As sometimes happens in the throes of July, I was struck down by a summer cold last month. I plonked myself on a sofa and watched the entire first season of Amazon’s hit The Summer I Turned Pretty, a television show about the love triangle between 16-year-old high school student Belly (Lola Tung), sullen hunk Conrad (Christopher Briney) and his brother, class-clown-with-a-heart Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno). Every so often, as the screen turned black at the end of an episode, and I was confronted with my pale and transfixed reflection, I thought, “Why am I so invested in this forlorn Gen-Z cohort?” But in the next moment, as yet another Taylor Swift song delicately dropped, I realised: this show about gleaming school kids was not made for teenagers, it was made for me, a 29-year-old with a persistent cough.
On TikTok– forgive the screeching sound of an almost 30-year-old talking about this app – posts about “millennials watching the summer I turned pretty” have been watched over 5 million times. (Part of the show’s popularity among this generation is surely because author Jenny Han’s books were published from 2009 to 2011.) In one of the most popular TikToks, a user remarks that millennials watch the show, now in its second season, believing themselves to be the lead character (again, she’s 16), when they are actually more like her mother (who appears to be in her 40s). Millennials were born between 1981 and 1996, meaning that both a 42-year-old and a 27-year-old fall into the same category, and if you’re near that lower boundary, I shall let you feel close to Belly, who just cannot pick between a sad dreamboat and a happy dreamboat. And really, is there an age limit on identifying with a teenager?
In Heartstopper, Netflix’s teen drama based on Alise Oseman’s 2016 graphic novel of the same name, we watch characters throughout the LGBT spectrum fall in love. The first time round, it was a blossoming romance between Charlie (Joe Locke) and Nick (Kit Connor). The show is candy-coloured and candy-sweet, though the just-released second season admirably covers some rockier territory, like homophobia at home and asexuality. Many, many words have been spilled on the show from older LGBT viewers, delighted that a show like this exists for kids nowadays and also heartbroken that it didn’t exist for them when they were those kids. One TikTok account, named heartstoppermillenial and aged 28, has amassed 2 million likes. Their bio reads: “Heartstopper has me healing closeted wounds.”
That’s a running theme to these shows, which are distinctly uncool, and tailor made for those older than the characters, digestible as a BuzzFeed listicle, mindless as an Instagram meme page. The soundtracks feature artists big in the 2010s (Wolf Alice, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry), the fashion unchallenging (most characters in Summer appear to be dressed from the same 2016 J. Crew catalogue). And if you want something edgier, there is Euphoria (about teenagers but dark), Elite (about teenagers but raunchy), and Riverdale (about teenagers but dark and raunchy and also insane). Many of my friends, card-carrying millennials, who tune in speak of comfort: relatable cultural touchstones, familiar story beats. As you get older, decisions become harder: what or who you are going to prioritise, what you are willing to fight for, what you are willing to lose. In these dramas, every decision feels like the end of the world in a way that is ridiculous (teenagers should be ridiculous) and pleasantly distant.
It is indeed a great time for 20 and 30-somethings to pretend they are a teenager. When Olivia Rodrigo’s new album, Guts, drops in early September, expect many adults in your life to drop their façades of office jobs and mortgages and relive their experiences of being wronged. Taylor Swift, halfway through re-recording her albums, is making you relive that time when you were 15 listening to “Fifteen” or heartbroken at 18 listening to Red or stomping out a student bar listening to 1989. Remember that girl who promised to be in love forever only to ghost you days later? Or what about when your favourite barista got your coffee order wrong? There’s a song for that, a TV show to obsess over, a mood to sink your teeth into.
It is irresistible wish fulfilment: to youth, love, a sense that if we could redo our past lives, we would do it right. I am sure many happily-partnered people watch them and pine about a summer romance or doomed situationship that might have gone right if things had been slightly different. If only, if only, you agonise, and these shows allow that process, both delusional and satisfying (delusions are often satisfying!). Perhaps most startling, at least to this writer, is that these shows are not all that escapist: watching teenagers make romantic blunders that a, uh, 29-year-old could also commit is, shall we say, enlightening.
The Summer I Turned Pretty is streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Heartstopper is available on Netflix
Henry Wong is a senior culture writer at Esquire, working across digital and print. He covers film, television, books, and art for the magazine, and also writes profiles.
