The incel culture and misogyny touted by toxic online influencers are shaping the beliefs and behaviour of many young people. Andrew Tate might be the figurehead of the manosphere which is a loose group of antifeminist online subcultures, but there are females like Hannah Pearl Davis who tout similar views. Amnesty International UK who polled more than 3000 young people aged 16-25 in February 2025, found that 6 in 10 think that “the words and actions of political leaders including US President Donald Trump have led to more misogynistic and divisive language online” and that “a toxic ‘bro’ culture is driving many young women away from social media altogether”. 

We don’t learn if Jamie actively buys into the messaging of the manosphere but it is clear that many of the ideas have entered his awareness and influenced his emerging sense of who he is, and what it is to be male in the 21st Century. 

So, what can parents and educators learn from Adolescence and what do we need to do to support our young people better? 

Firstly, let’s keep things in proportion

A YouGov poll, the results of which were released in May 2023, found that a quarter of young men in the UK agree with Andrew Tate’s views on how women should be treated. As adults that should worry us because research by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) unearthed 47 videos of him pushing what it describes as “extreme misogyny”. However, 75% of young men do not agree with his views and the overwhelming majority of young people have healthy, happy friendships and relationships.

Let’s put the word toxic where it belongs. Using the word to describe masculinity is unhelpful. If boys and young men believe they are ‘toxic’ in the ‘real world’, why wouldn’t they look for a tribe which makes it feel ok to be male – enter the toxic influencers of the manosphere?  If girls believe that boys and men are toxic, how will that influence their behaviour and relationships? And it is not just the language we need to be careful of. Polls conducted by Civitas found ‘41per cent of sixth-form boys and girls have been taught in school lessons that boys are a problem for society.’  

Encourage empathy

In Adolescence we learn that Katie had been sending incel emojis to Jamie and we are exposed to the culture of disrespect that permeates their school. We see teachers failing to call out inappropriate language and behaviour, creating an environment which gives tacit permission for this behaviour to continue and in this case, to escalate. With empathy comes understanding and young people need to understand how their words and actions can impact others.

Encourage friendship between girls and boys

In the programme we learn that Jamie doesn’t have friends who are girls, his dad doesn’t have friends who are women – there is a disconnect where connection is needed. We need to think about how we socialise children and encourage them to have friends of the opposite sex from an early age to build mutual understanding and respect.

Let children grow up as their authentic selves

In Adolescence we learn that Eddie (Jamie’s dad) is disappointed that his son is not sporty, and we see the devastation he experiences when he comes to realise that his inability to accept Jamie for who he is – arty, not sporty, has contributed to Jamie feeling inadequate.

Build their emotional intelligence

In the programme, we see both father and son lash out when angry, and we witness the impact on those on the receiving end, namely the young kids who trash the van, as well as Jamie’s psychologist.

We need to help young people to feel able to express their feelings, identify their needs, and set the healthy boundaries so essential for good relationships, because if they have close relationships in the real world, they won’t need to look to strangers online for validation and acceptance. 

Encourage critical thinking

In the series, we learn about the 80/20 rule which comes straight from the manosphere and is the idea that 80% of women will be with 20% of men. In other words, only the alpha males are going to get lucky.  Humankind simply wouldn’t still exist if that were true. But if you’re an adolescent boy—like Jamie—who believes he’s ugly, has been labelled an incel (involuntary celibate), and lacks the life experience to know that, throughout time, more people have had intimate relationships than not, why would you question that messaging? Help them understand that not everything they see online is accurate or helpful—especially with AI, where information might be factually correct but drawn from sources that are inherently sexist.

Build self-esteem and self-acceptance. 

• Love them for who they are.  
• Praise them for their efforts, not their outcomes.   
• Encourage them to choose friends who accept them for who they are. 
• Find and celebrate their strengths.   
• Create a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves – share family photos, stories and rituals and encourage them to get involved with groups, teams and the community.  
• Encourage them to follow people on social media who inspire them and make them feel good about themselves.   
• Encourage them to try new things.  
• Teach them how to handle problems and set boundaries.  
• Help them to find their inner coach rather than their inner critic.

Be curious. Young people are being exposed to ideas and content that we are often unaware of – who knew before watching this programme, that the red ‘100’ emoji stands for the 80/20 rule (see above)?

