A small but growing portion of the internet has become obsessed with a Norwegian teen drama called Skam. Its incredibly well-executed depiction of teenage life on social media has captured the Gen Z zeitgeist like no other show in history.
The series follows a group of students at Hartvig Nissen, a real public high school in Oslo. The first season centers on Eva, a nervous, big-hearted 16-year-old.
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Skam is one of the most popular teen shows in the world, with a global fan base. It follows a group of teenagers in Oslo who deal with issues such as sex, school, drinking, depression, rape, and religion, in real life and online. The show was created by NRK, the Norwegian public broadcaster, and is aimed at young people.
To create the series, Andem spent six months traveling around Norway interviewing teenagers to find out more about what it was like to be a teen. She listened to their stories and used feedback from them and the fans on social media to make the show more authentic.
As a result, she has created a show that feels incredibly true to teenage life in Norway. It’s a refreshingly honest look at how teens are treated, and the pressure they feel to fit in.
The main characters are a group of teens at the Hartvig Nissen school, which is a private boarding school located in Frogner, a wealthy area of West End Oslo. The school is a magnet for many rich students from surrounding areas, which helps explain why the show has been so successful.
It also has a strong focus on sexuality and gender identity, which adds a layer of relatability. It’s also not afraid to tackle hard topics such as mental illness and coming out, as well as religion and forbidden love.
The series is a huge success across Scandinavia, with one-fifth of the population tuning in to watch it on a weekly basis. In a time when soap operas have become more and more popular, Skam is providing its audience with a new way to cope with the world. It’s a way to help people understand that being a teen can be a really tough time, but it doesn’t have to be.
SKAM is an innovative Norwegian series that follows a group of teenagers in a well-to-do suburb of Oslo. Its narrative is a mixture of coming-of-age stories and teen drama, exploring issues such as identity, sexuality, religion, mental illness, and forbidden love. Its production and distribution are highly innovative, encompassing Instagram, webisodes and traditional broadcast in a way that has helped foster a fan community on multiple social media platforms.
Unlike most American teen shows, which often cast 20-somethings in the lead roles, Skam has a very young cast of actors - mostly around 17-19 years old. This means that their faces, body language and appearances feel very real. They are very grounded in their characterisations - they have pimples and bad hair days just like you would expect from a teenaged character.
They also live a relatively normal life, rather than having their lives revolve around parties, drinking and smoking. They spend most of their time in school or working. This authentic approach has been key to the success of the show and helped build its incredibly loyal fan base.
The main cast of Skam are a mix of young people with a variety of experiences and personalities, all played by real teenagers. Rather than casting a set of models or relying on makeup, they have all been interviewed by the show's creator Julie Andem to learn more about their lives. She has incorporated this feedback into the scripts for the show and works closely with them to keep their characters realistic.
Each week, a new clip or conversation between the characters is published in real-time online, allowing fans to watch them immediately. This was a groundbreaking transmedial model for a TV show, and many of our informants experienced an overwhelming onslaught of new content as they followed their favourite characters.
As a result, they developed a tripartite model for locating fan motivations on an intrapersonal, social, and transmedial level (Petersen & Sundet, 2019). Our informants were attracted to the SKAM story on an intrapersonal level, where their profound identification with the show and the feeling of being in love with it drew them into the story and its digital fan community.