Netflix’s hit Adolescence has undoubtedly served as a harrowing wake up call as to how easily young people can be consumed with radicalising content online. 

Viewers and critics have heaped praise on the hard-hitting drama for its raw and unnerving portrayal of 13-year-old Jamie Miller, played by Owen Cooper, who is accused of murdering his classmate Katie. 

It has prompted a national conversation about online safety among young people and how so called incel (involuntary celibate) culture can warp the views of some teenage boys who may feel ostracised at school. 

In its simplest form, an incel or involuntary celibate refers to someone unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite wanting one. 

But, in recent years, a more radicalised sub-culture of incels has formed online, characterised by an extreme hatred for women due to intense feelings of sexual frustration.

Mass killer Elliot Rodger was supposedly ‘idolised’ by the incel community following his murderous rampage in the US in 2014 and was referenced by gun fanatic Jake Davison who killed five people in Plymouth in 2021. 

One lawyer, who represents people accused of sexual offences, told MailOnline his clients are becoming ‘younger and younger’, some as young as 12, and are taking part in ‘dangerous’ behaviour online, which is later being carried out in reality.

Online forums have seemingly become hotbeds for repulsive and – at times – illegal behaviour, with certain sites often plagued with horrific fantasies about harming, killing, torturing and raping women. 

MailOnline has viewed some of the posts made in these incel forums, many of which were shockingly easy to access. 

Adolescence tells the story of 13-year-old Jamie Miller, played by Owen Cooper, who is accused of killing his classmate Katie

Adolescence star Stephen Graham – who portrays Eddie Miller – with Owen Cooper (left) -who plays his son, Jamie

Marcus Johnsone represents people accused of sexual offences, He says his clients are becoming ‘younger and younger’ and are taking part in ‘dangerous’ behaviour online

Many included references to harming women by torturing and killing them, while others spoke of committing sex acts against their own classmates at school. 

‘What women need to be subjected to is everlasting torture of their souls with never-ending despair. Death should be too good for them. Their pain and agony should be constant, unbearable, inescapable and eternal,’ one post read. 

‘If hell is real, I feel like the majority of people there are women lmao,’ another adds. 

Members also talk of their ‘suffering’ at the hands of women and outline a series of disturbing sexual fantasies about women in their own lives. 

Others also convey a strong anti-Jewish and antisemitic hatred, with some users making references to ‘Jewkrainian sluts’ and posting Nazi symbols. 

There are also explicit paedophilic remarks in some threads where members express a desire to have sexual relations with teenagers and even young children. 

In one especially vile remark, a user states they would ‘love’ to have sex with a two-year-old. 

Another disgustingly tells the group they are 25 and finds 15-17-year-olds attractive, while a third claims there is ‘nothing wrong’ with finding young girls ‘hawt’. 

Many posts included references to harming women by torturing and killing them, while others spoke of committing sex acts against their own classmates at school

Others also convey a strong anti-Jewish and antisemitic hatred, with some users making references to ‘Jewkrainian sluts’ and posting Nazi symbols

There are also explicit paedophilic remarks in some threads where members express a desire to have sexual relations with teenagers and even young children

Multiple posts in the online forum also criticise Adolescence itself, claiming the show is ‘bulls***’, ‘woke’ and is not based on any ‘research into inceldom’.

That is despite the show’s writer Jack Thorne revealing he had had actually witnessed some ‘disturbing’ content online himself and went down a number of ‘online wormholes’ in order to gain perspective for Jamie’s character. 

‘The idea that incels and the manosphere are somehow mind-controlling young boys into violence is next-level fearmongering,’ one user wrote.

‘They have done zero research about incels and just wanted to make a show calling us evil’, another added.  

A third user took aim at the series for ‘using the same tired excuses and easy narratives’ portraying men as the villains and women as the victims of male violence. 

They claimed ‘society is anti-male’ and it is women who are ‘vastly privileged’ while ‘men are systematically disadvantaged in many areas in life’. 

Forum members also defended Jamie’s behaviour after he was bullied by Katie in school after asking her out. Some also seemingly blame Katie for her own death. 

‘The show, besides being inaccurate garbage regarding incels, also spreads the deeply harmful and damaging message that bullying is right and even justificable, while resistance and defending yourself against bullying is wrong and evil.’ another post read. 

