The premise of The Inbetweeners is a bit different. Four unnaturally awkward teenage boys do their best to keep up with what's cool and try and get their ends away at every available opportunity.
Now which one sounds like the more typical teenage experience? I will now showcase the two most popular characters from either show and see what you think is more relatable. Why? Why not, I say!
Tony Stonem
Tony, played by Nicholas Hoult, is a pretentious arsehole. I first realised this when I watched Skins for the first time, and was met with the image of Tony reading some Nietzsche on the toilet. Now, I'm a pretty pretentious arsehole myself, but even I know that the only thing you can read whilst having a bowel movement is either Viz or... No, just Viz, actually. When I'm trying to relax on the toilet, I prefer to have a magazine brimming with crass double entendres, and not the grey clouds of existentialism that should only plague the terminally pessimistic. What's most annoying about this scene is the way Tony smugly grins at the literature, as if to say 'Hah. I get this. I get this cuz I have a better mind than most my age. God, am I clever or what? I am so getting this.'
But Tony isn't just an arsehole because of this, oh no. Tony extends his newfound philosophy to experimenting with homosexuality; not because he is genuinely attracted to men, but because of a try-everything-once attitude which leads to him fellating another cast member. I find it hard to believe that a young man experimenting with his sexual feelings will just release any trouser snake in the vicinity and inhale it like it's the last shred of oxygen on a crashing plane.
Naturally, Tony is promiscuous; a long line of conquests behind him at the tender age of 17. In one infuriating clip, Tony is seen auditioning for the part in a school musical or something, with excruciatingly posh groupie Abigail watching on, along with 50 or so other preening idiotic fangirls. So he's a deeply philosophical master mind and he's fit for broadway. All this before his 18th? Whooda thunk it?!
'Unfortunately' Tony is nearly killed at the end of the first series after getting hit by a bus. As a result of this, he loses a lot of his motor skills and thus becomes a bit less of an arsehole. No more Stonem kids to annoy me then? If only! Tony's younger sister Effy takes the reigns as a pseudo mysterious and still promiscuous 16 year old girl. Effy, played by Kaya Scodelario, holds all the interesting features as an ashtray, and because every teenager ever smokes until their lungs are but rotting apple cores, she most likely stinks of one, too.
Effy holds many of the same traits as Tony, but because she is a 16 year old girl, life is obviously really hard. Especially if you're really attractive and super popular. Poor mare.
Now, Jay, on the other hand...
Jay Cartwright
Jay is a chauvinistic compulsive liar with a ridiculous haircut. He tells tall tales of 'birds he's shagged', claiming to have lost his virginity at the age of 9 to his nanny. He has a hugely inflated sense of his own importance, attractiveness and intelligence, and frequently coins crass and misogynistic phrases and terms, popularising the use of the word 'clunge'.
Surprisingly, Jay is not as one dimensional a character as he may seem. He is shown to have compassion and sensitivity, especially when he acquires (what we must assume) is his first serious girlfriend. Jay becomes a soft speaking, sentimental but ultimately paranoid wreck, actions which leave him heartbroken, but still full of sexist bravado.
I reckon Jay is what Tony actually is. Someone who thinks they're better than anyone else, acting like a confident superior to his friends, which is his eventual pratfall.
I would rather watch a thousand hours of Jay graphically describing menage a trois with two implausibly attractive Swedish volley ball players than witness Tony read Atlas Shrugged on the bog for a millisecond.
