There are some things that grown women shouldn’t like, and a television show described as ‘American Pie mixed with Peep Show’ really ought to be one of them. But as the third (and final) series of The Inbetweeners is released on DVD today, I must confess, I’ve pre-ordered a copy. To go with the first two series that my husband bought me for my 32nd birthday. It’s not glamorous, or elegant, it’s a show about four sex-obsessed and mildly homophobic teenage boys who spend a lot of time drinking, farting or throwing up, and seem to know more words for my intimate parts than I do.
But I love it. And I’m not the only one — at least half the women in the ‘Psychologies’ office (a well read, well mannered bunch) love it too.
So why do we love it? Partly, of course, for the outrageous jokes which just sound wrong coming out of my mouth, so I won’t even try to repeat them. But really, it’s about the nostalgia. If you were a teenager in the last thirty odd years and grew up somewhere vaguely suburban, this is the sitcom equivalent of time travel. Who doesn’t remember the tortures of work experience, or the awkward under-18 disco? Or when one of your mates passed their driving test and you’d go for a drive round all the local estates, just because you could? We even had the identical Swanage field trip at my secondary school (although no-one punched a fish to death, as far as I can remember. I’m not including a link to that one). Who doesn’t remember the rumours about the boy in the year above who was having an affair with the teacher / had been in prison / had turned the head’s car upside down on the last day of term?
According to memory researchers, most of us experience what’s known as a reminiscence bump when it comes to recalling our teenage years — we have far more memories of this time in our lives. There are various theories about why this might be, but most think it’s because it’s a time of firsts, from first cars to first loves (and first heartbreaks). This is the time when we first start to work out who we really are, and all those milestones that Will, Simon, Jay and Neil are stumbling over, we remember ourselves. We’re not just remembering our first time, we’re reminding ourselves how far we’ve come.
And ultimately, it’s reassuring. These boys bunk off school, steal their dads’ clothes to look older in the off-license, commit acts of petty vandalism and vomit on people, but their parents still forgive them. And no matter how many jokes Jay makes about Neil’s dad, they’re still best mates. No matter what happens, they’ll be ok. They’ll survive it, just like we did.
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