pill: young men, vulnerability, and radicalization pathways in the manosphere discusses the dangers these ideologies have on young men. 

Research shows that many boys don’t stumble into these spaces because of inherent hate; they’re pulled in by vulnerability. Which we see in Adolescence, where Jamie, who admits he comes from a loving family, was still able to kill his classmate and justify it because she ultimately rejected him and his “red pilled” beliefs. 

Image Sourced through Pinterest

As one study put it, “young men often described a sense of inadequacy in relation to cultural ideals of heterosexual masculinity, such as being successful with women, physically attractive, and socially competent” (Botto & Gottzén, 2023). 

For those struggling to measure up, red pill communities offer validation and even a sense of belonging. But that belonging comes with a cost: “engagement with red pill communities can normalize resentment and entitlement, feeding into a broader culture of hostility toward women” (Botto & Gottzén, 2023).

And the deeper boys fall into it, the darker it gets. A UK Home Office–funded study warned that incel spaces “predict harmful attitudes and beliefs when combined with poor mental health and strong ideological conviction.” That means these forums don’t just reinforce loneliness, they radicalize it.

That’s what makes Adolescence terrifyingly urgent. It slows us down long enough to actually see what’s happening: how toxic masculinity, incel forums, and figures like Andrew Tate aren’t niche, they’re mainstream, hiding in plain sight, wrapped in memes and inside jokes.

Image Sourced through Pinterest

This makes it more difficult for cases like these to get solved and for parents to understand what kind of media their children are consuming behind closed doors. 

My hope is that for older generations, Adolescence can be a gateway for understanding. A mirror being held up to the toxic subcultures shaping young men in real time. 

And the truth is, if you don’t speak the coded language of the “red pill” or understand why a single emoji can set off an entire online discourse, you’re already behind.

The danger isn’t just the ideas themselves, it’s how slowly and subtly they spread. As Botto & Gottzén write, “radicalization was not experienced as a sudden shift, but as a gradual process of swallowing and sometimes spitting out red pill ideas” (2023). That gradual creep is exactly what makes it so insidious, and exactly what Adolescence captures with its raw, one-take realism.