Áilín Quinlan: Adolescence series is a warning siren for parents, the government and gardaí

It’s caused a tsunami of concern in the UK. And it should be doing the same here.

Ireland has the same toxic childhood culture as the UK, driven by the same social media leaking the same poisoned ideology of misogynism and toxic masculinity.

Social media has the same iron grip and the same kind of ‘parenting’ influence on the minds of Irish kids that the UK is now so fearfully acknowledging is the case, with theirs following the launch of Adolescence, the smash-hit mini-series on Netflix.

The drama focuses on the growing culture of aggression and violence towards women as a result of the influence of incels (Involuntary Celibates), an ideology which points the finger at women for male inability to form good relationships or, indeed, any relationships, and for men’s perceived lack of opportunities in the world.

A worried, even frightened, debate has arisen in Britain as a result of the series, which centres around the fictional story of a 13-year-old Yorkshire lad accused of the fatal multiple stabbing of a fellow student, and what factors may have motivated him to murder her.

There have been newspaper headlines, highbrow discussions on TV, a debate in the House of Commons, and discussions on American talk shows.

A Labour MP has called for the series to be screened in the British parliament and in schools. It could, she declared, play a role in helping to counter a growing culture of misogyny and violence against women and girls.

British Prime Minister Kier Starmer has praised the series, revealing that he’d watched it with his own teenagers.

The scriptwriter has urged the UK government to take action to tackle the issues that are raised in the series, primarily the issue of the negative influences that social media and incel culture are having on quite young children.

The story: an ordinary schoolboy aged 13 from an ordinary family in Yorkshire. During a dawn raid at his home, police arrest 13-year-old Jamie Miller on suspicion of murdering his fellow student Katie Leonard in a frenzied stabbing attack. The boy has been caught on camera stalking, attacking, and killing the girl.

The series investigates the possible consequences – in this case, the fatal consequences – of a culture of toxic masculinity, with the second episode showing a clearly intelligent, experienced, professional, capable detective and sergeant blundering around the dead girl’s school in the quest for a motive.

Finally, the issue is clarified. There is mention of the ‘manosphere’. A reference to Andrew Tate. To incels. A statistic comes up; the ‘80-20’ issue. I had to look it up. This is an assertion that 80% of women would only consider 20% of men as good enough to form a relationship with.

What is the manosphere, who are incels and who is Andrew Tate?

Put very simply, the manosphere is a collection of online men’s rights groups. Members are males who see themselves as involuntarily celibate (this is where the phrase ‘incels’ comes from).

These men blame women for the perceived devaluation and loss of their masculine power, and for their failure to form relationships. They believe in masculine entitlement over women and over women’s bodies.

And – an issue that really comes out in the young men in the series – there is lookism, an obsession with appearance, and a belief in active discrimination by females based on a male’s appearance.

The belief is that girls won’t go for guys who look ‘ugly’ and are deemed unpopular. This joyless, bleak, finger-pointing ideology of hatred has resulted, authorities in the UK are now increasingly acknowledging, in a frightening tide of resentment and rage amongst young men.

The findings of a study published earlier this month showed most young women in the UK are now scared of men their own age.

The dark-haired, good-looking lad at the centre of this familial and social nightmare now believes that this is the case for him – that the pretty, popular girl he approached ‘dissed’ him because he is supposedly ugly and unpopular, and this is why he currently has no chance, and never will have any chance, with girls. And he is full of rage. Seething with it.

Not yet out of childhood, this schoolboy has images of naked and semi-naked women on his Instagram account. Barely into his teens, Jamie has been indoctrinated by misogynistic influences, bullied online, and called an ‘incel’.

At one point, his well-intentioned but uncomprehending parents acknowledge that their young son would come home, run up the stairs, and remain in his bedroom on his computer until late at night. They assumed he was safe because he was in his bedroom.

However, their complacency was unfounded; it emerges that this child was being radicalised by poisonous online propaganda. Against women. And at 13 he was caught on camera stalking, attacking, and stabbing a girl from his class who had rejected his advances and publicly dubbed him an incel.

OK. So, who is Andrew Tate? If you don’t know about him, you probably soon will.

But in the meantime, he is basically a self-proclaimed and highly influential misogynist.

The culture of misogyny online is now a cause of massive concern for authorities in the UK. A police chief recently described as “quite terrifying” the online radicalisation and influencing of young boys by Tate, who has been banned by social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

This series is openly acknowledging what many people have believed for a long time now. That the internet is parenting children - and that it is parenting children just as much as their parents are. And, possibly, in some cases, even more.

It offers a deeply disturbing insight into the rage and hatred driving young male minds, distorted by the continual viewing online of violence against women and girls, and the abuse of women and girls and anti-feminist propaganda and the normalisation of hatred of women.

The series is set in a town in England. But it could just equally be set in Cork city, or Carrigaline, or Ballincollig, or Bandon. Or in Limerick, Clonmel, or Dungarvan.

In effect, Adolescence is a warning siren for Irish parents, for the Irish government and for the gardaí, just as much as it has been for British parents and the UK authorities.

We can’t afford to ignore the horror of what Adolescence reveals.

Nor can we afford the error of assuming that our own young children and teenagers are not being exposed to the same poison on the iPads and smartphones we are so obliviously gifting them for Christmas, birthdays, communions or confirmations.