Rick and Morty - Why Rick is Actually an Adolescent 

Go to NordVPN.com/thetake and use code THETAKE to get a 2-year plan at a huge discount plus a free bonus. It’s risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!

Its refreshing to have an old man character in a cartoon that doesn't fall under the usual stereotype of old men in cartoons i.e. bad back, slow & wheezy voice, seen as a financial burden, poor memory, history lessons, extremely traditionalist, almost always a WWII vet, wrinkly as hell, bad driver, lost sex drive, etc. At the same time, its nice to have a manchild adult cartoon protagonist that actually suffers consequences for it

Theevs Kingdom Come

Ok let's just say you could just leave your dimension for another one that exist... how would you develop? Honestly..

Rick is just as crude as todays youth.

Oh jeez... This completely misses the point that Rick are aware of multiple realities/universes and when you get confronted with something like that, it really removes your perspective of any meaningfulness. What if you know for sure that nothing you do will really matter, given you are just a tiny and insignificant bit part of an infinite reality. Would you really care about things? Well, perhaps I'm expecting too much of this channel, but when you try to make a shallow point like this without taking in account the scientific context of reality on the show it just appears dumb. :)

The more I grow up, the more I realize that there isn't much difference between an adolescent and an adult in the grande scheme of things. Of course, we have more maturity, we are "wiser", more responsible and even more knowledgeable. That said, we are all lost. When I was 18, I would see people who are 25, 30, as if they knew everything. As if they had it all figured out. We never actually figure anything out. We just keep living. Adulthood is the acceptance of the void inside us, of lack of answer, of our smallness. Adulthood is living despite. You're still overwhelmed by everything, but you just keep on living because the alternative isn't much better. So, I believe Rick, in all of his childish behaviors, is an adult. A broken, lost, obnoxious, adult, still, an adult who is still struggling with the fact that life is that and only that. And sometimes you just want to be a pickle.

Valid point. Dr. House is another example that comes to mind. Who else?

"The universe is basically an animal. It grazes on the ordinary. It creates infinite idiots just to eat them." Rick Sanchez

Maybe Rick acts like a adolescent because life during adolescence is more forgiving, fun and adventurous. Adult life seems bleak, especially to someone as big brain as rick life is probably more graytone. At least in this state of immaturity and impulsiveness, some color and enthusiasm for meaning is added to his life.

I always thought if Rick is so powerful with his smartness why doesn’t he do something good like end climate change? But watching this video I realised he wouldn’t really care about that because his personal growth in stunted

Imo, I don't think we are ever really done "experimenting" and growing. Many people just become content with where they are in life.

Explains why his audience is mostly adult men with minds of teens Love the video as always

Rick honestly feels more like an elderly man with a mid-life crisis. He mentions that he had a hero phase before becoming the Rick we see in the show.

Rick: Literally a manchild Literally a manchild: If I quote Rick in an argument, that'll prove I'm not a manchild!

When I was younger, I was able to think things through more than I am now that I'm older. As a child and a teen, I was never impulsive, if anything, I was TOO thorough with things. I was never able to relate to my peers because of it (not to say I can now).

Please make a video about Marge Simpson and the housewife trope in media.

I can definitely say Rick lives in the mindset of a perosn in their early 20-30s. But within the body of a 70 year old. And to me its like Rick never grew past that mindset and instead fully embraced it. And Ngl it makes his character so unique and fun. I could have never seen Rick as a stereotypical old man. His character is honestly so well written I love him.

Rick is a pretty toxic version of someone in their early 20s. I find much more passion in trying to be a better person for myself, love myself, love others, it's what truly makes me happy.

Being in your teens is overrated. I love being in my 20s however.

As a 25 year old this video is very relatable to where I am with my maturity and priorities. Thank you so much for the content you put out in the world! It has helped me through the tough “cynical” stage of life that Rick is trapped in.

He's an addict. Which is obvious. Without treatment the addict will not change unless that change serves the addiction. Rick has not had treatment. He's in arrested development.

This analysis uses a pretty narrow, status quo, neurotypical definition of what adulthood should look like.

This feels like an attack. I’m almost 30 and half the things they use as an example, I’m like “and...?”

