In Memoriam to the Modern Teen Drama (1990 – 2023)
As a sheltered child and proud survivor of child harassment, not only did YA content make for a great escape from a cruel reality, but it also jump started my unconditional love for television. Prior to the fourth grade, I had never watched anything too “grown” (alright, except for the occasional Jersey Shore episode, you caught me. I’m still not over Ron breaking Sam’s glasses!). However, the first day of my new tough-as-nails public school would be my last time watching PBS Kids. I abandoned Disney Channel a couple months after. Children’s networks resonated too much with my old life—where my innocence lied.
In January 2014, my mother ditched Netflix for Amazon Prime (which felt like an act synonymous with alien water torture), and I stumbled upon Degrassi: The Next Generation. In that moment, I remembered a former classmate from catholic school telling me that she watched it with her older sister. I immediately pressed play on the infamous pilot. You know, the one where Emma Nelson meets up with a 13-year-old boy named Jordan from a chatroom, who really ends up being some 40-year-old creep who traps her inside his hotel room (how 2001). To say that I was infatuated with the series was an understatement.
It took me a good two seasons before my mother relayed to me that this Aubrey Graham dude who played Jimmy was in fact—you guessed it, Drake! Foolishly, I didn’t clock the facial features early on (I did a school presentation on him shortly after… don’t judge me, I loved Nothing Was the Same, fetus Drake still swings). From Manny’s “I want to be hot” era, to her pregnancy scare with Craig, to JT’s tragic death, to Rick’s rampage (Hello, Wheelchair Jimmy!), to Emma’s short lived ho-phase (which resulted in gonorrhea, thanks Jay), it was scandalous and I was hooked. I quickly set my Schoology avatar to a Degrassi seasonal promo shoot, while everyone else’s avatars were blank. My fourth grade teacher refrained from forcing me to change it because I would still talk about it anyway. I spent my tenth birthday binging season four before going to dinner at Outback. I would even mimic the way the characters said “sorry”. I couldn’t wait to be a teenager! I haven’t visited the series in over eleven years, but those first seven seasons played a vital role in my teen soap obsession. Oh, Canada!
That same winter, Prime recommended this rather interesting series, Teen Wolf (2011 – 2017). The banner had this creepy, but erotic image of Scott McCall (Tyler Posey) with his fangs hanging out, covered in blood. Once again, I binged the first 2½ seasons and would stay up at night to silently catch episodes on MTV. If I missed it, I’d try to catch an afternoon re-run (Non-DVR household).
As a little gay boy, Teen Wolf (& by extension: The Maze Runner) was everything to me. I had so many vine edits saved and I swore I was going to marry Dylan O’Brien. I had every single book and DVD of the Maze Runner saga (excluding The Death Cure). Hell, eleven-year-old me imagined coming to Britt Robertson “as a woman” and politely telling her to back off my man. It was serious… and I was seriously delusional! I vividly remember staying up past my 9PM bedtime to catch the infamous Void Stiles reveal; Tumblr ran wild. Every fandom consisted of someone with “Void” in their username circa 2014 – 2017.
The homoerotic innuendo in the early seasons of the show is what made it stand out from its peers at the time and attract many LGBTQ+ viewers. Early 2010’s teen media was primetime if you wanted to see hot guys running around shirtless (Teen Wolf and The Vampire Diaries, I’m looking at you). I kept a consistent love/hate relationship with the ever-so polarizing Allison Argent… and when I finally got around to fully embracing her, she died in Scott’s arms! Way to be a martyr, but I was crushed. What a time to be alive.
Later on, a summer camp counselor, who knew how much I loved any and everything 2000’s (especially early 00’s Disney Channel), would recommend One Tree Hill to me in Summer 2015. While I was familiar with Beverly Hills 90210 and Dawson’s Creek, I wasn’t privy to Tree Hill. I was informed that it starred Chad Michael Murray, former teen heartthrob (Freaky Friday, A Cinderella Story). Every Friday night in 2013 had been reserved for pizza and Freaky Friday in my household, of course I knew Chad! I would finally get around to the series during winter recess. I binged the first four seasons on Netflix within that week, entering 2016. I took a small hiatus to start Dawson’s Creek and would finish the entirety of One Tree Hill right before my birthday in March. One Tree Hill, especially, was my childhood magnum opus and I would find myself leaning on the series as I entered extremely hard times throughout the next couple of years.
