21 Unrealistic Portrayals Of Teenagers In Popular TV Shows

Excuse me?

We asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us a time when teens didn't act like teens in a popular TV show. (Even though, as much as we love these shows, we also suspend our disbelief a lot for the sake of drama!) Here's all the glorious TV moments they brought up:

1. When Betty does a striptease for the Serpents in Riverdale.

CW

"Betty does a striptease to get accepted into the Serpents in Riverdale."

—jbmasta

2. When Veronica ran the speakeasy in Riverdale.

CW

"Veronica running a speakeasy despite not being old enough to drink legally in Riverdale. It’s more of a surprise when teenagers on that show actually do teenager things."

—jbmasta

"Veronica running a night club. Like, she goes to school full-time and runs a night club. Doesn't she need sleep or something?"

—s463b03bd4

3. When the teens in Gossip Girl were served underage.

CW

"Honestly, any scene in Gossip Girl where they get served at a bar underage."

—baileyanneking

4. When the level of teen attractiveness in The Vampire Diaries was a little absurd.

CW

"I hate how in The Vampire Diaries all the guys that go to school in Mystic Falls are unrealistically hot. They don't look like that here!"

—justanotherfangirl101

5. When the gang had co-ed sleepovers in Riverdale.

CW

"In Riverdale, the parents allow these teens to have their boyfriends/girlfriends spend the night in their bed. Like, what?!"

—taylornealy

6. When the teens in Pretty Little Liars wore designer clothes.

ABC

"I used to work in a nationally known company that sold clothes. We had the Pretty Little Liars costume head and assistants come in. For the teen characters, they immediately shopped the designer clothes. They never once went near the clothes we marketed TO teens."

—happyhat

7. When Jughead faked his own death in Riverdale.

CW

"Jughead faking his own death and trying to frame someone for it. What was his long-term plan? What teenager thinks faking their own death and hiding away is a valid choice?!"

—l4b8a7d01f

8. When the teenagers in Riverdale, Smallville, and Veronica Mars basically solved intense murder investigations that detectives couldn't crack.

CW

"Shows like Riverdale, Smallville, and Veronica Mars where they're running full-on murder investigations and solve multiple cases the police can't. They do these while still in school, while involved in extracurriculars, and are involved in romantic relationships — all while full-time detectives can't solve it? They're always in constant danger from it, too, and no one ever seems to have PTSD or learns not to put themselves in that danger again."

—l4b8a7d01f

9. Monse and Cesar's friends with benefits situation on On My Block.

Netflix

"Monse and Cesar constantly sleeping together as 'friends with benefits' in the first season of On My Block. They're freshmen, so they're literally 14 years old! I'm not saying 14 year olds never have sex, but they were having sex multiple times a day AT SCHOOL and pretending there was no emotional attachment. It was weird to me."

—l4b8a7d01f

10. When the Gossip Girl crew stopped attending really prestigious universities.

CW

"In Gossip Girl, they all stopped going to college their sophomore year. They’re supposed to be 19/20 years old, with most of the characters supposedly attending NYU or Columbia. But no one attends class, they’re all getting full-time jobs and running companies, and at some point school just stops being mentioned."

—yunotadog

11. Haley and Nathan literally getting married in high school on One Tree Hill.

CW

"Haley and Nathan literally get married in high school. Then Haley goes on tour! And then Peyton runs a night club. Such a great show, though!"

—catelynr2

12. When the teens in The Vampire Diaries spend four hours every morning before school doing ~all the things.~

CW

"In The Vampire Diaries, teens somehow had the energy to wake up, jog, do their hair and makeup, dress up, go to school, set up a whole dance ALL WHILE FIGHTING SUPERNATURAL BEINGS. If I was a teenager and some dude was like, 'I'm a vampire but other vampires are trying to kill me.' I'd be like, 'Man, I just want to eat some pizza and go to bed.'"

—theappledumple

13. When Quinn randomly decided she wanted her baby back in Glee.

FOX

"In Glee, when Quinn randomly decides she wants her baby back in Season 2. She was like a sophomore, right??? What 15-year-old wants to be taking care of a baby?"

—razmatini

14. When the gang in Zoey 101 misses the bus for the beach trip but finds another way to get there...but none of the teachers notice.

Nickelodeon

"In Zoey 101: the beach episode. The gang misses their school buses to the end-of-year beach party, so they go on their own and end up at the wrong beach with no cell service. As a kid, I thought it was the coolest thing ever, but looking back as a young adult, I can’t help but wonder how NONE of the teachers noticed the kids were gone? The kids were alone on a beach finding their own food, and then Dustin had to stay in the ocean because he lost his swimming trunks!"

—megana459810788

15. When deaths and scandals ran rampant in The O.C.

FOX

"Soooo much of The O.C. There's no denying we all loved the show, but the number of deaths, affairs, scandals, overdoses etc. for what, sophomores or juniors in high school? Come ON."

—tennismo

16. When they thought they could cash in $4 million with no one batting an eye in Outer Banks.

Netflix

"Probably all of the Pogues on Outer Banks. Like idk why they thought they’d be able to just cash in $4 million with no one batting an eye and have no run-in with the law. Don’t get me wrong, Ward was an absolutely awful person, but he was right when he told John B he wouldn’t have been able to get away with stealing the money from a property that he trespassed on."

—carmenbarrios28

17. When Rory made obscure references to 1950s TV shows in Gilmore Girls.

CW

"I love Gilmore Girls, but real teenagers don't regularly make obscure references to 1950s TV shows or French philosophers. Even teenagers as smart as Rory."

—allyl35

18. When the teens didn't really sound like teens in Dawson’s Creek.

CW

"I’m a secondary school teacher, so I KNOW how unrealistic the super-verbose and self-aware dialogue between the teenagers in Dawson’s Creek is."

—stipyit

19. When Glee pushed a lot of high school teen marriages for some reason.

FOX

"When Glee kept trying to make all of the toxic teen couples marry. Brittany and Sam made sense because they were weird and it wasn’t real, but Rachel and Finn tried to get married at 17/18, Blaine proposed to Kurt at like 17/18, and Brittany and Santana married around 19/20. At some point, because the actors were pushing 30, they started writing them *as* 30-year-olds and it was weird."

—em1231

20. When the teens in The Politician took the high school election way too seriously.

Netflix

"Don’t get me wrong, I loved the show The Politician, but honestly in the first season when they are in high school — who acts like that about the election? They took it wayyyy too seriously."

—theyellowdaisy

21. When Lana Lang (from Smallville) ran her own coffee shop business when she was 16.

CW

"Lana Lang (Smallville) went to school, did cheerleading, did a bunch of after-school planning (dances and fundraisers, etc.) and ran an entire business all while being targeted by supernatural killers and stalkers at least once a month."

—surfingrockets

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Note: Submissions have been edited for length/clarity