I'm 18 and it's the right opposite. I think what I feel like is something that a midlife crisis feels like. The best is over ( which in this case was my childhood), I'm too old now and I got nothing else to do than to remember back on the better days, dread over my past mistakes and all the friends, loved ones, and people that I have lost, being sarcastic, complain about everything which is a hobby of mine, just being alone watching movies, daydreaming and listening to music with a habit of eating too much junk food, starting drinking alcohol more and more, lost hope in humanity and society, and walking in this circle. No sense of work or anything can motivate me. I feel like everyone is too loud and annoying and just wants to be left alone. I'm an old and cranky man inside of an 18-year-old body who is just waiting to die. I even complain that my back and body hurt.

I don’t know about core demographic being late age adolescence. I’m the same age as Dan Harmon and it sure feels like its aimed at my generation a lot of the time.

You can say for sure he can not be seen as an old person just by looking at amount of erotic arts with him on pinterest

"I can't get married, I'm a 30 year old boy" - Narrator, Fight Club

i dunno... maturity looks meaningless when you watch the show using the logic premise of rick that nothing matters, every event repeats infinitely, there are multiple universes with infinite possibilities... I mean... Adolescent, adult, child ... responsability/maturity just looks as a concept created by society to order life, but if everything is chaos and pointless this order is just an illusion to make us feel better

I hope you guys make a video about Bo Burnham's new special, "Inside", one day. I really think he is THE comedian of my generation, and he challenges the form like nobody I have seen.

Searching for purpose and a valuable support group that parrots or panders our thoughts is not an asset it s fing liability that makes people collectively dumber ...The love for his grand kids is an evolutionary appendix ... He knows that and that is the difference .. And the "is transitioning worth it?" is a personal question and there is no right answer ...

Saying that things don't develop until this point in time and using scientific articles briefly don't seem wise. A teenager can have all of what you describe so giving more of a wiggle room and less of a total sense of being to action linked to brain development would be a smarter way of approaching this. Science is still struggling to fully understand the human brain and this feels like an attempt to sound smart when you aren't

Idk man, I'm in my 30s with almost everything modernity defines as "success" and "maturity" and I still struggle with finding a purpose and meaning to existence. Does my lack of becoming an "absurd hero" or blindly accepting a societal role without question make me immature for my age? I don't believe so, as these existential questions are asked by people of all ages, of all types of positions within society and with all types of healthy/unhealthy family structures. Meaning=growing up is not really the nuanced take that this video seems to think it is.

For some reason RU-vid hasn't been recommending (and I just plain forgot) *The Take* for at least three months! Oh the sweet sorry of knowing a binge is the only way😔

Running around is easy, its the living that's hard.

I turned 25 in November 2019 and started to make big long term plans for the first time ever and then...Pandemic so forget all that, right??

So rick is who people are before corporate life drains them of the ability to think for themselves..........sounds like something a corporate drone would say

13:57 holy those are bluest blue eyes i ever seen

*Clicks on this for curiosity* 2 minutes later: I’ve been attacked.

Good points. Although I think this is most true for people with more privilege who are able to dilly dally and have the time to wonder about the meaning of life. A lot of people don’t have that choice bc they have to survive. Lot of people have to grow up immediately, bc they have to parent their parents or younger siblings or fend for themselves and family young. Also the whiteness in rick and morty is also super pervasive as it is in many shows. Like his cultural appropriation at the very end “slay, queen” is seen as funny and endearing albeit cringe, when it’s actually just. Super racist and making a joke out of Black American culture. but eh I don’t expect rick and morty to care too much about racism anyway bc the whole point is they’re terrible people but just saying.

Of course beth put the choice on rick just so she could have someone, to blame. If it blew up on her.

If Rick Sanchez is an "Adult Adolescent" then Jerry Smith is a man child and if I had to choose between the two, I'd go with Rick Sanchez because at least he has more agency to change things as oppose to just "going with the flow" for someone that has little to no direction like how Jerry does. However, when I was in my teens and 20s I've spent most of my life trying to get into a good college so that I could get a Bachelor's in Accounting and I even regretted getting a dorm because I thought that it would be great, but it's not. Not to mention how I've been focused on money, family, video games, and helping people my entire life.

