What Does Netflix’s Drama ʻAdolescenceʼ Tell Us About Incels and the Manosphere?

Have you been watching The Matrix?
— Luke Bascombe, ʻAdolescenceʼ

In episode two of Netflix’s ‘Adolescence’, the character Luke Bascombe has a conversation with his 15-year-old son who deciphers the meaning of different coloured emojis on Instagram posts that are central to the murder investigation that Bascombe is leading. The significance of the different colours of the emojis results in the above epigraph. While this is one of the few moments of levity in the series, it serves as an illustration of a very important point. Namely, the intergenerational and cultural divide that prevents parents from understanding the real-world offline impact that online behaviours, language use, and sub-cultures are having on young people. 

While the series is a clear work of fiction, it is incredibly well-researched, meaning that many of its themes can be used to explain real-life aspects of incels and the manosphere. Indeed, the success of ‘Adolescence’ can perhaps be attributed to three inter-related issues. First, the societal concern that comes with the increasing popularity of ideas and themes related to misogyny and the “manosphere”. Second, the impact on children and young people being constantly subjected to these online views and ideas while also experiencing the uncertainties and socialisation processes that come with teenagerhood. Third, the concerns parents have about what their children are doing online in the privacy of their own rooms.

This short piece will elaborate on the aspects of the incel subculture covered in ‘Adolescence’ to provide an overview of the ideas and themes contained therein before going on to place this in the wider socio-political context.

What does ʻAdolescenceʼ tell us about incels and the manosphere?

The scene in ‘Adolescence’ described above does a good job of portraying how hard it can be to understand the linguistic practices and themes of online subcultures, and this is particularly difficult with incels. Indeed, the majority of the audience may not have heard the terms “incel”, “manosphere” or “redpill” before.

The term “incel” itself is a portmanteau of “involuntary celibate” and refers to an online subculture that has grown significantly in popularity since its emergence in 2014 following Elliot Rodger’s Isla Vista spree killing; an attack that was largely driven by Rodger’s sexual frustration and grievance against woman for “rejecting him”. Initially starting in a specific sub-Reddit, this subculture spread to other sub-Reddits and specific online forums; creating an ecosystem of online spaces hosting incel content that is colloquially referred to as the ‘incelosphere’ (Baele et al., 2023). 

The incel subculture subscribes to the notion that attractiveness is pre-determined by genetic factors, which dictate our physical appearance, and that these are the features that women find attractive in men (Baele et al., 2019; Ging, 2019; Hoffman et al., 2020). Members of this subculture then believe these physical traits to be substandard in themselves and that they are therefore “doomed to a life of involuntary celibacy”. Empirical evidence indicates that this notion fosters a sense of isolation and loneliness, which in some cases drives individuals to become increasingly frustrated and jealous of those around them who they perceive to be in happy sexual relationships (van Brunt and Taylor, 2021).

During the course of the show, the “80/20 rule” is mentioned a few times, with the main character saying “I believe that bit”. The 80/20 rule is the belief that 80% of women are only interested in pursuing sexual relationships with the most physically attractive 20% of men. These most attractive men are referred to as “Chads”, a term that was originally coined in the incelosphere but which has now spread to mainstream parts of the internet, with the most attractive women being referred to as "Stacies". In the middle of this social hierarchy of attractiveness, there are then the ‘normies’. The incels then place themselves at the bottom of this attractiveness hierarchy due to their perceived ugliness.

Believing that these ideas reflect reality is referred to within this subculture as being “red pilled”; a reference to ‘The Matrix’ where Neo takes the red pill to become aware of the true nature of the world around him. In contrast, the community views being ‘blue pilled’, which means someone does not buy into these ideas, as being ignorant of this social structure. However, the show did not mention the third type of pill that the incels discuss; the ‘black pill’. This idea of being ‘black pilled’ is a nihilistic extension of the red pill, in that it involves coming to the belief that the above social hierarchy not only exists, but that it is also immutable and that nothing can be done to move from one social category to another. In other words, someone who is born an incel will stay an incel forever (Baele et al., 2019; Ging, 2019; Hoffman et al., 2020). The nilihilistic nature of the black pill concept is perhaps why it is often discussed in relation to suicide within the incelosphere.

