Adolescence: The Need for Positive Role Models in Young Men

Adolescence - the impactful 4 part drama on Netflix

The Netflix drama Adolescence might be fictional, but it’s struck a chord by reflecting a very real crisis facing young men today, growing isolation, confusion, and a desperate need for guidance in a world that often seems to have written them off. It has started an important conversation, and it is one that we urgently need to keep going.

When I think back to my teenage years in the ’90s, it’s a mix of nostalgia and face-palming cringe. Sure, I had my stack of well-thumbed FHM and Loaded magazines, and bedroom stereo was permanently, blasting "gangster rap" with lyrics that without doubt worried my parents. On the surface, you might think “hardly the healthiest influences” and you’d be right. But while those magazines wouldn’t be considered politically correct today, they weren’t actively promoting the same toxicity we see online now. They were often silly, sometimes cringeworthy and on reflection sexist, but they didn’t push the same type of harmful attitudes.

More importantly, those cultural touchstones were balanced by real human connections. That football coach who’d make time to ask how you were really doing while setting out the training cones. The youth worker who’d let you hang around the youth club even when you were being a moody git or even a mate’s older brother to call it out and offer a better perspective. These everyday heroes gave us something no magazine or Snoop Dogg lyric ever could….a sense that we mattered, that someone actually gave a damn.

Fast forward to today, and I worry we’ve lost that crucial balance. Too many lads are growing up with algorithms as their only mentors, their worldviews shaped by an endless scroll of Andrew Tate clones and outrage peddlers, each more extreme than the last. These influencers don’t just offer warped advice; they sell entire identities built on dominance, disrespect, and empty materialism. And here’s the problem - there’s often no one in these boys’ lives to say, Hold up, mate that’s not how decent men behave.

This hits working-class lads hardest of all. Many already feel like the system’s stacked against them, schools that don’t understand them, job markets that don’t want them, a world that seems to either pity or fear them. So when some slick-talking influencer comes along saying, They don’t respect you, but I will, just follow me! Is it any wonder they bite? What these boys are really crying out for isn’t some “alpha male” nonsense, it’s the basic human need to feel valued, to know their voice matters beyond the four walls of their bedroom.

I remember what it felt like when that adult would actually listen, properly listen to what I had to say. Not just humour me, but engage, challenge, make me feel like my thoughts were worth something. That’s the antidote to the poison these online charlatans are selling.

That’s why we’ve got to rebuild those real-world connections with urgency. Not every young man has a positive role model at home but they all deserve one. Whether it’s through properly funded youth clubs, mentoring schemes that reach the kids who need them most, or just making time for that quiet lad in the corner who everyone else has written off. The alternative doesn’t bear thinking about, a generation of boys raised not by communities, but by engagement-optimising algorithms that profit from their anger and isolation.

But here’s the hopeful part: change starts small. It starts with looking up from our phones long enough to really listen to the young men in our lives. With remembering that behind every “difficult” teenager is just a kid trying to figure out his place in the world. With creating spaces where boys can be vulnerable without feeling weak, where they can question without being mocked, where they can grow into men without pretending to be some invincible alpha caricature.

That’s how we’ll build a generation of men who are truly strong, not because they’ve learned to dominate others, but because they’ve learned to understand and believe in themselves. And frankly, that’s a future worth fighting for.

Oxonia can offer specific and expert training and advice around this issue as well as all forms of exploitation. I’ve had years of experience in working with isolated children who have been indoctrinated by this type of toxic narrative. Society and the care sector have been sleep walking into an existential crisis for young men and boys and it’s high time we took action. It is a shame that it took a Netflix drama to open the eyes of many people (particularly in decision making positions) who were unaware that this type of exploitation was even an issue.

If you want to find out more about what we can offer and how we can help, please get in touch.

By Fred Toon

Specialist Consultant (Exploitation and Substance Misuse)