Woah I wasn't expecting to be described in such detail with such nonchalance

If I had to reasonably assume what happened to Rick in his development, it would be this: as a child, he was likely a genuis prodigy and that caused him to struggle alot socially, fundamentally changing his brain in a way that affects how he feels about others and his own superiority, permanently. At some unknown point in his young adult life, however, he meets Diane and they marry and have Beth. He decides that he finally has gotten what he likely had wanted his whole life: true love and the feeling of purposefulness. A state that doesn't require infinite challenges and hardships (unlike inventing and what not). When evil rick kills his family, all of that is ripped away from him. The cornerstone of his soul is taken from this world, and he's FORCED to be the genuis prodigy he was born as. While still young, presumably late 20s to mid or late 30s, he goes on a revenge kick, not only for his wife and child but also on behalf of all of the oppressed that he's come across in his travels. This is a common characteristic of young adults, feeling like they are social justice warriors and need to demand change. In that way, Rick regressed. He abandoned being a complacent family man in some way, (I do understand he lost his family, but one is capable of reconstructing family with other people and deep bonds) someone content with going to work everyday and doing "mundane" activities in the name of love, for a notion of childish revenge and rage at the world around him and its injustice, not saving others out of love, but instead depression and hurt feelings. It is also a distraction for him. When someone feels that they've lost everything, or for most young people, that they have nothing, they will do extremely risky and dangerous things like drugs, casual sex and freedom fighting. This is the case for Rick. From his 30s on, he went more and more downhill and regressed into a more childlike state from there. He began to see the futility in even freedom fighting, due to infinite universes of oppression, and the futility in revenge, never being able to catch the man who killed his family. To cope, he goes even more into substances, sex and emotional detachment towards others for fear of being hurt more or having to deal with hurt feelings. The feeling that nothing matters set in his bones, despite still desperately wanting that forgotten pasture of true love back in his life, what he wants deep down. Love and simplicity. Rick made it to real adulthood, but tragedy made him regress into a depressed man child. Thankfully, as the series has progressed, he's become more and more loving and open towards others. Hopefully he can make it to his dream by the end of the series. Thanks for listening to that all if you read it.

Rick is the symbol of the Peter pan syndrome

I always feel so bad for Jerry. Good video!

Maturity is a mindset, not age:)

Okay, but y'all realize that Rick is coded as autistic, just like his creator, Dan Harmon, right...?

The only difference between 25 year olds and 45 year olds is 20 years of time. Everyone is a kid, older kids just have more responsibilities

I still don't know what to do with my life, even when i think i know who i am and i like who i am...

Yeah, at 24 I feel like I’m only just now figuring out who I’m supposed to be

The first thing I thought about when I read the title was the fact that he's an alcoholic lol

In all these years Rick Sanchez grew old, but he never grew up.

There's a lot of old people like Rick who act very immature (i.e. Donald Trump, Joe Biden). Age doesn't determine maturity, at least not on psychological level, it's how we react to others and live life that determines our maturity regardless of any age.

why someone would like to be a functioning responsible person? That's sounds as to be mind washed....

I never got why social development is what determines 'age' I can see why physical conditioning is not related to maturity but having an IQ of >120 and having a broad knowledge base is sufficient to be an adult. For example a Army ranger with an MBA is an adult even if hes social development is below average 🤷‍♂️

This is a stereotypically bad take on the drive of young people to do things and their confrontation with the brutalities of the world. It's also a celebration of socialised conformity.

You mean adolescent should act freely? Wait.....what am I doing with my life?......

Didn't know Dr Wong had a youtube channel

Behind those Spiked Blue Hair is a petulant, infantile child not even crying to get out

We are all just winging it. Some just do it better than others.

Plot twist: he's not somehow an adolescent, he just sustained a brain injury on one of his adventures. What could be more tragic than a scientist who's not in control of his own brain? A mild tbi would be sufficient to explain his behaviors.

I don't know the Richlands mixup showed that of all the bad decisions he makes not joining the council wasn't one of them Just replace council of Ricks with his current family and I'll agree

Ive never felt so attacked in my entire life.

Is this like a personal attack or something? 😭🤣

Roger of America Dad please?!?!?

This Take feels like it was written by someone who has read a lot about R&M but has never actually watched it

Wow. That’s amazing. The only reason the co creators made Rick and Morty those ages were because they were originally parodies of Doc Brown and Marty McFly from Back to the Future.

