Aromantic Representation in the Teens & Screens 2023 Report
Written by AUREA News Feed Team
Word Count: 1144 words
Estimated reading time: Approx. 5 minutes
Last year, the Center for Scholars and Storytellers, an organisation affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) published a paper titled Teens and Screens 2023: Romance or Nomance?. This is an analysis of survey results from 1,500 people aged 10-24, focusing on their media consumption habits and preferences.
In short, the findings show that young people are less interested in romance, and more interested in seeing friendships in media. In regards to the way romance is specifically depicted, respondents highlighted how they didn't like that romance was portrayed as necessary to achieve happiness, and also in how often romantic relationships (and often toxic ones) were forced into media that did not particularly need it. 44% of respondents indicated that they felt romance was overused in media altogether. It would be lovely to read this as a sign that younger people are growing up skeptical of the idea that romantic attraction was mandatory or expected, and potentially could indicate a future where aromanticism is more understood and accepted. In fact, 56% of the respondents born between 1997 and 2012 said that they were seeing an increasing number of people in their social circle choosing to be single, and that those people were happy to not be in romantic relationships.
On the topic of aromanticism, 39% of respondents stated that they wished to see more aromantic and/or asexual characters in the media they consume. Sadly, that’s the only specific reference to aromanticism in the report, but it’s a wonderful sign to see mainstream academic works including aromanticism in their research.
To find out more about the report, AUREA reached out to the lead author of the Teens and Screens report, Stephanie Rivas-Lara.
Our first question was “What were the conversations and thoughts that led up to the inclusion of the aromantic & asexual rep question in the survey and final report?”
We have a Youth Media REPresentation (YMR) Program within the Center for Scholars & Storytellers that's focused on amplifying youth voices at the intersection of research and the entertainment industry through Research, Expression, and Public Engagement. We provide opportunities for adolescents ages 13-18 to shape media by conducting research among their peers, sharing their own perspectives, and communicating their insights to storytellers.
In one of the iterations of this program, two of our teens, Sofia Ramos and Mateo Frey, focused their research project on how the shows Wednesday and Heartstopper contributed to Gen Z Youths’ perception of social relationships. They focused a lot on the portrayal of platonic and romantic relationships, and a theme that some of their open-ended responses gathered around Wednesday is seeing the character of Wednesday as aro/ace. When they were presenting their findings at the end of the program to storytellers, that finding sparked a lot of conversation regarding being aromantic and/or asexual.
Many didn't know what those terms meant and, once it was defined, there was conversation about its lack of explicit representation on-screen and whether that's something people want to see more of. The conversation in general was super fruitful and engaging, and folks walked away with some new understanding under their belt regarding those orientations. So, because that finding was so impactful, internally within CSS we started wondering what a larger sample of youth think about asexual/aromantic representation on-screen.
We knew we were going to do our annual Teens & Screens report that focused on better understanding what adolescents across the U.S. want to see on-screen, so we decided to ask a question surrounding that in there to learn more. Definitely a huge shoutout to Sofia and Mateo who sparked that idea and conversation with their project.
Our second question to Stephanie was “What do you think the significance of the findings of the report means to the aromantic community specifically? Do you think it's a sign that more ace and aro content is going to be coming down the pipeline eventually?”
I think a finding like this will at the very least expose people to what aromanticism is, and at the most show content creators that there's a want to see more aro representation.
There's a severe lack of recognition or understanding of the aromantic community, even how it's a part of the LGBTQIA+ community. When it's brought up in conversation most people don't know what it means; the lack of education and conversation on this topic definitely doesn't help with that.
Being aromantic is a spectrum, yet it's often put into a black and white box that perpetuates stereotypes and invalidates the identity, which negatively impacts those who do identify as aromantic or are questioning the identity for themselves. This finding will hopefully allow folks to start looking into what it means to be aromantic and to start asking questions in an open-minded and curious way. Knowing that this identity exists will acknowledge the aromantic community. More conversation and representation of this will hopefully help folks to better understand themselves and their experiences, especially those who are currently having trouble articulating their feelings and are still figuring out who they are.
Although I can't say for certain that more aro and ace content is going to be coming down the pipeline eventually, I can say that there is a want and desire for more aro and ace content by youth as seen by our report. Hopefully that desire will continue to increase and storytellers will take notice of that so that we do see more authentic representation of aro and/or ace characters.
AUREA sincerely thanks Stephanie Rivas-Lara for taking the time to give us more insight into the report and her interpretation of the results!
On a final note, let's have a look at how the report has been received in the media.
Media coverage of this report has been extensive, and Business Insider, Mary Sue, The Guardian, Mashable, Psychology Today, USA Today and Variety have all featured articles about this paper. Each of those publications has made at least some mention of the increasing interest in aromantic and asexual content, with most of those publications linking to other articles giving more in-depth explanations of what those terms mean, or discussing another topic relevant to asexuality or aromanticism.
Forbes India also reported on the paper, although they put scare quotes around the word “aromantic” for some reason (although not the word asexual, which is a very interesting choice). NPR also reported on it, but changed the wording to be “more non-romantic relationships or asexual characters” instead of using the “aromantic”, which is a bit of a shame.
All the same, the interest in the article has almost certainly introduced people who have never heard of the concept of aromanticism to the term, and if more research going forward explores aromantic perspectives as one lens of their topic, hopefully awareness and media coverage will also increase. Teens and Screens looks like a great step in the direction of Aromanticism receiving even more mainstream academic interest!