Adolescence: Who is raising our sons?

Forget familiar teenage angst. The British Drama Adolescence plunges into a darker abyss and dares to confront the unsettling impact of the internet on young boys.

Written by Jack Thorne and brought to life by Stephen Graham’s unmatched sensitivity and grit, Adolescence is a four-part series with a technical twist. Each episode unfolds in a single take, immersing us in real-time chaos. But the true genius of this drama lies not in the camerawork. It’s in its subject: a boy, a murder and the quiet, creeping indoctrination of male rage.

Fourteen-year-old Jamie Miller is arrested for the murder of his classmate Katie. There’s no mystery to solve; we’re told early on that Jamie did it. The show isn't concerned with the act. It’s asking a much more uncomfortable question: Why are some boys killing girls? And we, the viewers, parents, teachers and therapists, are forced to confront a truth we’ve long avoided: Who is raising our sons?

The detectives in Adolescence don’t find Jamie’s motive in his home. They find it online, on Instagram threads, buried in emojis and lurking behind teenage inside jokes. As the adults scramble to piece together what their kids already know, we see the full power of the manosphere: a sprawling, loosely connected web of online spaces where male insecurity festers into misogyny.

Here, figures like Andrew Tate, a self-declared “alpha male” who glamorises violence, submission and wealth, are worshipped as prophets. Others like MTR (Mediocre Tutorials and Reviews) cloak their content in self-help and dating advice but often end up pushing narratives that dehumanise women and glorify emotional detachment.

What makes the manosphere so effective is its reach. You don’t need to go looking for it; it finds you. The algorithm notices when a boy watches a breakup video or a fitness tutorial. From there, it slips him videos about “high-value men,” “female nature” and “why nice guys finish last.” Before long, he’s nodding along to monologues about how women only want rich, muscular, emotionally unavailable men and how he needs to either become one or resent them forever.

Adolescence captures this slow, sinister transformation. In one of the most gripping episodes, Jamie sits across from a psychologist, Briony. She doesn’t just question him, she digs. She peels back the memes, the jokes, the half-believed ideologies he’s picked up. What emerges is not a monster, but a confused boy echoing back a worldview he absorbed online. A worldview where Katie wasn’t a person, but a symbol of everything he was denied.

This is what makes the show terrifying: there are no abusive parents, no gothic trauma, no simple answers. Jamie’s just a regular boy who started listening to the wrong people.

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In Kenya, we often treat the manosphere as a Western problem. But it’s already here and thriving. Most of this content, though often cloaked in humour and “truth bombs,” reinforces the same patriarchal ideas: that women are manipulative, disloyal and deserving of harsh correction. Often advising men to withdraw love, withhold commitment and never be vulnerable.

But what happens when boys raised on this content enter relationships? When rejection triggers rage instead of reflection? When is control seen as strength and empathy as weakness?

Adolescence doesn’t point fingers; it holds up a mirror. It asks parents, educators and policymakers, where are you while this is happening? Because the manosphere is filling a gap we refuse to acknowledge. It offers; community and answers but it also breeds entitlement, resentment and oftentimes, violence.

What Adolescence does brilliantly is keep the victim present. Katie isn’t forgotten in the swirl of psychology and digital culture. Her death remains a raw, aching hole in every scene. And her story echoes far beyond fiction.

In the real world, girls are paying the price for our silence. Across the globe, especially in Kenya, cases of femicide, sexual assault and school-based violence are rising. Many of these acts are rooted in the same ideologies: that women owe men affection, attention and obedience. That rejection is betrayal. That violence is justified.

And all the while, we’re still telling boys to “man up,” to hide their tears, to never admit fear. And when they fail, when they explode, we act surprised.

Adolescence doesn’t offer solutions; it asks hard questions. What kind of masculinity are we modelling? Who’s guiding our sons through the chaos of adolescence? Are we listening to them, or are we leaving them to be mentored by the internet?

This isn’t just a cautionary tale, it’s a call to action. To talk. To teach. To reimagine masculinity as something healthy, humane and whole. Because until we do, the manosphere will keep doing the teaching for us.

And next time, it won’t just be a fictional Katie who dies.

The author, Eve Waruingi, is a counselling psychologist.