44 Comments

I'm taking my daughter, a high school senior heading to college next year, to the LA premiere of this film next week. Thank you FIRE for offering this opportunity to members! I can't wait to see it myself, but more so to have my kid be exposed to messaging like this. I am a high school teacher and have watched "the coddling" play out among teenagers for years. I am beyond grateful for this work as well as the timing of this film for my own child.

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We're so happy you and your daughter will be joining us at the premiere! We have many university screenings in the works, but we'd love to do more to reach high schoolers too.

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Working with this in public ed is much harder. Anything I can do to facilitate I’m game for.

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Can’t wait until 2/22 when this movie makes history!

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Yes indeed, with everyone's help, it sure could!

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Feb 15·edited Feb 15Liked by Ted Balaker

It promises to be a much-needed 'prophetic', corrective voice for such a time as this, especially for those generations adrift in today's illiberal ideological oceans of popular culture... I just forwarded the trailer to some 60 influencers of all ages in my relational networks. Congratulations to both the filmmakers and difference makers behind what is hopefully the first of many such productions!

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Thank you so much, Michael! If our experimental film release succeeds, it'll be thanks to people like you

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Ordered and ready to go. Perfect continuation of your book. Looking forward to seeing it and hoping it inspires young people to think differently.

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author

Yes! We really think the stories our subjects tell will help other young people who are struggling.

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Feb 15Liked by Ted Balaker

I am very excited.

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author

We are too!

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I don't like the thesis of this film. It seems to locate the problem of mental health in the wrong place. What about climate change? Ongoing genocidal wars? Geriatric politicians? Skyrocketing inflation and the cost of living crisis? We've ruined the future of the next generation, then we blame their anxiety on the way they're taught to think? This is gaslighting to the highest degree

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…And overwork, and corporate rule, and a return to cold war conditions, and ecological crises in the form of deforestation, persistent organic chemical and micro-plastic pollution, overfishing, freshwater depletion and erosion, agricultural contamination, antibiotic resistance, periodic region-wide famines… and so on, and so on…

But no, the anxiety of the young is all in their heads, and their vulnerability to woke ideology! Yep, that’s it, all right!

(Agrees: _gaslighting_.)

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I can’t wait to see this! So glad it’s been made into a movie. I will definitely watch. We need to recognize this is going on in today’s youth before it’s too late. sabrinalabow.substack.com

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author

Thanks, Sabrina -- hope you enjoy the film! It seems like we're reaching a point where so many people are seeing the problem that we can finally start solving the problem.

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Feb 22Liked by Ted Balaker

Fantastic!

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I pray this is able to diagnose and treat this malady infecting my previous life’s work!

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Feb 17Liked by Ted Balaker

Looking forward to this! Thank you!

And just went through some of your Substacks. Appreciate your thoughts and perspectives.

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Feb 17Liked by Ted Balaker

I’m looking forward to this. I not only read the book but have sent copies to a few friends.

With respect, because I hope this gets the exposure it deserves, I’d like to point out that there are some typos in this post:

Thanks to our friends atThe Free Pressfor...

*Need spaces after “at” and “Press.”

Pre-order the first-ever “Susbstack Presents”...

*Substack

...subscribe to come along for a first-of-it’s kind journey!

*its

Thank you.

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author

Thanks very much -- yikes, can't believe we missed those!

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Feb 17Liked by Ted Balaker

Glad to be of service.

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Along with this fragility, they are being brainwashed with a massive amount of armageddon hype about climate change, about military agression and potential nuclear wars, questioning their physical reality about their gender and who they are. Every day they are given doom messages such as the forecasted storm event will be a stormaggeddon and it turns out to be a regular storm, but the hype and anxiety has been generated. This all adds a base line of great stress, and it then takes very little added real stress in their life to tip them over the edge. It's like their stress cup has been prefilled to almost the brim by media calamity hype and reality doesn't have much room to add into this cup. Media needs to stop all of these over-hyping the message to capture headlines. It is causing a baseline of damage.

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Feb 16Liked by Ted Balaker

Can’t wait to watch this with both my 22 year old college grad and 17 year old high school junior! Thank you for making the book into a film!

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author

So happy to hear that Ruth! That's exactly the kind of thing we were hoping would happen. In order to help us spread the word and reach more young people and their parents, we're going to ask folks to share their reactions to the movie -- everything from a written line or two to video reactions. I hope you'll consider doing something like that. Hope you and your kids enjoy the film!

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Why is this? Why is this even something? Oh, wait. I get it. There’s a “culture war” going on, and this is a another move of attack from a certain side disguised as “rational concern” and “discussion”.

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Substack, the same folks who believe in an absolute right to free speech (see: Substack has a Nazi problem) are sponsors; there is an agenda here: it’s fascism dressed up as libertarianism pretending it doesn’t have any side but The Truth. Oh, please.

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This shouldn't be available just to paid subscribers.

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The trailer looks great. Well done!

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