Heartstopper is a Netflix original British romantic dramedy adapted from the Alice Oseman graphic novel series of the same name. Now in production for its third season, Heartstopper gained a 100% review score within the first week of its debut in April 2022. The show’s main actors, Joe Locke and Kit Connor, told This Morning hosts in an interview that making the show didn’t feel like a job.

“When the first reviews came out I was like, ‘Oh I forgot it was actually going to get reviewed,’ ” Locke said. The show doesn’t just feel safe and personal to the actors though; most fans of the show also see it as their own little safe haven. The series shows 15-yearold Charlie Spring (Joe Locke) and 16-year-old rugby player Nick Nelson (Kit Connor) falling for each other. Viewers follow Charlie’s experiences leaving a toxic relationship and getting into a healthy one with Nick, who is still coming to terms with his bisexuality with the help of his friends, including Tara (Corinna Brown) and Darcy (Kizzy Edgell). Heartstopper is different from other shows because it is filled to the brim with positivity, and it has cast members who are close to the age of their characters and who are also part of the LGBTQ+ community. This is the reason it has changed the lives of so many teens.

A few things that draw fans to the show include the outstanding work picking out authentic cast members. Almost every actor in the Heartstopper cast is queer, excluding the few who have not made their identities public. One of the things that stood out to me the most is actor Yasmine Finney, who plays Elle Argent in Heartstopper, and is an openly transgender woman just like her character. This is a prime example of authentic casting. Outside of their sexualities and gender identities, cast members are actual teens, which makes the show so much more believable compared to other high school dramas where the cast has almost 30-year-olds trying to play 16- to 18-year-olds.

Another thing that makes Heartstopper stand out against other shows is how positive it is. Even though there are some negative plot points, including how Charlie is treated and the way it affects his mental health, the show still manages to have a very positive overtone to it. There is still funny dialogue and many cute moments that make the audience believe Charlie and Nick should stay together forever. The show’s vibrant colors and trademark animations serve as both a nod to the graphic novels and as a way to understand what the characters are feeling.

The main reason Heartstopper is such a comfort show to its audience is because it reminds people they are normal. It does what so many other LGBTQ+ shows fail to do: represent queer love in a way that is attainable to the average teen watching. Heartstopper shows queer life in a way that isn’t overly sexualized, reliant on drug abuse or other unhealthy behaviors, or gloomy and depressing. In other movies and TV shows, the characters being happy is the end result, and there is no happiness or positivity in the middle. Heartstopper is unique in that way — it doesn’t make the characters or audience struggle to experience joy.

“So much queer representation that we have in the media at the moment is like — it’s very sort of dark and gritty — and at times very negative, and I think that it’s extremely important to just show queer people being happy,” Connor told This Morning.

This positivity is so important to the younger teens watching. It lets them know that being queer is a normal thing they don’t have to be ashamed of. If the representation in Heartstopper wasn’t as good as it is, many people would still be in denial about their identities, like Adam, a 17-year-old from Hungary who was interviewed about the show. If it wasn’t for Nick’s coming out scene in the last episode of season one, Adam says he would have never come out to his mother and grandma.

“Before Heartstopper, I was just really trying to hide my identity a lot, I didn’t even come out to anyone before that. I was also considering completely repressing my feelings and living a fake life,” he told Time in an interview earlier this year.

Heartstopper has made such an important impact on people’s lives. Not just Adam’s but also a woman named Patricia who, thanks to volume three of Osman’s graphic novel series, was able to come to terms with her sexuality. This is all because of a scene that discusses a character named Mr. Farouk who didn’t realize and accept his sexuality until his mid-20s. The scene talks about how he missed a lot of “beautiful gay teenage experiences.”

This part spoke to Patricia, who is now 26, and it is because of this she is able to be patient with herself as she learns more about her and her sexuality, she told Time.

Heartstopper has touched many lives for the better by showing representation of a happy gay couple and their accepting families; they would have never come out or been able to accept themselves for who they are.

This show cannot be recommended more. If you are looking for a show that will have a lasting impact, is bursting with positivity and has queer representation, this is the show for you.