The show also does a good job of highlighting how many of these notions, such as the red pill, the ‘sexual marketplace’, and a sense of entitlement to sex from women stem from, and contribute to, other online communities concerned with ‘men’s rights’ that are collectively known as the “manosphere”. Traditionally, these manosphere communities fell into one of four broad categories: Men’s Rights Activists (MRA), Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW), Pick-Up Artists (PUA), and incels (Farrell et al., 2019; Fitzgerald, 2020; Ging, 2019; Ribeiro et al., 2020). However, as many of the ideas from these different groups have become more mainstream in recent years, they have started to merge in places and evolve into a broader and more nebulous set of anti-woman and misogynistic grievances.

Incels, the manosphere, and the wider context

In the last episode of ‘Adolescence’, the parents of the attacker are discussing how they may have failed as parents by not realising the kind of content their child was engaging with; with the father saying “remember that guy that came up on my phone telling me to hate women when I was just watching a video for the gym?”. Although obviously a dramatic scene, this is a good depiction of how mainstream these misogynistic ideas and views have become online, with males of all ages increasingly being exposed to them; regardless of whether or not they are actively seeking out this content.

It is easy to attribute the mainstreaming of these ideas to the likes of Andrew Tate, whose misogynistic views of society and how women should be treated have become emblematic of the manosphere. Indeed, some headline grabbing studies have shown that 18-29 year old males are more likely to have a favourable opinion of Tate and his views on women compared to older males and their female contemporaries (i.e., Smith, 2023). However, it is important to not overstate the significance of these specific individuals. Indeed, once one looks beyond the diatribe of the manosphere, it becomes clear that there are wider social-cultural changes occurring that extend beyond it.

For example, it is increasingly understood that there is a growing gender divide amongst Gen Z men and women. Studies are now consistently showing that there is an emerging global trend whereby Gen Z men are becoming more politically conservative and Gen Z women more liberal (i.e., Burn-Murdoch, 2024), with one global study showing that this gender divide was particularly significant when it came to the issue of gender equality (Chung, 2025).

This is occurring at a time when internet use has increased amongst all age groups, but with the proportion of time spent online being largest amongst young people; with some reporting that they are “always” connected to the internet in some manner (see Anderson and Jiang, 2018; Ofcom, 2021). It has been shown that this increased amount of time online is contributing to Gen Z regularly reporting higher rates of loneliness than previous generations (Bowler, 2020). In particular, studies indicate that time spent on social media sites increase the chances of individuals feeling lonely due to it causing an elevated sense of missing out; often referred to as FOMO (“fear of missing out") (Lyngdoh et al., 2023).

At the same time, recent years have seen two significant changes in domestic extremist violence that are increasingly being attributed to these changes in online behaviours. First, the number of young people being referred to Prevent and charged under the Terrorism Act is increasing; with the number of Prevent referrals that were subsequently adopted as Channel cases involving individuals under 20-years of age outnumbering all other age groups for the first time in the year ending 2022 (Home Office, 2022).

Secondly, the nature of domestic extremist violence is beginning to change, with individuals increasingly having a less clear ideological motivation while still elevating their personal grievances to a group; essentially not being motivated by ideology, but using ideas they have encountered online as a way to understand and process their personal grievances. This was seen in the tragic Plymouth attack in 2021. The official inquest into this incident concluded that it was not ideologically motivated, with the attacker being driven by personal grievances; with a particular animus towards his mother. The inquest results are in line with both the UK’s legal definitions and criteria as well as academic/analytical understanding of extremist and terrorist violence. However, a data-driven analysis of the attacker’s online behaviour on sub-Reddits and YouTube showed that he was an active member of the incelsophere and parroted many of the ideas present on those online spaces. Similarly, in recent years, there have been several other examples of individuals whose personal grievances have been moulded by interactions within the incelosphere to carry out activities of violence that do not fit the traditional definitions of terrorism or extremist violence. One example being a man who attacked a woman and her young daughter with a knife in Ontario, Canada in 2019. Another being a man who was sentenced in California during 2021 for cyberstalking and online harassment after engaging with incel online spaces.

An emerging body of research is starting to posit that this triad of increased time online and sense of loneliness and frustration, younger people engaging with extreme ideas and notions, and personal grievance and frustrations being framed within a wider discussion of ideas encountered online are interrelated (i.e., Brace et al., 2024; Criezis, 2020; Gartenstein-Ross et al., 2023). This is a cocktail of influences that are alluded to in the fictional work of ‘Adolescence’; a testament to how well researched it was.