Why teenage girls are so obsessed with Succession
Girl-failures unite to idolise the girl-failure dynasty of prestige TV.
HBO hit Succession has been crowned as one of the greatest shows of all time. Led by creator, Jesse Armstrong, this award-winning drama follows the final years of media mogul billionaire, Logan Roy, and his children in the grey-toned world of corporate media. A masterclass in dialogue, pacing and plot, Succession is a prestige piece of television, acclaimed by critics and viewers alike. But perhaps the best and also most intriguing accolade of them all is that Succession has also mobilised a fierce fandom of young women.
The show, marked by corporate chatter, men in suits and toxic behaviour by the mega wealthy, has become one of the most beloved inspirations for Twitter and TikTok’s stan communities. With each episode, you can rely on feeds to be filled with Succession scenes in the style of edits and fancams - a genre originally made famous by K-Pop stans. A simple check of bios reveals that this movement is led by female-identifying fans, mostly still teenage.
As a category, young women are prescribed very little cultural capital. Their likes, interests and obsessions are considered lesser and lurid to the more meaningful and serious interests of middle aged masculinity. Today’s pop culture may be being shaped by young women, see: Zendaya, Olivia Rodrigo and Emma Chamberlain, but the inner-lives of young women are still deemed frivolous, uncultured and stupid.
For anyone familiar with the excellent taste of teenage girls throughout time, their love of Succession, isn’t a surprise. For a brief history lesson, we owe a lot of our culture's latest favourites to the ‘hysteria’ of teenage girls, including Robert Pattison’s Batman, the cultural icon of Harry Styles and the musical ingenuity of Taylor Swift.
Mainstream culture seems to love fetishising young women’s strength in the face of trauma, as with the likes of Greta Thunberg, Grace Tame and Malala Yousafzai, but then turns around and villainises their joy. In moments of happiness, teenage girls are just self-obsessed scrollers, begging to be parodied and patronised. Only after being profited off first.
It’s ironic and satisfying to see a high-culture show such as Succession mashed up to the beats of Nicki Minaj or the lyrics of Taylor Swift and to much success. In fact, for some, it might even seem offensive for Jesse Armstrong’s epic to be read through the internet-speak of teenage girl. TikTok has cast his almost-Grecorian characters as “baby girl”, “male wife” and “mommy” and their big business deals and stealth strategies as Phoebe Bridgers’ lyrics.
Take a scroll on TikTok’s Succession tag and you can find legitimate film critiques unpacking tiny perfect details from the show, praising Jeremy Strong’s method acting or obsessing over Logan Roy’s iconic “Fuck off”. But these serious and overcomplicating takes share the stage with a sea of girl-failure memes and Mitski songs. Such creators bypass the gruelling mansplaining of moments in the show, and instead, convert it to the entertaining and flashy style they would use on low culture topics. It’s endlessly entertaining to watch these brooding and far too serious fictional men be reclaimed as teenage girl coded, a lens we know the character’s real-life equivalents would despise.
So how did a show made up of mostly middle aged white men in corporate media America capture the hearts and minds of teen girls? Textually, it deals with none of the circumstances we’d expect young women to directly relate with, delving into storylines like broken marriages, male impotence and death contingency plans.
But behind the curtain, Succession is just a family drama, telling us what happens when that need to be loved becomes self-destructive. Despite high culture themes and even higher stakes, this show simply follows kids as they fight for their father’s attention, and grapple with the feelings of inadequacy, lovelessness and loneliness that come with it.
Of course, daddy issues themselves are sure to engage with young women, but the idea of a father’s attention means so much more in this context. Logan Roy personifies power and not us in the Roy family but in the wider world as well. As a media mogul who moulds the social order by hand, literally picking the next US president, Logan is the keeper of culture.
Just like the three siblings beg to be seen as “serious people” in their father’s eyes, young women beg for the same from dominant culture. The feelings teenage girls and young women endure as they come to terms with the world and the unforgiving male gaze even echo Succession’s main storyline. Kendall, Shiv and Roman deal with their equal desires to ruin, support and fear their Dad, much as teenage girls grow to do with the status quo.
Kendall Roy has become the poster child of this unique situationship between young women and Succession, as he continuously gets called “baby girl”, “girl boss” and “teenage girl”. Perhaps blasphemy to hardcore Jeremy Strong fans, Kendall shares a lot of his character traits with girlfailure tropes. Walking around with big headphones on, posting baseless feminist tweets and too much sadness. It’s natural for young women to want to reclaim this ultra-relatable character who tries too hard, keeps failing and even cries on his birthday. He’s the typical archetype of Fleabag-core repackaged in a Tom Ford suit.
No matter how many Emmys it’s awarded or best show lists it tops, Succession’s story unfolds like a coming-of-age tragedy. It's about characters on their journey to become their own people - and who keep failing at it. Armstrong has just expertly re- envisioned these timeless stories through the grandeur of billionaires, PJs (private jets) and negotiation lingo.
As time has told, young women are ultimate tastemakers in their own right. And more importantly, their unique experience of scrutiny at every cultural moment makes them equipped with the empathy, curiosity and heart to delve into stories so separate from their own. This era of TV fandom is a refreshing departure from the gatekeeping that usually shrouds prestige entertainment. Instead of eyerolls and finger-wags, young women respond with excitement - using the shared language of the internet to capture new watchers’ attention. Through jokes, fixations and a new glossary of terms, young women take something originally so hyper-masculine from its ivory tower and claim it as their own. The outcome may be chaotic and curious, but it’s what high culture has been needing for decades.