


Adolescence, a Netflix mini-series, about knife crime, social media, male rage, toxic masculinity and the impact pernicious, misogynistic online influencers like Andrew Tate can have on young men has become a surprise hit.
Created by actor Stephen Graham and his wife it follows the case of a 13-year-old boy arrested for killing a female classmate.
A reviewer wrote: “Adolescence is a loud wake-up call to parents who are raising children in times of social media… I grew up on conversations they speak in emojis… I grew up on books they scroll reels… I grew up on self-discovery they are surrounded by comparisons… the pandemic is NOW! We just don’t see it.”
Stephen Graham was born 3 August 1973 Kirkby, England, no birth time, with a social worker mother and paediatric nurse stepfather, a Swedish grandmother and a Jamaican grandfather. He started acting very young and has had a memorable career with a recent outing in Peaky Blinders. He has an entertaining Leo Sun in a confident opposition to Jupiter, and in a compassionate trine to Neptune with an ambitious sextile to Pluto. His Pluto in turn is in a tough, enduring square to Saturn in Cancer. Plus a volatile, excitable Mars in Aries opposition Uranus and a Libra Moon. A complex temperament, both confident and inclined to depression, he will have highs and lows.
His creative Neptune is heavily aspected being sextile Pluto, square Venus in Virgo, trine Sun, sextile Jupiter and inconjunct Saturn and South Node.
What is intriguing is to see quite why Andrew Tate has become the figurehead for the latest social mania.
Tate, 1 December 1986, Washington, DC, no birth time, has a Sagittarius New Moon conjunct a know-it-all, self-righteous Saturn which squares onto an enthusiastic and opportunistic Mars Jupiter in Pisces. He has a litany of criminal and civil cases approaching from human trafficking, rape to financial fraud. All hotly denied.
He has a sexually manipulative Venus Pluto conjunct in Scorpio trine Mars Jupiter, sextile Neptune which fits.
A sample of his ‘influencing’ – women belong in the home, can’t drive, and are a man’s property; rape victims must “bear responsibility” for their attacks. He dates women aged 18–19 because he can “make an imprint” on them. In clips, the British-American kickboxer – who poses with fast cars, guns and portrays himself as a cigar-smoking playboy – talks about hitting and choking women, trashing their belongings and stopping them from going out.
In 2022 he became one of the most famous figures on TikTok, where videos of him have been watched 11.6 billion times, though was banned elsewhere. He appeared on InfoWars, the podcast of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones; was pictured with far-right YouTuber Paul Joseph Watson and met Donald Trump Jr at Trump Tower. He met with Nigel Farage and has spoken of ties with the anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson.
I am less interested in him than in what he represents in the culture and why such extreme views have been given an audience.
Dying days of Pluto in Capricorn? The North Node conjunct Algol in 2022? Tate does have his North Node in Aries prompting him to fight against any backsliding into dependency. If his Moon is conjunct Saturn and square Mars he will certainly dislike women and want to cause them harm. Maybe at a guess he has Pluto in his 10th also pointing to a dislike of being controlled by women so he has to suppress them.
No clear answers about the cultural phenomenon though the boys-have-lost-their-bearings worry is a good deal older than the last three years. The rise of feminism threw old certainties out of the window – and further back Pluto in Cancer during World War One broke up the old family structure and gave women independence.
A friend mentioned, maybe from this series which I haven’t seen, there was a gripe that only 20% of men/boys were attractive to women. The other 80% were rejected which is what gives rise to male resentment. She said in the bird kingdom it was why the male birds adopted brilliant plumage in the hope of attracting a mate. In other mammal species, the males have to fight each other for supremacy to gain the females acquiescence. Animals analogies are not always a good fit. But my sense is we have forgotten what the original laws of nature were. In chimp society (nearest to human), the alpha male has the right to mate but only if the female agrees, otherwise her girlfriends in the troop will attack him. There is also a clear cut ranking/pecking order where the alphas get first go of the food. The low rankers only get crumbs – and no females.
Maybe it is something to do with a narcissistic culture where everyone expects to get exactly what they want without making an effort. The old tribal initiation rites where boys were separated from their mothers and sent out as teenagers to undergo trials of strength to become men would be regarded with horror nowadays but there may have been a grain of sense in the end result.
My other – unpopular – opinion is that men and women have a different psychological make up, with men being more dependent on their egos, which is not necessarily a bad thing but just the way it is. Perhaps a half Pluto cycle – from Cancer at the start of the 20th century to a shift out of Capricorn – is forcing a rethink about the male/female balance and roles.