Do teens today have those generational coming of age teen shows or is everything so fragmented now? 90210 was just a slight bit ahead of my time, but I was of prime adolescence age during Buffy/Dawson’s Creek and even watched some of The OC after and even a smidge of OG Gossip Girl. I wonder if teens these days will look back on such a defining show several decades from now, or if the way we consume content now has changed that.
I guess there's The Summer I Turned Pretty? and maybe Outer Banks and Ginny & Georgia, but they're all quite short and I'm not sure they'll have a ton of rewatch ability in 10-20 years time.
I feel like most teens now just go and watch old teen dramas from the 90s/00s - especially since there's a real want for longer seasons, filler episodes and being able to spend more time with those characters.
I think maybe Riverdale is one of the most recent examples that lasted a while? But I feel you. I followed Buffy and those characters from when I was 12 (season 1) through 18 (season 7) years old. Basically my entire adolescence!
I would imagine that it’s very different these days because seasons are so short now! You have teen shows like Sex Education and Wednesday where it’ll be 8-10 episodes every two years. It seems like it would be a very different fandom experience compared to when the coming of age teen dramas would be on year round to obsess over. I see a lot of joking on twitter about how much older someone is now compared to when they first started watching say Euphoria as a teenager
Yep! Good point. I mentioned in another comment but Buffy literally aired when I was 12-18 years old. I was 12 during season 1 and 18 when Buffy ended. Basically my entire adolescence! And because of that I still hold it so very fondly.
my niece is 13 and pretty much all of the series she watches are old ones that were airing when i was in my 20s (Gilmore Girls, Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, etc).
there's definitely still teen shows, some even with longer runs - the vampire diaries, riverdale, all american, glee, pretty little liars, friday night lights, the fosters, one tree hill is technically in the 2010s, too. obviously some of those have more going on than just coming of age/regular teen stuff, but all cover those kinds of topics too. and then obviously shorter ones due to the new standard episode counts, like euphoria, skins, 13 reasons why, sex education, etc. and of course, all of those are to varying degrees of quality.
there's euphoria which is extremely popular with teenagers today, which just goes to show how hardened today's world is where a coming of age show involves hard drugs, sex work, abuse and everything in between.
But the OG teens watching the show are already young adults. Been what? 5 years since the show premiered? Half got only 1 season of it before the pre-teens came of age.
I remember bb Gen Zs writing confessionals online when Riverdale was wrapping up about how they grew up with the show, so I guess that show filled that gap for some factions of a generation. Which honestly makes me really sad for them tbh, they got short-changed.
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90210 will likely be forgotten within 10 years with how streaming is nowadays
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I feel like most teens now just go and watch old teen dramas from the 90s/00s - especially since there's a real want for longer seasons, filler episodes and being able to spend more time with those characters.
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that show gives me anxiety. i watched like one episode and was like 😬 the whole time. my boyfriend loves that show tho
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