If we want to support young people: 

• We need to understand their world, which means being curious.   
• We need to be brave enough to talk about difficult subjects.  
• We need to congratulate them when they are open to ideas, discussion, and debate, because most young people are grappling with the messages of the manosphere and if they don’t discuss them with their friends, they can end up accepting the messaging.   
• We need to reassure them that it is ok to have different opinions. 
• We need to put aside our need to be the expert and instead learn from them. 
• We need to listen without judgement and try not to criticise their choices and interests whilst getting them thinking.  
• We must focus on the behaviour of an influencer rather than the influencer themselves – slating someone like Tate will shut down conversation whereas using his views to initiate wider conversation is likely to be met with less defensiveness. For example, you might ask, “Do you think his views about women are ok?  How would you feel if someone treated your sister/cousin/mother like that?” “How do you think his views might affect his relationships?” “Would you be ok with another girl sending the incel emoji to your brother/best male friend?’ 

Help them to become upstanders

We can help young people to see that gently challenging peers who express unacceptable behaviour is helping them, in a comparable way to not letting a friend drink and drive. Teach them that one voice can make a difference because it gives others permission to follow suit, and that, implicitly or explicitly, they will be supported and respected for their bravery. 

One conversation is never enough

In the same way that the messages of the manosphere have been drip fed into their world, our counter messaging needs to follow suit.  

Challenge unhelpful thinking

So much human suffering comes back to unhelpful thinking – Jamie believes he is ugly, that his father doesn’t respect him because he isn’t proficient on the football pitch. The truth is that our brains will conjure up millions of thoughts that can make us feel worried, anxious, sad, angry, jealous, inadequate etc, etc. What is also true is that most of these thoughts are not facts. Anxiety is future based and usually focuses on the worst-case scenario – it hasn’t happened, so it can’t be true. The past is just our interpretation of events. Learning to spot and reframe unhelpful thinking is key to changing how we view ourselves and others, but it is a skill which must start with awareness.  

Give reassurance

Being a teenager has never been easy, but it has never been this hard.  Be empathic about the particular challenges they face and let them know that it is normal to be anxious about how others perceive us, to worry about relationships, to feel insecure from time to time, to feel out of our depth, to be upset by things people say and do. This is life as it always has been and whilst we might not have the power to change the actions of others, we do have the power to manage our responses and our environment, both online and offline.  We can walk away from people who upset us, we can curate our social media feeds, we can influence the algorithms, and we can take ourselves off platforms that are not working for us.

Be brave

There are many positives to social media but until we can rely on big tech to act responsibly and stop inappropriate content reaching our children, we must put measures in place to protect them. One of the sadder moments in Adolescence is when the parents say they thought they were protecting Jamie by letting him game in his room, because surely that was safer than being out on the streets with his mates. As parents we need to be brave enough to set boundaries that our children won’t like, such as no screens in bedrooms. Our job is not to give our children what they want, it is to protect them by giving them what they need. It might not win you popularity votes in the moment but talking to young adults whose parents did impose limits, I have never met one who wasn’t grateful. So much of parenting, from toilet training to making them do chores, requires short term pain, but surely it is worthwhile when we consider the long-term gain for our children. 

What I have attempted to outline above is the proactive, preventative approach that we can all take to protect children and young people. We also need to be able to spot the red flags that suggest a child or young person is being negatively influenced. In this context it might be attempting to justify harmful behaviour, referring to the Matrix, using harmful or derogatory language, being physically violent towards others or disrespecting authority figures and peers. In Adolescence we hear that Jamie’s school work has not been up to previous standards, which should have been a red flag that something might be amiss in his inner world – when we feel ok, we act ok, and we are only going to notice when things are going wrong if we are connected, curious and kind. 

Resources for further understanding: 

• Members of The Wellbeing Hub can view the webinar we ran with Fredi Beard here – Webinar recording: healthy masculinity and friendships with Fredi Beard  
• CSJ-The_Lost_Boys.pdf 
• Show, Tell and Leave Nothing to the imagination: How critical social justice is undermining British schooling 
• Masculinity and women’s equality: study finds emerging gender divide in young people’s attitudes | King’s College London 
• Tony Porter: A call to men | TED Talk 
• Through Her Eyes video – tackling harassment and misogyny | Southwark Council 
• Enough Campaign – we can all do something to challenge abuse 
• AI ‘Aggro-rithms’ target boys with harmful content within 60s 
• About the Boys – BBC 
• Armour (short-film) – Beyond Equality