I'm 50 and I love Rick

I love the Rick & Morty content in this channel

er... ok. Yesss (maybe?) I can follow this take to a point, but I run into issues with it. 1.This stage of uncertainty about life and purpose can last far beyond the age of 25 and the fear of banality of a committed life scares people at quite a few stages of their life (hence mid life crises) which is a good reason why Rick's character is an old man. 2. This take also establishes that being like Jerry is "correct." From leaving the freedom of the rick stage to living a life like Jerry's for stability. The show actually criticizes being too far in the opposite direction like Jerry is. Jerry's marriage and life is plagued with problems. There were instances where Beth almost left him, his children lost respect for him, all because he often has no backbone. 3. The comment about trying on several life philosophies and eventually finding one that fits, sits 50/50. Guidance from adhering to a perspective on life that helps you and suits you is excellent. But its important not to grasp so tightly to ideology that you fail to see the world through a different perspective in the future. Flexibility and a happy medium are key. Find a philosophy that is fulfilling and lets you move forward. But be critical to understand the premises of lenses you view life through. Sum it up: Life is a balance act. It comes down to the dichotomies found in all aspects of it. (and yes my take is a lens too. It helps me make sense of things and might not be wholly correct either)

So glad you guys did this! Let's go, Season 5!!!!!

If capitalism doesn’t force us to be a slave until our body gives up on us, we can actually spent adulthood thinking, learning from history, and finding out what is the purpose of life. But instead we are here trying to maintain the operation of all things instead of just eating and thinking. I am sad that human will never go to the new step of human mark in life by figuring out our own existence. I felt robbed of my adulthood and wish I was born a development alien or something.

N-....... Naw, dawg. This is a whole bunch of generalization and smudging the details to fit your narrative. Rick isn't "an adolescent", he's just "normal" ie flawed, which includes all manner of things like various acts of defiance and myopic outbursts and more. He's not "supposed to be our mirror 'cuz this is a teen show so he's a teen but he just doesn't look it to fit the BttF vibe"; he's just a dude, just like all of us [dude is not a gender specific term], hence he has all manner of flaws which we can talk about. That doesn't make him "fit this _stage_ of development perfectly, and now I'm just gonna state it like it's fact". The better way to do this would be to talk about how he is flawed generally, and then maybe talk about things like behaviors he might have not grown out of ie from youth or w/e; or at least to state it more plainly as "here are the ways adolescents generally can relate to him" or w/e; but to state it like it's some big thing which is central or foundational; I'm certainly nobody let alone a R&M writer, but that's pretty obvious to me as just a HUGE overstatement. There are so many ways in which he is so clearly NOT "adolescent", and that fact is even sometimes part of the point of specific moments unless I'm mistaken. No, he's not "ACTUALLY adolescent"; he's just a flawed dude. Some of those flaws are common in adolescents; some aren't. You could have made a worthwhile point about character and/or humanity [and/or etc] on this topic, but with it so overstated all I can think is "....well, okay, cute, but no. He's an old man and the writers know that, just 'cuz they allow the adolescent portion of the audience to also relate to him doesn't mean he's written in concept AS a mirror of [specifically] adolescence" I could relate to Goku in specific ways as a kid ....does that make him a kid.....? I could still relate to him in other ways as a teen .........does that make him a teen, 'cuz he's dumb [and everybody lvoes to call teens dumb]....? I can still relate to him now in ways that are different still ...............................sooooo now what Goku has a short attention span He must BE a kid Wait, he also neglects responsibilities Cool, so he must BE a teen Gosh, sorry, I almost forgot he also has been accused of being an absent father Well then he must BE a young adult It's weird then how he keeps having mistakes from his past come back to haunt him 'cuz surely that means he IS a mature adult with many years under his belt but a few lessons left to learn yet Or..... Wait a minute....... Could it be that fiction [especially pop-culture fiction] tends to try to appeal to a broad audience, like, say be having one or many characters who can be related to by numerous [vaguely] different people...................? ............naaaah, he must BE *ACTUALLY* an adolescent

On an evolutionary scale humans are infants, if that even; so this makes sense.

The more I grow up, the more I realize that there isn't much difference between an adolescent and an adult in the grande scheme of things. Of course, we have more maturity, we are "wiser", more responsible and even more knowledgeable. That said, we are all lost. When I was 18, I would see people who are 25, 30, as if they knew everything. As if they had it all figured out. We never actually figure anything out. We just keep living. Adulthood is the acceptance of the void inside us, of lack of answer, of our smallness. Adulthood is living despite. You're still overwhelmed by everything, but you just keep on living because the alternative isn't much better. So, I believe Rick, in all of his childish behaviors, is an adult. A broken, lost, obnoxious, adult, still, an adult who is still struggling with the fact that life is that and only that. And sometimes you just want to be a pickle.

