British drama Adolescence swept the floor and achieved four BAFTA awards on Sunday night.
News Just News writer Abbie Latymer looks into how the 2025 show dominated the TV industry and changed society.
A BAFTA clean sweep
The hit TV show secured four awards in this year’s BAFTAs.
Stephen Graham, who played Eddie Miller (Jamie’s dad), won best leading actor.
Owen Cooper won best supporting actor for his role as Jamie Miller and has become the youngest person to ever achieve this award.
Christine Tremarco achieved best supporting actress for the character of Manda Miller (Jamie’s mum).
The show also claimed the title of best limited drama.
How it began
Award-winning actor Graham not only executed the complex role of Jamie’s dad beautifully, he catalysed the making of Adolescence.
After seeing two separate cases involving a young boy stabbing a young girl, Graham was shaken and felt he must do something.
He told the BBC in an interview: “I thought, what’s happened today in society, where a young boy is stabbing a young girl to death.”
Graham contacted Jack Thorne, someone he had previously worked with five times, about his idea to write a TV series about teenage knife crime.
He had two requirements: “It must be one shot and the parents of the defendant must not be blamed.”
These requirements made it difficult to shape the narrative. It was only when Thorne encountered the term ‘incel culture’ that things took off.
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Understanding incel culture
Incel culture refers to a group of individuals who struggle to find a romantic or sexual partner despite wanting one.
The ideology itself is not violent.
The term was first used by a woman called Alana, who created the Incel Celibacy Project, a project meant to encourage a sense of community.
The term is now understood to defer to individuals who believe 80% of women are attracted to 20% men – a statistic that encourages males to resent females.
Jack Thorne told Romesh Ranganathan: “There’s a lot of hate because hate feels easy.”
This insight became the thematic backbone of Adolescence.
Social media and the manosphere
By 2024, 98% of Gen Z are on social media.
These platforms have become primary spaces for connection, identity-building and socialisation.
But social media is designed for engagement and rage is an emotion that encourages this.
This environment has exposed many boys to the ‘manosphere’: a community that promotes hegemonic masculinity.
Common beliefs include the idea that men are oppressed by feminism and violence against women is justified.
Social media’s engagement-powered design funnels many young boys into algorithmic echo chambers that normalise toxic masculinity and push them to mirror the attitudes and behaviours of the manosphere.
Unfortunately, events like Katie Leonard’s death in Adolescence have occurred in real life.
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Impact: A national conversation
In March 2025, Adolescence became the first streamed TV show to top the UK’s weekly audience chart, with 6.45 million people having watched it in the first week.
The one-shot drama not only initiated conversations between young people and adults but also triggered the UK government to take action.
Labour MP, Annelise Midgley, proposed that the series should be screened in government and schools.
Sir Keir Starmer backed this decision and described it as “a torch that shines intensely brightly on a combination of issues that many people don’t know how to respond to”.
The show was also a wake-up call to parents.
It has highlighted the need for parents and trusted adults to have open conversations with young people around content they view on social media and to encourage critical thinking.
Louis Theroux’s recent documentary ‘Inside the Manosphere’ further validated the show’s themes and an urgent need to address online misogyny.
Where to watch
Adolescence is currently being streamed on Netflix.
Although rate 15 in the UK, parents are encouraged to watch it with their children, especially if they are already using social media.
Open conversation, early intervention and critical thinking make all the difference.
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John Christopher Aquino 
Simon Wilkes