Why I Hated Skins | Stubagful's TV Dissection

"suburban middle class" yep

Have you changed your views on society since this review ? I feel the drama is much more relevant nowadays as is top boy

I loved Skins!

Regarding your bit on Mad Twatter, my first weed dealer in high-school was a mentally unstable dude who couldn't stop playing with his illegal glock (he was a felon) and he would make outlandish remarks all the time. I find that scene pretty relatable honestly

esto se puede llamar critica? Q dices

fun (not) fact i developed a drug and alcohol problem after watching skins as a teenager. i loathe this show

universal teenage experiences include; eating disorders, parental abandonment, social anxiety, depression, drug abuse and much more all of which skins covers. What skins does so well is that it presents these issues in a relatable, non-cringey way.

I think the fluff in-between all of this is supposed to make the show entertaining. If the show was a true "universal teenage experience" one third of it would be spend in school, another third sleeping, another third eating, doing homework etc etc.

I hate to say the "its just a tv show" argument but that's sorta just flown over your head.

The other criticisms were somewhat valid but you probably would've enjoyed the show a lot more if you didn't come into it with this unrealistic expectation mindset

Effys depression storyline was pretty realistic. Most relatable part of skins to me. That scene where pandora tells effy that she thinks she can do whatever she wants because she’s depressed holds up and it mirrors reality because at my most depressed my family told me something exactly like that and it broke me. And when she’s in recovery after her attempt and she thinks she’s getting better but she ends up spiralling or something idk I forget what happened but it was relatable to me at the time. Cassie’s anorexia was relatable. Sid’s family issues. It all depends how you grew up. Skins was for the kids that related to it as a comfort showing them characters the same age going through the same things as them. not for the kids that tried to emulate that lifestyle and wanted to relate to it. And not for the people with average boring teen lives. No one that lived like that wanted it. Their lives were miserable. Aside from the glamourized party scenes or whatever I don’t know why anyone would want that.

Probably you didn't watch Series 3 and 4, but Cook is way worse than Tony. At least Tony redeemed itself in Series 2. And truth be told, Tony did study. He got AAAB for his A-Levels after becoming brain damaged, which is quite an accomplishment.

Now, seriously, Series 1 and 2 are a caricature of the (non-upper-class) English teenager, where certain stereotypes are deliberately blown out of proportion, often for comedic effect. It is still relatable though in the sense that, barring the caricature and the over-the-top drama, you could definitely have met someone like Tony, Sid. Maxxie. Michelle, Jal. Anwar, or Chris in college (maybe not Cassie though) if you are from the same social class as those characters.

The latter seasons (Series 3-6) on the other hand look like those badly acted and overdramatic American TV shows. It doesn't feel authentic at all.

In my opinion this show is pretty realistic i was in many situations depicted in this show and i relate to the characters on another level it is pretty fucked up but for me the stuff depicted in the show isnt really that out there

dude skins is realistic at least for me. skins is like the secret life that teens live behind the scenes of adults. i mean none of my friends got hit by a bus or drive a car into a lake, but the druge use, the fights, the relationships, reckless behavior, the mental issue. not saying life is exactly like that and most kids lifes arnt but it’s representative of the life of a troubled teen, kids whos parents aren’t there to steer them away from that life. it makes me feel seen its raw its gritty, the kids aren’t kids from a big loving familys and and their problems arnt surrounding school dances and other bs like other portrayal of teens on tv like seen on disney or Netflix originals

LMAO... Ty

i see what you mean throughout this video but i genuinely felt like freinds of these characters by the end of the 2nd season. same with 2nd gen

It's because people do drugs when they have money and independence haha

The 2000s was just that in telly and that's that

I was prime audience target for Skins. Nobody lived like these idiots. Stupid show.

watched skins at 16. i hated the first generation. but the second one was absolutely brilliant. i guess more money was invested in the production? plus characters were more interesting imo. but mostly i was shocked how similar it was to the teenage experience back in my country (although of course in a lot of cases largely exaggerated), i always thought UK and other western countries were much better educated and cultured, hence kids were not that often into drugs, partying, and doing stupid illegal shit. so it really caught my interest back in the day. i even rewatched it a few months ago (i am 26 now) and I expected to be disappointed as you usually are when coming back to your favorite teenage shows. I really enjoyed the show regardless and found it very clever.
ps: i did, however, decide to try drugs after watching the show for the first time which is definitely not a good result. but in the show's defense, me and my friends grew up with a mindset of "drugs, smoking, and alcohol is cool".