During Summer 2016, I caught Beverly Hills 90210 reruns, the series that started it all, on TV Guide, and fell in love with the beloved “Will They, Won’t They” pair that was Brenda/Dylan (Fly high, Shannen and Luke). At first it felt “strange” to be so enmeshed in millennial pop culture while none of my age mates knew anything about it, but I embraced it soon enough. Honestly? It felt nice to gate-keep my little programs. I like to crack jokes about how I should’ve been born in 1994 instead of 2004.
Brooke Davis (Sophia Bush, One Tree Hill) and Jennifer Lindley (Michelle Williams, Dawson’s Creek) remain two of the best written female characters of all time, even though they were given the short-end of the stick throughout their respective series. When I was twelve, I would get up on a chair and re-enact Jennifer’s shocking eulogy at Abby Morgan’s funeral in the mirror (Season 2, Episode 18). I will die on the hill that Williams deserved an Emmy nod—to think that she was only twenty years old! Lindley unapologetically shared my same views as an atheist after being banished to a small town to live with her conservative grandmother. I resonated with her as I felt like I was being “banished” to a school that I loathed for three excruciating years.
One Tree Hill and Dawson’s Creek served as an escape from the most horrific junior high experience imaginable. Brooke Davis taught me how to be strong-willed and resilient. Jennifer Lindley taught me that it’s perfectly okay to fall down and get back up again, despite lacking a sense of belonging. In high school, Eric Effiong (Ncuti Gatwa, Sex Education) also taught me to be authentic and unapologetic in my flamboyance as a black boy. Screw whoever feels “uncomfortable” by my unique personality. I resonated with these three as a teenager and still do as I navigate the journey that is adulthood.
To celebrate One Tree Hill’s 21st anniversary, I visited Wilmington, North Carolina, home of the Ravens, and gained an experience of a lifetime. At the annual basketball event, I met people from all around the world who traveled to Wilmington to celebrate a series that impacted their lives. Every time the wind blows in cloudy, snowy Western New York, it makes me yearn for a warm, sunny day in the Carolinas.
Even though you could argue that the finales of The Big Three (The Vampire Diaries, Pretty Little Liars, Teen Wolf) in 2017 marked the end of your typical network teen soap opera, the general public collectively recorded August 23, 2023 as the official time of death, as the polarizing and controversial teen drama Riverdale was put to rest, after a six year and seven season run. I think we all miss the epic highs and lows of football, no? Riverdale briefly overlapped with The Big Three of the 2010s in their first season as well. It was truly the end of an era.
Outside of medical and cop procedurals that have overstayed their welcome, a television series reaching more than two seasons is practically unheard of in 2025. It’s no secret that teen dramas have been frowned upon since forever, especially in the prestigious television era that we’ve been in since the late 2010’s. With the recent death of the CW Network, home of the teen soap opera (The Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl, Riverdale, etc.), along with reports that it has not made a profit since its inception caused by the WB & UPN merger in 2006, they have shifted to live sports and outsourced Canadian content. MTV, home of mid-2010s teen soaps such as Awkward, Scream: The TV Series, and Teen Wolf, has aired nothing but Ridiculousness on a loop for eight years. I begged my little sibling to watch the premiere of Scream: The TV Series with me because I was too scared to watch it alone. Bella Thorne had transitioned into more mature roles and the pilot opened with her being slain by Ghostface!
Freeform, home of Pretty Little Liars, The Fosters (Justice for Jude and Connor shippers), Greek, The Secret Life of an American Teenager, and more recently, Cruel Summer, has scaled back in original scripted content. Season one of Cruel Summer made for a great comfort show during the utter chaos of the pandemic. Olivia Holt’s phenomenal portrayal of Kate Wallis admittedly took me by surprise, considering she’s a fairly recent Disney Channel alum, and children’s networks have a particular method of training their stars. Freeform fumbled what could’ve been a great American Horror Story-like series!
