Reels loses control of its recommendations, the number of Christians in the United States is increasing, and what parents should know about the Oscars’ Best Picture winner Anora.
But first:Resource of the Week – 7 Minutes on Teen Slang
A core part of discipling the next generation involves conversation—and to do that, you need a shared language. But sometimes, teen slang can feel like a completely different language. So we made a video all about it. In addition to defining several newer slang terms, we also ask broader questions about slang: How does it arise? Why is it so weird? And is it all just meaningless? Our goal is to help parents and caring adults understand the teens in their lives better, so they can keep the conversation going. (And for even more slang definitions, check out our Parent Guide to Teen Slang, now updated for 2025!)
And now for our three conversations…
1. Reeling
What it is: Last week, the algorithm for Instagram’s Reels briefly went haywire. When they opened the app, some scrollers (including minors) were deluged with pornographic material and videos of people being maimed or killed.
Why it’s revealing: Users often operate with the expectation that social media algorithms will weed out this sort of grotesque content. While Instagram does have a moderation system for “sensitive content,” it can fail at any time, meaning—just like last week—Reels may still slot videos of people actually dying in between dancing and skateboard tricks. This failing doesn’t help change that, even before last week, many users trusted Reels less than its direct competitor, TikTok, to limit such content on their feed. Meta issued an apology, but they probably need to do more than that to rebuild that trust, especially since they’re thinking of creating a separate app for Reels.
Continue the conversation: What do you do when you come across a video you don’t want to see online?
2. The Upward Spiral
What it is: According to Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study, the percentage of Americans who identify as Christians actually increased between 2022 and 2024.
Why it matters: While the global church has continued to grow and thrive, the story that Christianity is on the decline and that “the nones” are taking over has dominated the U.S. religious landscape for several years. These new statistics challenge that story. Although 2024’s numbers still represent an overall decline in Christian faith in America since 2007, the increase from 2022 to 2024 is the most significant increase since Pew started conducting the survey. Gen Zers born between 2000 and 2006 are a big part of this change, apparently bucking the trend of people born in each successive decade being more “religiously unaffiliated” than the decade before.
Continue the conversation: Why do you think that more Americans are turning to Christianity?
3. The Oscars and Anora
What it is: This Sunday, the 97th annual Academy Awards (aka the Oscars) took place.
What happened: Conan O’Brien hosted the event, Adrien Brody won Best Actor for his role in The Brutalist, and Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo performed a medley of greatest hits from the land of Oz. But it was the movie Anora, a basically pornographic comedy-drama about the life and times of a stripper and escort that got most of the attention. The movie won Best Picture, director Sean Baker won Best Director, and Mikey Madison (who played the title character, Anora) won Best Actress. So what does it mean that this movie was given the highest awards possible in our culture’s biggest movie ceremony?
Let’s translate this one further…
In an interview after the Academy Awards, Anora’s director, Sean Baker explained the goal of his work this way: “I’ve been pretty outspoken about my stance on sex work. It’s our oldest ‘profession,’ yet it has an incredible, unfair stigma applied to it. What I’ve been trying to do with my films is, sort of, chip away at that very unfair stigma. Personally, I think it should be decriminalized.”
This statement makes it pretty clear that Baker didn’t just make this movie to humanize people who work as prostitutes, but to actively destigmatize sex work. He sees himself as an activist.
There’s a case to be made that completely decriminalizing prostitution wouldn’t really create a better reality for the fictional Anora, or her real-life counterparts. In 2012, researchers from the London School of Economics published an empirical analysis of prostitution policies in over 150 countries. Their study concluded: “The scale effect of legalizing prostitution leads to an expansion of the prostitution market and thus an increase in human trafficking… On average, countries with legalized prostitution experience a larger degree of human trafficking inflows.”
The results of this study would imply that decriminalization creates a darker, more dangerous environment where innocent people are kidnapped and abused, innocence is corrupted on a wide scale, and everyone involved is objectively less “safe.”
Teens might not care that much about the Oscars anymore, and to be honest, lots of adults don’t, either. But we can’t just ignore what Sean Baker says about sex work. In theologian Francis Schaeffer’s prescient book The God Who Is There, he argued that the ideas that ultimately become part of the air we breathe always start out with academics and cultural tastemakers. In particular, he argued that what starts out in the realm of philosophy then trickles down into art, and from there into music, and from there into general culture.
Baker may be well-intentioned, but when we further normalize prostitution, we go deeper into a world where the unrealistic expectations generated by a pornified society harm marriages, where on-demand sexual release buttresses emotional immaturity, and where men and women are objectified.
In her acceptance speech for Best Actress, Mikey Madison said, “I also again just want to recognize and honor the sex worker community. I will continue to support and be an ally.” And so will we: by insisting that these women deserve better than the commodification of their sexuality.
For more context and nuance, check out our Roundtable podcast on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. In the meantime, here are three questions to spark conversation with your teens:
- Do you think destigmatizing things is always a good idea? Why or why not?
- Why do you think some people prefer the term “sex worker” to “prostitute”?
- Do you think the Oscars are out of touch with the rest of society? Why or why not?
PS: Know someone who could use our conversation starters with their teens? Share the CT with a friend!