The more I grow up, the more I realize that there isn't much difference between an adolescent and an adult in the grande scheme of things. Of course, we have more maturity, we are "wiser", more responsible and even more knowledgeable. That said, we are all lost. When I was 18, I would see people who are 25, 30, as if they knew everything. As if they had it all figured out. We never actually figure anything out. We just keep living. Adulthood is the acceptance of the void inside us, of lack of answer, of our smallness. Adulthood is living despite. You're still overwhelmed by everything, but you just keep on living because the alternative isn't much better. So, I believe Rick, in all of his childish behaviors, is an adult. A broken, lost, obnoxious, adult, still, an adult who is still struggling with the fact that life is that and only that. And sometimes you just want to be a pickle.

I think this video has one central flaw: The assumption that accepting that life has no purpose is just nihilism and contradicts affection and the will to live. It doesn't! Actually, I think that the logical consequence of nihilism is existentialism. Existentialists have an almost unlimited capacity for love, affection, and finding a purpose in life. The inherent meaninglessness of life enables unlimited possibilities of what to do with it and who or what to care about. You create your own purpose through your decisions. Because life is meaningless, you can do with it what you want. Because love and affection have no higher purpose, they are valuable simply for what they are. That's why I think that Rick searching for meaning, caring for his family, or fearing death really isn't contradictory to his philosophy. On the contrary, I think it is the logical consequence.

Just came here to say that you didn't need a 15 video to say that Rick is an immature teen who wants to enjoy life without any limit

Nowadays this channel is full of feminist propaganda to an extend, Im dont even want to open videos, which seems neutral, but this was a very nicely put together and thought out video. And im saying this as an adult, having the same problems in a way...

He's really 23 trust me lol

Ur analysis always targets the core So specific so convenient 🎉

Bruh...is this Dr. Wong? Cause I'm getting serious Dr. Wong vibes

As a 23 year old, I’ve watched a lot of Rick and morty and a lot of takes on the show. This is the most unique and hard hitting one I’ve seen. I woke up and instantly clicked on it and I can tell I’m going to be rummaging through this one all day. Thank you! Great stuff per usual!

You really have to stop putting the ads during your sponsorship reads .....

It's weird how people think that, if Rick became more like Jerry, he'd be happy like Jerry. Even the writers seem to go for this (Doofus Rick) but I'm not buying it. Rick is driven to chase after something missing in his life, and to stop chasing won't fill the hole.

So this sums up Tony Stark is also an adolescent, 😵

The question is why does he act this way cuz all this video is saying are ways he is in that state of mind not the real reason why he feels he needs to be

This totally ignores that dementia can bring back earlier mindsets, making an elderly adolescent entirely plausible.

Where is the old voiceover person from before this channel changed its name? I miss her :(

Being an adult means being another cog in the machine. No thanks

I feel like he couldn't be older than like 40 or smth

I just realized that Rick could be a Morty!

Jerry is 35 at most. He's not middle-aged.

he is an adolescent because the audience is adolescent. the audience, project their own immaturity into a high functioning adult because it validates their own adolescent behaviour. good luck with that. if you ever hear someone quoting rick and morty, dont fuck them.

Can you have the take on Rick and Morty season 5?

I have never seen a single episode of this show but Jesus do i have alot in common with Rick .....im a 36 year old 12 year old boy , i never had any kids or really any responsibilities so i never grew up , had an iq of 138 , had addiction problems , and in my 20s alot of risky sexual activities and now i race a crotch rocket , im impulsive and have absolutely no long term planning abilities, i need to check this show out lmao

There are different ricks i’m C-531

😂 "Purpose anxiety"?? I think it's always been referred to as "existential(ist) anxiety." Or is that now updated?

The more I grow up, the more I realize that there isn't much difference between an adolescent and an adult in the grande scheme of things. Of course, we have more maturity, we are "wiser", more responsible and even more knowledgeable. That said, we are all lost. When I was 18, I would see people who are 25, 30, as if they knew everything. As if they had it all figured out. We never actually figure anything out. We just keep living. Adulthood is the acceptance of the void inside us, of lack of answer, of our smallness. Adulthood is living despite. You're still overwhelmed by everything, but you just keep on living because the alternative isn't much better. So, I believe Rick, in all of his childish behaviors, is an adult. A broken, lost, obnoxious, adult, still, an adult who is still struggling with the fact that life is that and only that. And sometimes you just want to be a pickle.