Multiple posts in the online forum also criticise Adolescence itself, claiming the show is ‘bulls***’, ‘woke’ and is not based on any ‘research into inceldom’

Stephen Graham, who plays Eddie Miller, is seen in his son’s bedroom holding his lad’s teddy 

Marcus Johnstone specialises in criminal defence representation for people accused of sexual offences through his firm PDC Solicitors. 

He has years of experience working on sexual offence cases with a range of clients and has shared his insights into how younger people are becoming more and more influenced by the content they see online. 

Mr Johnstone told MailOnline: ‘Whereas so many years ago, my clients would be older. I’m dealing with clients that are becoming younger and younger. Some children even as young as 12 or 13 years old. 

‘And what I’m seeing is sometimes really quite extreme, dangerous behaviour and almost a brainwashing, where they become addicted to the sites.

‘They can’t cope without the phone with the constant connection social media. So it becomes a drug. It becomes an addiction. 

‘And the sites are designed, in my view, to to addict people. They want the kids to be addicted to not they can’t stop using their site. 

‘When they get drawn into it, and they’re on the sites which sort of encourage a type of behavior – whether it’s a sexualised behavior, racism, sexism, hate against Jews or whatever it might be – it’s very easy to make that person believe that what they’re doing is right.

‘When you got somebody referring to women that should be raped or should be killed, if this is a belief that’s on there, then the question is does that become real in their own mind?

Jamie Miller (played by rising star Owen Cooper) is left looking stunned after armed police burst into his bedroom and arrest him on suspicion of murder in episode one of Adolescence 

A worried Jamie Miller is seen in a police station after being detained by police 

Graham appears emotional as he portrays Eddie Miller after his son, Jamie, is arrested

‘That takes on a different perspective and then they can become really quite dangerous. 

‘Because some of that young age doesn’t really think through the consequences of what they may be thinking or potentially doing and we starting to see that behavior now carried out in reality.’ 

In recent years there has been alarming number of mass murders across the globe that have supposedly been influenced by this terrifying online world. 

In 2018, Alek Minassian killed ten people in Toronto, Canada, claiming he had been radicalised online by incels. 

Minutes before his murderous rampage, Minassian also posted on Facebook, claiming the ‘Incel rebellion’ had begun and praised the actions of Isla Vista killer Elliot Rodger. 

The 22-year-old went on a shooting rampage in Santa Barbara, California, in May 2014 after posting an online hate manifesto in which he lamented being a virgin and being rejected by women.

Rodger killed six people and injured 14 others in the violence before turning the gun on himself while he was being pursued by police.

Rodger had said in a video posted before the rampage: ‘I’m 22 years old and I’m still a virgin. I’ve never even kissed a girl. I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me. But I will punish you all for it.’

Elliot Rodger, who killed six people and injured 14 others in a killing spree in California that he blamed on women

In the UK, Jake Davison, 22, shot five people including his mother and a three-year-old girl in Plymouth in 2021, before killing himself.

An inquest jury heard how he held strongly misogynist views and despair about his own life in the months before the mass shooting.

The jury also heard how the killer was fascinated by mass shootings, serial killers and violent heroes of ‘incel’ ideology and reportedly also made reference to Rodger. 

Southport killer Axel Rudakubana was also described by his classmates as an ‘incel’ who refused to speak to girls at school before his horror knife rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in July 2024. 

The teenager, who was 17 at the time of the attack, murdered Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, Bebe King, six, and Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, in the incident which was described in court as ‘pure evil.’

One pupil who attended the same school as Rudakubana told the Sunday Times: ‘He didn’t have any friends […] because he didn’t really fit in. 

‘He never spoke to girls. When my mates saw the attack they guessed it was because he was […] like an incel.’

In January, Sir Keir Starmer argued the Southport case demonstrated there is now a different kind of terrorism and has suggested expanding the definition to address ‘extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms’. 

Plymouth shooter Jake Davison (pictured) opened fire on strangers, killing five people before turning the gun on himself

Axel Rudakubana, 18, was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 52 years for the murders of three young girls and the attempted murder of ten other people

The Online Safety Act, which was published into law in October 2023, has sought to tackle illegal content online and ‘requires all companies to take robust action against illegal content and activity’ when posted on their platforms. 

This includes content that amounts to extreme sexual violence, inciting violence, child sexual abuse and controlling or coercive behaviour. 

