Making their TOMES debut today, Natalie considers a new era of teen rebellion heralded by Netflix's latest, Heartstopper: nice is the new cool.

Three episodes into new teen Netflix show Heartstopper and I was sobbing my eyes out. Not because anything bad was happening, but because everyone was being so… nice?

Over the years, the cultural depiction of teenagers has gotten bleaker and bleaker. From Skins to Euphoria to Gossip Girl, teens are always a) shagging b) drinking c) taking drugs or d) backstabbing, and more generally a combination of all four. In Skins, the TV show that I (a millennial) grew up on, one character died on average per season, with causes including terminal illness, car accidents, suicide and murder… MURDER.

In contrast, Heartstopper sees a bunch of diverse, queer teens drinking milkshakes, sending each other love heart emojis, petting dogs and generally being absolute sweeties. The romance between openly gay, geeky teenager Charlie and his new friend/crush, rugby boy Nick, unfolds gently through hugs, hot chocolates and hand-holding. Heartstopper manages to preserve its characters’ innocence without eschewing the realities of bullying (both online and in-person), coming out, or navigating your sexual and gender identity. I realised I’d become so used to seeing teens having an utterly terrible time on-screen that in Heartstopper, I was bracing for it at every turn. When it didn’t arrive, the relief was so palpable I literally wept. 

The rebellious teenager is a tale as old as time, and watching them on-screen is something that’s entertained and appalled in equal measure for decades now. Back in 1955, a brooding James Dean was arrested for public intoxication in Rebel Without a Cause, solidifying the tragic teen stereotype as he died in a car accident before the film was released. Since then we’ve seen teens regularly depicted as criminal, risk-taking, and very, very promiscuous. From the violent teens in A Clockwork Orange, Heathers and Battle Royale to the bitchy ones of Mean Girls, Clueless, Gossip Girl and Bring it On — teenage sex is the thread that weaves them all together, generally depicted as casual, frequent and often underage. There is an almost unending list of stories involving teenagers in adult/minor relationships, with movies including Juno, American Beauty, Fishtank and TV including Pretty Little Liars, The Vampire Diaries and once again, Euphoria, the list really goes on and on, and on. 

When I was a teenager (90s babies represent!) the general rule was, if your parents don’t want you to watch it, then it’s probably really cool and worth mimicking. How then did we get to the wholesome sweetness of the Gen-Z teens on-screen today? Aside from Heartstopper, shows like Sex Education see a diverse cast of teens having healthy conversations about consent and sex. Recent coming-of-age movie Booksmart defied the mean teen trope by telling a story of two unpopular, bookish students losing all of their previous disdain for their cooler classmates when they discover over one night that they’re actually pretty great people. Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade’s protagonist makes YouTube videos titled How to be Confident. It’s heartwarming and wholesome, and unsettlingly so. Is the prevalence of these stories proving that we’re post-teen rebellion? Is the new rebellion to not rebel at all?

Interestingly, Gen-Z teenagers are statistically drinking much less than millennials did, favouring good grades and mental health over blackouts and underage sex. According to the 2018 Social Media, SRE (Sex and Relationships Education) and Sensible Drinking report published by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, teenage pregnancy rates have fallen by 55% in the last decade to their lowest ever level, apparently due to better sex education in schools and a dedication to their futures (yay!) but also less time spent together in person and more time spent talking online (nay!).

Depressingly, a 2018 Guardian article on this report also suggested that behind these teenagers’ good behaviour are concerns such as climate change and a failing economy, driving a belief that they need to work especially hard now to secure their future. Even more depressingly, futurologist Rhiannon McGregor said in the same article that teenagers are worried that if they allow themselves to get messy, it’ll be documented and forever preserved in the digital realm of social media, where Gen-Z teens are spending more and more of their time. 

It’s hard to lament the obvious positives of teenagers who aren’t hell-bent on self-destruction, but there still something that makes me feel deeply sad about it. If there’s one time in your life to push boundaries, test the waters and have fun, it’s your teenage years. I recently saw film director Thomas Vinterberg in a Q&A about his Oscar-winning film Another Round (which follows a bunch of middle-aged high school teachers as they test the impact of daily drinking on their lives) say that he wanted to make a film about letting go and joy in honour of his late daughter Ida, who died aged 19 in a car accident. The film is set at her high school and stars several of her friends, many of whom — he reflected — are losing the ability to truly let go in the era of social media. If the reason teenagers aren’t losing their shit is a fear of being shamed for it online, is this new, pure brand of teen something we should be happy about?

On the other hand, after years of teenagers going wild, maybe it’s just a bit… done? After all, it’s not that the teenagers of Heartstopper aren’t having a good time, there’s still romance, nights out and hiding things from your parents, it’s just all a bit more low-key. To go against Vinterberg’s view, the reason Heartstopper is so refreshing isn’t that its characters can’t let go, it’s that they let go so easily and freely, without putting themselves or other people at risk.

The final episode of Heartstopper (spoiler alert) perfectly captures this, when formerly straight rugby boy Nick runs into the ocean, arms wide, screaming “I like Charlie Spring, not just in a friend way!” He just does it. He’s not even drunk, he’s just been on a seaside merri-go-round for ten minutes. For a mere millennial, it’s the kind of uncensored joy that’s hard to fathom.

It’s probably too early to say whether this saccharine sweet vision of youth will remain at the forefront of our culture, with obvious contemporary contradictions like Euphoria insisting the modern teen experience is more brutal than ever. And yet, in the same way that teen shows of the 2010s made me think smoking rollies and purposefully ripping my tights was the epitome of cool, perhaps the teen shows of the 2020s can make study groups the new partying, vulnerable the new aloof, and nice the new cool.

credits

words — natalie beech

design — sâde popoola