Yellowjackets | Attempting to breakdown it's popularity

I can say with full certainty that Yellowjackets is one of the most brutal pieces of media I’ve ever encountered and this is coming from me, as an avid horror fan with no regard for age ratings.

I’ve thought a lot about Yellowjackets and what makes this show soo unbearable yet so watchable. I mean it’s about cannibalism, unending trauma, and copious amounts of unknown spirits.

While I do plan to make more blogs about the show I wanted to start with why people like it.

So in this post, I will try to breakdown why Yellowjackets is so alluring and try to understand why such an almost niche and painful experience still reaches the hearts of so many so deeply.

Initial Thoughts

When I first started watching Yellowjackets, it almost didn’t make sense to me why everyone was so into a show about a bunch of teenagers surviving a plane crash and their lives decades after being rescued.

As I moved past the second episode it became clear that the reason our fandom was so infatuated with this show ran far deeper than just empathy or any attempt to be emo.

The unruly amount of crazy memes speak for themselves.

So maybe it’s the theories? People want to figure out what exactly happened in the time the girls and Travis, Coach Ben, and Javi were on their own. I mean, it makes sense right? People wanted to piece together the mystery, who is the antler queen? How did they get to the point of no return? Is it really the wilderness? Is there someone playing tricks on them? At first this seems fair enough, the reason this show is so popular is because there’s so much mystery involved and it’s fun to put everything together and draw up connections. But that still doesn’t explain why as much as people were interested in the theories most of the focus fell on the relationships and the substance between the girls.

Absurd Explanation

When you look into many of the analyses shared between us fans it’s obvious as an adult Shauna is still very much hung up on Jackie and their friendship as teenagers and as a teenager, Shauna is pretty much obsessed with Jackie in a very questionable manner. I mean going as far as having an affair with your friend’s boyfriend because she’s little Miss Perfect is a very… concerning move. Jackie and Shauna are weirdly obsessed with each other, Jackie always just assumes Shauna will be in her life helping her no matter what, and Shauna feels overshadowed but still hangs onto Jackie like she’s driftwood. A perfect example for this is in season 2 after Jackie’s death she still talks to her and even as an adult visualizes her way too often. I mean the only two times teen Shauna smiles in season 2 is with Jackie and the wilderness baby.

The point I’m trying to make here is that Yellowjackets perfectly encapsulates how it feels to be a teenage girl and how your friendships and relationships as a teenager will most probably continue to haunt you as an adult.

An example of this is Lottie, her only proper friend in season 1 is Laura Lee and they find solace in their situation through religion and spirituality, something that sticks with Lottie well through adulthood. For Lottie, that time with Laura Lee is almost an awakening, as a child she was forced to push away her visions and mental health issues but in that moment with Laura Lee, she is finally free to experience what her mind wills her to. Like I’ve mentioned Lottie still sticks to a lot of spiritual beliefs as an adult and even starts a commune.

Yellowjackets does the thing so many pieces of media refuse to do, it delves into the horror of girlhood and the rage that comes with it. Way too often girls are told it’s inappropriate to be angry or have many negative emotions, be it media or relatives, or even friends. Yellowjackets dives head first into this experience of insanity, the complexity of female friendship. No wonder people relate to the whole destined to be doomed together as one tribe, because some iteration of this happens in society as well.

That’s exactly why Yellowjackets works so well, it comforts the deeply hurt parts of girlhood by validating the horror teenage girls face. The show right to our faces makes it clear that it doesn’t matter whether everything that happened was the cause of the mysterious wilderness or collective trauma, what matters is that they did go through some horrid things and still have to come to terms with it and that it will still haunt them.

EpilogueI’ve done my best to breakdown my thoughts on why Yellowjackets has such a big cult following but I’ll say it again.

Yellowjackets does what so many pieces of media refuse to do and puts the horror and rage of girlhood out on display. This rare instance where a show isn’t afraid to explore extremely complicated topics offer comfort for many and is in many ways a form of solidarity against the norm that girlhood is gentle and easy and people make way too much of a big deal out of it.

This was Lux, everyone, thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Until next time.

Stay Sunny!