The teen years are... brutal, and that's exactly why they make such great television.
Enter: the teen drama genre.
Teen dramas usually involve teenage characters played by non-teenage actors doing things non-teenage writers think real teenagers do, like doing drugs on a school night and occasionally committing/covering up/solving murders.
The golden era of teen dramas was the 2000s, when every second show on TV featured good-looking people who really screwed our expectations of what 16-year-olds look like. The time period brought us instant classics, including so many of the genre's biggest titles: Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill and The O.C.
I still remember the excitement of being a 12-year-old who was allowed to watch the latter, which in hindsight seems like a questionable parenting decision, and rocking up to school on a Monday fizzing to discuss whatever harmful thing Marissa Cooper had done this time. It was formative!
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