Anxiety Needs A Friend: Inside Out 2 Reflections
Author’s note: My words are migrating to Substack, the home of my new publication ‘Letters From Heidi’ – a refuge for truth seekers, deep-thinkers and the homesick in search for Eternity. This is a preview of my latest post “Anxiety Needs A Friend: Inside Out 2 Reflections” which you can read in full here.
Disney Pixar’s Inside Out 2 is a coming of age story, narrated from the colourful and creative control room of Riley’s inner-world. Her emotions of greatest influence (Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear) are personified as endearing main characters who bring to life abstract psychological concepts which evolve as Riley grows, and especially so after the “puberty alarm” sounds.
Puberty is awkward, scary and messy. It sneaks up on Riley overnight like a raging wrecking ball—a “demo day” where her emotional headquarters are turned upside down with an extended control pad filled with buttons that are now extra sensitive to “overreactions”. Riley wakes up the next morning with a zit on her chin, smelly armpits, and a mother shocked by her daughter’s moody rage.
The sequel is focused on Riley’s maturing. She’s now a thirteen year old on the way to hockey camp try out before her first year of high school. Travelling with her two best friends, she discovers in the car ride that they shared a secret: Bree and Grace had been assigned to the same high school without Riley. This triggers Riley’s insecurity with being left out, and becomes the catalyst by which new teenage-centric emotions are introduced: Envy, Ennui, Embarrassment, Nostalgia and the new leader, Anxiety.
The ‘Anxious Generation’ & Loneliness
The introduction of ‘Anxiety’ as the new leader upon puberty is apt. Our youth may be more emotionally fluent than previous generations, but they aren’t happier. Despite greater emotional awareness and mental health advocacy, our nation’s youth (especially among teenage girls) are mentally unwell in record numbers.
Social Psychologist, Jon Haidt (After Babel) has coined our youth the ‘Anxious Generation’, ascribing phone-based childhoods, overuse of social media, and a lack of real-life community connection as a reason for rapid mental health decline. Our youth are not only anxious, they are also desperately lonely. In 2023, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared loneliness ‘a global public health concern’. Gen Z writer and commentator, Freya India, attributes her generation’s loneliness to social media’s impact on real-life friendship. In her essay, “Aren’t You Lonely?” she shares how social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok turned teenage friendships into “another joyless thing to do on a screen”:
Here’s what happened: when phone-based social media platforms emerged in the early 2010s they did not just take time away from real-life friendships. They redefined friendship for an entire generation…They removed the requirements of effort, of loyalty, even of meeting up, and replaced them with following each other back, exchanging a #likeforlike, and posing for selfies together…They took teenage friendship—which used to be full of friction, thrills and adventure—and made it another joyless thing to do on a screen. Another thing to be performed and marketed and publicly measured.
While the Inside Out franchise has helped many to better appreciate their inner-world and to increase emotional fluency, I don’t believe this is its only focus. Riley’s story also shows us the positive and grounding influence of what’s outside of us in the real-world: a healthy family life, shared experiences with friends, physical exercise, and enjoying art and music.
The Value of Real-Life Friendship in an Anxious World
In the first movie, we learn that Riley’s five most-important core memories are represented by ‘islands’ (Family, Friendship, Goofball, Hockey, Honesty) —the values shaping her personality, beliefs and Sense of Self.
As a child, ‘Family’ is the largest and most influential island, with her close ties to her parents being the main source of her joy. As a teenager, ‘Friendship’ becomes the largest island, showing the normal transition of growing peer influence over a teenager. Both movies highlight that our relational bonds play an important part in shaping our identity and resilience into adulthood.
In a world that over-values online connections and digital presence, Inside Out 2 shows us the value of navigating friendships in the real-world. As a Gen Y woman, I didn’t get a smart phone until my early 20’s. I can compare my current connections with what it was like before mass texting and social media. I think the biggest difference is that compared to online connections, in-person experiences can be vulnerable and messy…and especially so for teenagers. Puberty comes with zits, braces, feeling left out, awkward silences, and teenage drama—mess that can’t simply be filtered away with a single swipe—and that’s a good thing.
Riley, Bree and Grace may not be the coolest kids on the block, but they show us the value of a friendship marked by kindness, vulnerability and dorky teen play. When ‘Joy’ was still leading Riley’s emotional headquarters, her decisions were guided by the self-belief “I am a good friend”. This meant valuing kindness over coolness, and goodness over popularity.
When Grace clumsily embarrasses herself in front of her classmates, Riley refuses to laugh with others and steps in to help with an empathetic word. She is then joined by Bree. From that moment on, trust is built and the three girls are inseparable and flourish as best friends—perhaps from the shared confidence that they truly have each other’s back and are not just using each other as popularity props “for the Gram”.
Over the years, I have learned that being liked behind a screen or loved after a “glow up” can lead to insecurity. My most confident friendships are found in the people who have seen me through my cringeworthy teenage and early-adult years. My inner-circle might be small, but these are the people who truly know me and accept me—warts, zits, failures, mistakes and all. With them, I can enjoy a whole deeper level of love and loyalty because our friendship has been tested, and we’ve committed to working through decades of mess together.
Friendship Is Messy Because the Human Heart Is Messy
The strength of Riley’s friendships is tested when Anxiety convinces her that she will be a loner in high-school unless she changes her personality to fit in with older players. Under Anxiety’s leadership, Joy and the original emotions are “bottled up” and thrown into a vault. Riley’s self-belief “I am a good friend” is replaced with new beliefs – “If I’m good at hockey, I’ll have friends”, “If I make the high school team, I won’t be lonely.”
These new beliefs drive new decisions. Riley’s once selfless nature suddenly becomes self-preserving. To befriend popular hockey player Val Ortiz, Riley distances herself from Bree and Grace, and reinvents herself with a pretend persona to fit in. From the outside, it may seem like Riley became “bad” overnight, but I love that Inside Out 2 shows us the realities of human nature—that our hearts are capable of both good and bad.
Before Riley stepped in to help Grace in the classroom, ‘Disgust’ had tried to stop her from sinking her social life through association with “the social Titanic”—an inner thought which shows Riley’s capacity for being judgemental and unkind. When it comes to the human heart, no one can claim perfection. All of us have an inner-world that’s bent towards self-interest and self-preservation—whether we act on our desires is a different story.
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END OF PREVIEW
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