With the death of linear television, streaming platforms like Netflix have made a killing by producing original teen soap operas, starting with the much controversial Thirteen Reasons Why, which arguably influenced HBO’s Euphoria. In recent years, teen soaps like Outer Banks (Netflix), Never Have I Ever, The Summer I Turned Pretty (Prime), etc. are all the rage with younger Gen Z. The primary issue? Seasons are sparse and very inconsistent. Streaming allows for longer hiatuses and more flexible contracts among television actors, a departure from the 22-episode, September to May model. This prevents viewers from connecting with characters and growing with them. High school doesn’t last forever. and college seasons can be hit-or-miss. The streaming model is very detrimental to a teen soap opera and the reasoning should be quite self-explanatory. It doesn’t make much sense to air one season with 8-12 episodes per calendar year (or more) for a series portraying characters navigating their teenage journey. With an influx of shows being axed before finding their footing and being hosted on different platforms, there is no universal series to create water cooler talk, compared to the 2000s.
Another potential concern could be the poor writing and increased political correctness in new-age dramas. In 2021, Joshua Safran, showrunner and creator of Gossip Girl (2021), assured viewers that the reboot would be absent of any “slut-shaming” and “cat fights.” The reboot would also make characters more “self-conscious” about their privilege, a clear departure from the problematic tendencies that made the original such a smash hit. Max would soon cancel Gossip Girl the following year after a two-season run. As a black gay man, I have always advocated for progression in media, even more so now with the violent regression of our political climate. However, a clear medium is necessary. If I only watched television shows where the characters were pristine, polished, and morally upright at all times, then I wouldn’t watch television anymore. Teen soaps are supposed to be messy and scandalous!
The increased push for diversity in white spaces also creates an influx of token characters. I’d rather create my own. Going further, I prefer shows like One Tree Hill as the way it was with very limited diversity, rather than a white writer poorly handling minorities. I’ve always found Skillz (Antwon Tanner), the only black character on the series, to be written in poor taste—almost like a caricature. Bonnie Bennett (Katerina Graham), the only black character in The Vampire Diaries ensemble, was intentionally mistreated and neglected by white writers. That said, I don’t need token non-white characters on screen that the writers can’t be bothered to care for. I don’t want to see a black gay character that a black gay creative has zero input in. As long as the writers room is solely white, straight, and cisgender, that won’t benefit anyone. While Sex Education (Netflix) might have floundered in its last season, the series hit the correct nail on the head. It had something for everyone, while not being too preachy and keeping a classic satire, imperfect nature, similar to television prior to Trump’s first term. The series also introduced me to another one of my favorite characters, Eric Effiong (What a diva!).
Contrary to popular opinion, filler episodes are crucial. We need better writing. We need higher stakes. We need messy scandals. More importantly, we need a complete 15 – 22-episode seasons to connect with the characters! I’ve fostered so many online and real life connections through television shows throughout my twelve years on the internet. Today’s youth will never feel the anticipation of staying up past their bedtime to sneak-watch the new episode of their favorite television series. They will never spend seven years theorizing a series like Pretty Little Liars, only for the final boss to be Spencer’s long-long British twin (which may be for the best). Will there ever be another Pacey Witter or Brooke Davis for Gen Alpha to resonate with? Or will the spotlight remain solely on influencers and Twitch streamers? Will network television ever revive itself and the fading teen soap subgenre? Can an on-demand series like Outer Banks maintain the same cult-like fan base as One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl after two decades? Or, am I just the auntie wearing rose-colored glasses? You can be honest.
Whether you belong to the era of Beverly Hills 90210 and Dawson’s Creek, The O.C and One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, The Big Three of the 2010s, Riverdale, or you’re even younger than that, I think we can all agree on one thing, the previous model of teen soap operas that we knew and loved has been dead for quite some time, and it isn’t returning. Thank you for getting me through those hellish tween and early teen years. Sleep peacefully (1990 – 2023).
