In January 2025, a third and possibly final season of HBO’s Euphoria will begin airing. The series has changed the course of youth media drastically, creating a new dynamic for adolescents around what their lives should look like. It touches the hearts of audiences around the globe, shining a light on real, pressing issues like addiction, abuse, and the dangers of social media— but with that outreach comes huge responsibility. In the show, we see a wide variety of characters with vastly different struggles. The relatability aspect is supposed to provide the audience with a better moral compass, attempting to raise awareness so adolescents who do relate are able to see the consequences of their actions play out on screen.
So, what’s the catch? Much of Euphoria is a portrayal of teenage delinquents. They go out and party consistently, glamorizing the usage of hard drugs and creating an idealization around aggressive and abusive sexual relationships. However, in conversation with Entertainment Weekly, Sam Levinson, the creator of the show, commented “I think part of what's so difficult to try and navigate the world at this age right now is there is no map. There's no compass, there's no one to kind of guide you one way or another. Because it's a brand-new world every five years. I think that's what makes it particularly difficult is that kind of very real and big disconnect between parents and children. So if anything, I hope that it at least opens up a dialogue between the two because it's hard being a teenager. It's difficult, especially if you're struggling with addiction and battling those things. Hopefully, it'll open up those means of communication,” making it clear that the purpose of the content is to raise awareness.
However, Euphoria’s notability has skyrocketed, widening their audience, particularly to age groups much younger than intended. This type of viral attention loses control of the intended impact, opening up the floor to viewers who are often too young to understand the deeper context. Simultaneously, older generations are discovering the show and criticizing its message. It’s clear that much of the heaviness and maturity displayed in the show was for shock factor, but looking closer, underlying themes emerge, and they have little intent to harm adolescents. Levinson, when asked about his controversial show, simply said, “I just wrote myself as a teenager.”
His aim to make youth feel seen was successful, fueled by controversy and potential side effects as much as by relatability. The majority of Euphoria’s success was due to the teenage response in the media—across Instagram, X, or Tiktok. Every character, scene, and relationship was a cultural reset and gave some adolescents an aspect of relatability, while also pushing harmful rhetoric and idolization to others. Euphoria impacted an entire generation of youth and their overarching views on the world. An anonymous student, when surveyed, said “The beauty and unfiltered-ness made it (Euphoria) unique. Edits on Tiktok and BuzzFeed quizzes took over my feed. I lived by and through the show for a while.” This brings up various conflicting questions: Do youth romanticize toxic love, friendship, or substance abuse because we’ve seen them on TV, or are we actually better able to recognize bad behavior because we’ve seen it on TV?
Exemplifying this impact, we can look at an infamous scene from Season 1, Episode 2. Rue narrates some of Nate’s mental checklist of things he likes and dislikes in women— and there are endless criteria. He likes thigh gaps, full lips with small noses. But he hates girls who talk or sit like boys— and he hates body hair. Watching this scene, a young adult— or even a mature teenager— could look past the surface-level content. The clear direction of this scene was to show the way men objectify women and pick them apart for what is or isn’t, “ideal.” It’s supposed to be a criticism of the patriarchy. This bit was intended to make the audience disgusted by Nate for depersonalizing women. But for so many people this had the adverse effect of what was intended.
In reaction to the scene online, many people criticized Nate’s character. This made him dislikeable for a good bunch of consumers. But not the majority. Seeing this scene reposted on TikTok and Instagram alike, a generous amount of young girls excitedly left comments along the lines of, “I match almost all of his criteria.” On the other hand, I noticed a handful of older men interacting as well. The majority left comments agreeing with Nate, stating, “We all like that.”
Circling back, we can see Euphoria had a target demographic. But, with such a popular series, crowd reactions won’t all be linear to the original intent. Even with an audience of teenagers, we can see that so many took this scene into their own perception of themselves, using this as their own criteria, and celebrating when they “fit” into it. Although the hope was to villainize characters who objectified women; so many young girls used this to scale their value and importance in the world. Using the audience’s diverse reactions- we can begin to understand how media can impact us, using portrayals to send a message. And often, that message is received in ways producers can’t control.
It’s evident that the impact of Euphoria was as encouraging for some as it was harmful to others. As the media influences our perspective, a bigger issue forms when we let what we see embody us. And that’s the biggest flaw in media consumption— the search for ourselves in everything. Throughout the dispute around Euphoria, there’s equal responsibility to the audience, and how we, as consumers, let it consume us. There’s the constant question of, "How is this made for me? How can I consume it in a way that is personal, rather than general?" There seems to be an unconsolable craving for relatability, whether it is to find it in what you already are or to become it. To idolize a character in order to feel closer to them. To feel chosen.
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