Glad to find a kindred spirit. I never understood the appeal of Skins. When I was doing my GCSE's it felt like I was the only one in my clique that didnt watch it.

The only British "teen" TV shows I ever liked was Misfits and Inbetweeners.

Okay but if you’re into drugs and around people who are into drugs it’s literally like that. I didn’t have that kind of experience in Highschool either. (Smoked weed with 17 and did drugs with 20) but from the limited experience I have with people who take drugs and taking drugs it’s kind of just like that. I only started to watch skins because a friend of mine said „my life is Litterally skins!!“ when we talked about how people around us behave, both growing up as internet kids

I whole-heatedly agree with everything you said. Especially the part about Tony (I can't fathom how people could like such a character). But as a somewhat fan of the series, I could tell you the parts that made the series so appealing to me and other impressionable teenagers (despite it having some major MAJOR flaws): unperfect characters that embodied the aesthetics of the time and the overdramatic situations they go through which is (sometimes loosely) rooted to actual problems that teens face in real life. For example, Chris' mother abandoning him, leaving him with a wad of cash to survive is a dramatic scene in Skins that to spoke to many teenagers. Also, in the 2010s being party/acoholic/smoker was cool, so many teens thought the Skins cast was cool for doing so. In all, Skins was a soap opera for teens in the 2010s lol.

This show is mixture of unrealistic carefree with equally unrealistic drama prayed with extremely straight face with a sprinkle of nuance here and there.

i did find skin relatable in some sense, i went out and partied and i have seen shit like the stuff on skins. Obviously it’s very exaggerated and dramatized but not inaccurate imo

to be fair i think skins is a very accurate depiction of teenage life if you were poor, rebellious or mentally ill or a combination of those, a lot of what they got up to i've either seen happen or have done, albeit not nearly in as spectacular or dramatised of a way. teenage drug addiction is fun for a little bit then gets quite sad and horrible and i think the show definitely influenced kids who watched it to do dumb shit as well, but it will always have a place in my heart, i think it holds up as a comedy too, there are some clever and good laughs

I prefer this show over 13 reasons why.

When a kid from the suburbs doesn't know what it's like to have a shitty childhood.

I love how you're not even exaggerating... that is EXACTLY what Cassie would say if Sid told her that he was planning on essentially raping her in the first episode.

I think you have had to been popular/in the mix to have understood skins

I absolutely loved skins when it came out. Main reason being that I had never seen a series showing teenagers as such fully fledged people. With their own struggles and aspirations, dreams and heartbreak. The show being bonkers at times made it all the more entertaining. Sid's Crystal Castles scene and Chris' story were done so well. The show had heart were a lot of other shows didnt.

I started watching the show many years ago when it first came out and I abandoned it although I didn't really know why. Now I watched the whole show as a grown up and I couldn't agree more. To be honest Tony, being a ficticional character, is a absolute fvcking twat and is not relatable or cool at all. He's genuinely disgusting and pretty much unlikeable.

I actively despise this show.
It's like a slightly toned down version of Elite but... British.

it does have some realistic topics apart from all the "relationship drama". effys psychotic depression (as a person who has it) was very realistic and they displayed it PERFECTLY, effy was a very relatable character (for me). she had abandonment issues and severe mental health problems that’s why she became like she did as a coping mechanism, it raised awareness about it and the dangers of trying to fit in to society. as for cassie, people display anorexia/eating disorders differently. and hers was displayed like that and as a person who has had it before and knows people with it, her "hazy" experience and the way she acted during that time period was very realistic, and not just the throwing up after consuming calories stereotype.

I was trying to get my mates from College (expect for my other mate, who has already seen Skins, same for my other mates from the park I use to hangout with) to watch Skins.
But they all refused, cos it wasn't their sort of thing to watch (since they have seen The Inbetweeners).

Plush, when I was watching Skins, I found it wired with the teachers saying profanity (mostly the f-word), and that they let the students get away with swearing (it was definitely like The Inbetweeners for me).

