Why You So Obsessed with Me: Teenagehood in Television
About the series: “Why You So Obsessed with Me”
We all have our obsessions — that T.V. show we can’t seem to stop rewatching, that ex that still lingers in our minds even after blocking them, that fixation on a certain musician that we would do anything (anything!) for. Some are juvenile interests that make our lives more entertaining, while others can slide into dangerous territory (like that ex, for example). And when the word “obsession” gets paired with any marginalized identity, the term has an even more negative connotation — think LGBTQ+-centric fandoms or “feminine” interests. At Camp Thirlby, we want to explore these obsessions and deconstruct the concept to be a potentially liberating one, which is where our series “Why You So Obsessed with Me” comes in. To the tune of Mariah Carey’s song, our Camp Counselors have delved into their various obsessions even more to unpack what they might mean for their lives and identities, entailing the movie they can’t stop watching or their fixation with the scary, scary future. Whether it’s a method for them to grow into their obsessions or decide to leave them, these memoirs act as a shrine to the things we love, and maybe love too much.
As a 13 year old, I was capitivated by the dark worlds of Pretty Little Liars and The Vampire Diaries filled with manipulation, murder, and romance. Needless to say, the high school experiences of Elena Gilbert or the PLL clique were highly unrealistic — no one my age was getting seduced by vampires or acting as the mastermind behind a long, twisted game to torture teenage girls (that I know of). Seven years later, I still find myself fascinated by the same genre. The only difference is I’ve gotten older, so why am I still watching shows about teenagers? By the same token, why are people who are past their teenage years so obsessed with dark teen dramas?
As a teen, these shows felt semi-relatable because at the very least, I was going through middle or high school at the same time the characters were. While highly dramatized, the way female friend groups were portrayed in Pretty Little Liars mirrored the highs and lows I experienced in my own friendships. So in middle school, teen dramas that somehow mirrored my own were helpful in affirming my own experience.
Looking at more current shows, like Riverdale, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Thirteen Reasons Why, and Euphoria, adults (myself included) seem to be engaging with shows centering teenagers dealing with sex, relationships, substance abuse, violence, and trauma. While these shows all deal with similar topics, the levels of success in how each issue is portrayed unfortunately varies. Riverdale, for example, is clearly meant to entertain soap-opera style rather than tackle the serious issues teenagers face today. Ignoring the convoluted plot-lines of gangs, drug operations, cults, and contract killings, even the more “mundane” storylines of romance seem to be overly-focused on sex and shock-value. Despite the flare for dramatics shows like Riverdale and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina have, there is a sort of comfort I find in taking on the highly ridiculous stress of fictional characters who are living lives so unlike my own.
In contrast, Thirteen Reasons Why, does attempt to portray teenagehood with a sort of realism and attention to inner struggles. The problem though, is that it cannot avoid the trap of its search for virality. The original intent of the show — to shed light on teenage suicide and depression — gets lost in the theatrics of its portrayal of suicide, which is romaticized and turned into a revenge plot against those who wronged Hannah Baker. This is where Euphoria differs from all the aforementioned shows. Euphoria is careful to portray the high highs, low lows, and the in-betweens of each character’s plight. Rue’s pain, both physical and emotional, can be felt through the screen as she struggles with drug addiction, depression, and bipolar disorder. The teenagers are all in search of happiness and conception of self, and Euphoria proves that seeking those moments can be incredibly painful — something both teenagers and adults can see themselves in.
Escapism is a huge factor for engaging in television shows in general, but why do we want to escape to teenagedom particularly? Youth tends to be romanticized in American culture and media. We yearn to be young forever and, maybe, by watching teenagers on a screen, we get to be, if only for an hour. But if we are constantly striving for ways to maintain our youth, and by extension, our relevance, why is it that the representation of what it is to be a teenager is so dark? And what is it about the combination of darkness and youth that is so appealing?
Part of what shows like Euphoria and Thirteen Reasons Why aim to do is tell a more candid, gritty version of what it’s like to be an American teenager. These shows are engaging because they talk about the taboo experiences that teenagers go through: drug addiction, sexual assault, and mental illness. Teenagers and adults alike are able to relate to their realism, although the depictions can often be highly dramatized. But at what cost? Thirteen Reasons Why exemplifies why using television to tell stories about teenage suicide and mental illness can be dangerous — the show led to a 28.9% increase in suicide rates among U.S. youth ages 10-17 in the following month of its intial release. Youth are extremely susceptible to being influenced by the media they consume, so the ways in which serious topics like suicide is represented merits extreme caution and consideration as to whether it will do more harm than good.
This begs the question as to whether teen shows should even be marketed to teens in the first place. The intended audience of teen shows is often meant to reach both teenagers and adults in order to capitalize on the widest audience possible. This need to capture a large viewership might be a factor for the growing number of teen shows that cover more “adult” topics. If television producers are prioritizing the amount of views a show has and sex and violence-focused plots that have more shock-value are given precedence, then it would seem that teen dramas are not entirely made for teens themselves. It’s not that I think teenagers can’t handle serious topics or that we need to be policing what they can or can’t watch, but if a show is going to be marketed to teens, there needs to be a conscious effort on the part of producers and writers to avoid the glamorization of teen trauma. This is not to say that all teen dramas are problematic in their portrayal of trauma. Some shows that handle teen trauma with more care and less unnecessary dramatization include Atypical, Sex Education, The Fosters, Spinning Out, I Am Not Okay With This, Everything Sucks!, SKAM, among many more. These shows demonstrate the importance of depicting adolescence in its complexity, validating all experiences of teenagehood, especially the ones that often go unmentioned.
Getting wrapped up in someone else’s trauma in order to momentarily escape your own is one reason why we might find ourselves obsessed with teen dramas. But the danger of obsessing with a genre that speaks to the darkness in our lives, is that it could work to intensify that darkness in ourselves, blurring the lines between reality and fiction.
About the Author
Lola Proctor (she/her/hers) is a writer and editor based out of Los Angeles and New York. Currently a junior at New York University, she is studying the Politics of Fashion & Journalism. She is passionate about womxn in indie rock, fashion, writing, and feminism. You can find more of her work here.
