00:00It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
00:05That is Morpheus, offering Neo a choice, the red pill or the blue pill.
00:10In the original story written by two trans women, Lana and Lily Wachowski,
00:15the red pill was not about domination or gender hierarchies.
00:18It was about liberation, about truth, about shedding illusions, especially about identity.
00:24But somewhere along the way, the metaphor was hijacked.
00:27Online, the red pill has been rebranded.
00:29Today, it is a gateway to the manosphere, an ecosystem of influencers and incel forums
00:34where adolescent boys are told,
00:36You are a victim, feminism is a scam and women are the enemy.
00:40This is not just misinterpretation.
00:43This is disinformation, marketed in high definition, one angry reel at a time.
00:48In our latest issue of Outlook India, we dive into the show Adolescents
00:52and how red pill ideology is not just online.
00:55It is rewiring how a generation of boys grow up.
00:58Devi Parna Banerjee writes,
00:59Adolescence is unflinching in its portrayal of how young men are socialized
01:03to feel entitled to women's attention and affection.
01:06But these ideas were seeded much earlier in India's culture and by extension, its cinema.
01:12It's not a glitch, it's the design.
01:14From Andrew Tate to Elvis Yadav and Jordan Peterson,
01:17there's an entire syllabus out there, teaching boys how not to feel, how not to question,
01:22just conquer.
01:24Priyali Sur, a journalist and a mother to a three-year-old,
01:28writes with the ache of lived anxiety.
01:31In her reflective piece,
01:32Boys Can Cry, she writes,
01:33My son is only about three now.
01:36But on a daily basis, he interacts with a world that tells him he has the privilege because
01:40he is a male.
01:41India has the largest adolescent population in the world.
01:44Every fifth person is between 10 to 19 years old.
01:48And with the rejection of a comprehensive sex education across states in India,
01:52it is only logical for a parent to be anxious about
01:55how their young ones will be navigating this increasingly red-pilled world.
01:59When that becomes the first language of intimacy,
02:02what are we really teaching our children?
02:04Psychiatrist Dr. Jitendra Nagpal puts it plainly,
02:07Adolescence is a phase of self-exploration and uncertainty.
02:12In the digital age, it's even trickier terrain.
02:14The adolescent brain is still building its emotional toolkit.
02:18But algorithms don't wait.
02:20They don't ask if you're ready.
02:21So here's the question.
02:23If the red pill is no longer the way out,
02:26what does it truly mean?
02:27What does it mean to truly wake up?
02:30In Outlook's latest issue,
02:32we step into the messy and urgent space of adolescence
02:34to take a look at what it means to live
02:37and navigate a world that is increasingly becoming a volatile space
02:41for parents and young children.
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