It is a fantasy, thats why ppl enjoy it, like a lot of fiction what ppl get out of it is the vicarious thrill of Imagining themselves in the same situations as the characters. Skins isnt any less realistic then breaking bad or mad men but no one ever said those shows were, with skins ppl claim its realistic when obviously it isnt. What it is realistic about is the feelings of teenagers, thats what the shows really about, there fantasies and there fears, played out in full through the narrative arcs of the characters. Tony is absolutely a massive knob in the first season, he gets punished by suffering a brain injury at the end of it, and then has to deal with being in a vulnerable position, the thing he spent the whole first season constantly trying to avoid. Tonys arc really deals with the idea of agency in teenagers, how many teenagers feel they have to be awful to others in order to avoid being victimised themselves. Unlike a show like the inbeetweeners skins is actually critical of the way teenagers are treated within society, it does this is a very exaggerated way but I cant think of any other show about teenagers that takes such a critical view of parents and the education system and how their neglect inflicts onto teenage who then inflict it onto other teenagers. Its one of the few shows ive seen where bullying isnt played off for laughs, theres a lot of things about it that are still unique. Maybe you have to be the kind of kid of who likes the idea of living like someone in Skins to appreciate it, obviously millions of teenagers did and that's what made it so popular and whatever you think about skins overall it did have very progessive ideas in it for the time and the character effy is very much a queer icon who helped a lot of ppl discover themselves. So it did something right

I hate it when people argue that they did have the Skins experience as teens, like that makes it a better show. It doesn't.

The point of the show was to hate Tony. Not redeem him. He got what he deserved, we did have to cheer for that. Tony is not put as an antihero, he’s put as a genuinely evil, psychopathic, asshole. We were supposed to feel good when he nearly died

Nice video! I have very mixed feelings about skins. I think it’s basically supposed to be magical realism and for those who know that it’s really enjoyable…. But it became a youth fantasy for people who thought they were missing out on wild living. I can confirm that no one lives like these characters because so many of the consequences are ignored. Like the excessive paranoia they would have after doing that much weed or as the video points out - getting arrested…. It’s sad because as magical realism it has so many strong points that seem to go over the heads of so many people

Every dickhead at my college thought they lived in Skins and would tell everyone about the wild parties they were at that night. Which was a bit fucking strange when I knew they'd spent all night putting emo wallpaper on their MySpace page whilst watching QI.

That's all the show was really. A depiction of what teens wish their life was like.

the views to likes ratio speaks volumes haha

"Tony Stomem was possibly the most utterly loathsome character that I've ever seen in a piece of fiction."

Yep. Well one of them anyway.

I preferred the second generation in the third series myself - where JJ is the Sid character, Cook is an arrogant arsehole but no where near as manipulative as Tony and Effy has apparently learned to speak.

In the forth series they made some of those characters worse people it seemed.

Not sure if we want an utter psycho like Tony in the Army?

Maybe undercover behind enemy lines?

Young people have a really short range of Attention, and I am a young person. I am an Italian girl, can anyone explain The Sense of the video in few Words for me? I'm Lazy, i know

Inbetweeners was a better representation of teenage lives

Skins was one of those shows I didn’t think I’d like based on the trailers, so I didn’t bother with it initially, but when I finally did watch it, I was surprised.

Regarding whether it was realistic, I found the characters quite realistic but the bizarre scenarios they were thrust into, not so realistic.

I remember some reviewer or other saying that the difference between The Imbetweeners and Skins is that the latter is what people wish their adolescence had been like whereas the former is more likely what it actually was like. There may be some truth to that, though given the grisly end a number of Skins characters came to, perhaps we’re all better off being Imbetweeners.

The plot of Skins wasn't realistic at all. Very few teenagers lived like that, and the few who did sure weren't watching Skins.

I will give it credit for picking up well on the way teenagers talked to each other and its interesting way of switching perspective between characters each episode.

Season 1 has a nice build. Season 2 is a melodrama, but it pays off. Sid and Maxxie and Jal's episodes stick with me to this day.

Series 3 has its moments, but is mostly forgettable. Series 4 is a mess, and the payoff isn't earned because outside of JJ, I just flat out didn't like these people.

Series 5 starts off OK, but goes down the tubes quickly. Season 6 has some of the most jarring plotlines and character development I've ever seen.

The three movie style epilogues were both boring and unnecessary.

lma9 serched for videos like this cuz i camee to a period where i want to live like them and idolizing effy phase

Uhm...I feel like skins is realistic because I lived all those shit that the characters live and even worse in my 20s


The pain that Sid had during that drug dealer situation is exactly the same that I've felt when I had to due with shitty people that tried to involve me on some scam fucked up shit without reason
Furthermore, when you live that type of life you really ignore any sortbof mental illness or toxic behavior like the characters during season 1
Basically, it's very hard to be aware of wtf are you doing

Soo skins for me has been like a cure and a remember to don't try to live the extreme part of this party life another time

However, the pinnacle of representation of toxicity in tennage years and party life still remains Kids by Clark for me
Even if Skins represents it well
And I'm glad for this because, on your 20s expecially, you have only to party hard and to stay miles away from any form of toxicity

As if your teacher used this excuse. Funniest shit