For companies not fulfilling their duties under the law, Ofcom has been given powers to issue them with million pound fines and hold them criminally liable for failing to comply with any enforcement notices over its child safety duties. 

In the most extreme cases, the law – with the agreement of the court – can require payment providers, advertisers and internet service providers to stop working with a site to prevent it from generating money or being accessed in the UK. 

One forum, which has over 30,000 members and more than 15 million posts, urges users not to post any ‘defamatory, abusive, hateful or threatening’ content. 

It also asks members to refrain from sharing content that ‘encourages unlawful activity or otherwise violates any laws’ and threatens to remove any content from the site at any time. 

But undoubtedly such rules are being flaunted, with some posts including criminal behaviour such as paedophilia, homophobia and racism, still appearing on the site despite being posted up to five years ago. 

‘The law is constantly playing catch up. I mean the sexual offences Act was was written in 2003, which is really before the internet and before all these new offences,’ Mr Johnstone explained. 

Sir Keir Starmer (pictured) has suggested expanding the definition to address ‘extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms’

The Online Safety Act, which was published into law in October 2023, has sought to tackle illegal content online (Stock image)

‘And there’s so much development within the online crime that it’s difficult for the politicians to introduce suitable laws to try and deal with it.

‘But even then how do you deal with it? Because if you introduce a law to try and stop one offence, then the criminals will find a way around it. That’s just the way it’s always been.

‘The sad truth, I should say, is you can’t stop it.

‘The internet can be used for great things, but equally, it creates monsters. It creates monsters of websites that creates monsters of people, and you just cannot stop that.

‘If kids have got mental health problems, if they feel lonely, if they feel left out, if they’ve not got friends, then of course they’ll turn to these sites. And then these sites can groom people any way they want to. 

‘There’s just no easy answer to it.’ 

Mr Johnstone highlighted that while these kinds of forums can be used by police to gather evidence, using these communications to bring charges against them is not so straightforward. 

This process is made increasingly difficult when officers have to prove that a suspect is the person making these posts, as there are no requirements for members on such sites to prove their identity before setting up an account. 

 One forum, which has over 30,000 members and more than 15 million posts, urges users not to post any ‘defamatory, abusive, hateful or threatening’ content

It also asks members to refrain from sharing content that ‘encourages unlawful activity or otherwise violates any laws’ and threatens to remove any content from the site at any time.

But some posts such as this one which explicitly references paedophilia, still appear on the site despite being posted up to five years ago

Mr Johnstone said: ‘These online sites can be important, as in effect, they’re used by the police as evidence of the criminal activity. 

‘So they’ll say “look, you’re communicating. You’re putting something on here about raping women” and so on, and that might may be an offence.

‘But then how do they prove that my client is the person responsible? And that’s where it gets really difficult.

‘It largely comes from online on some of these devices, because they want to try and check if it’s on my client’s computer or his phone. 

‘But then it goes away for forensics, that’s another 12 months or so before the results back.’ 

He added that many of the companies running these sites are also located overseas and officers may have to coordinate with multiple overseas agencies to find the information relevant to their investigation. 

‘A lot of sites are owned by companies abroad, and so you’ve then got any problems, because that company abroad may not do anything about it, may not report it,’ Mr Johnstone explained. 

‘If it’s California, for example, some of the sites are owned by American companies, then that will usually be reported to the FBI.

‘They then report it to a child protection agency based in Canada, who then may report it to a Child Protection Agency in the UK, who may report it to the Met police, who filter it down to the local police, who then eventually send somebody around to knock on the door. 

‘You know, that might be a year later.’ 

Mr Johnstone added: ‘It’s different type of policing to what you know, policing was 10, 15, 20 years ago, before the internet. 

‘Although there are a lot of good officers out there, there’s very few that are really geared up to know how to deal with online crimes and criminals take advantage of that.

‘I think you do need huge numbers of more police officers, but specially trained officers to deal with online offences. 

‘It’s completely different to your normal style of policing. But all we really hear from the politicians is “we’re going to get more bobbies on the beat”. You know, visible police officers, crackdown on offending. 

‘But in reality, most of these serious offences are not committed on the street. 

‘They’re just committed in somebody’s bedroom over the internet, and you can’t detect those offences with more bobbies on the beat.’