Age of Characters and Actors in Teen TV Shows

The age of characters and the actors that portrayed them in the 1st season of 33 teen TV shows released 2000 - 2021

**Data Description:**

This is a manually collected dataset collected to gain a better understanding of the age differences between teen characters in TV shows and the actors who portray them.

**Why does this exist?**

Honestly, I watch a lot of teen TV shows. When I started watching The Politician on Netflix, I realized something interesting. The show stars Ben Platt, an approximately 26 year old actor playing a high school senior. This isn't particularly remarkable since 20-somethings portray teens all the time, but Ben had done something interesting. The characters he portrayed were younger than him, yes, but they were getting younger. In 2012 he played a college freshman in the movie Pitch Perfect, then in 2019 he played a high school senior in The Politician, and in 2021 he played a high school junior in the movie Dear Evan Hansen.

I originally set out to see if any other actors that "play young" were Benjamin-Button-ing their way through roles, but ended up focusing solely on TV shows so that I wasn't buried in data collection forever. If you'd like to help me expand this dataset, let me know in the Discussion tab of this dataset!
Methods

As mentioned above, this dataset was manually collected. The data includes TV shows that meet the following criteria:

The show's first season was released between 2000 and 2021 in the US
The show primarily takes place either in a high school or centrally focuses teen characters

**Sources**

For each show, I recorded data for the main characters and supporting characters using the following sources:

Actor birthdays were collected on each respective actor's imdb page. Any missing data indicates that the actor had no birthday listed.

Character year & Character age were collected primarily through the Fandom website for each TV show.

Character gender was collected in the same way as character year & character age. In cases where the character explicitly specified their gender in the show, the explicit statement is what was recorded. In some cases, the character gender and actor gender may not be the same, so this data refers only to character gender.

**Calculations**

Determining approximate character age when only school year is known used the following assumptions: * college freshman = 18 years old * hs senior = 17 * hs junior = 16 * hs sophomore = 15 * hs freshman = 14 * 5th Year = 17 * 7th grade = 12 * 6th grade = 11

**Dataset updated**
Jan 5, 2024

**Authors**
Amber Thomas

本数据集系人工收集而成，旨在深入探究电视节目中青少年角色与其扮演者年龄差异之现象。数据集涵盖了2000年至2021年间播出的33部青少年电视剧的第一季，其中角色年龄及扮演该角色的演员年龄均被详细记录。

**数据描述：**
此数据集旨在通过人工收集的方式，以期对电视剧中青少年角色与其扮演者之间的年龄差异有更深刻的认识。

**数据存在的原因：**
诚然，本人热衷于观看众多青少年电视剧。在开始观看Netflix上的《政治家》时，我注意到一个有趣的发现。该剧主演本·普拉特，一位约26岁的演员，扮演了一名高中生。虽然20多岁的演员经常扮演青少年角色，但本·普拉特的做法颇具意味。他所扮演的角色年龄虽小于他，但呈现逐年下降的趋势。2012年，他在电影《完美音调》中扮演了一名大学新生，2019年在《政治家》中扮演了一名高中生，而2021年在电影《亲爱的埃文·汉森》中则扮演了一名高中二年级学生。

起初，我打算探究是否还有其他演员在“年轻化”角色扮演上有着类似的“穿越”经历，但最终我专注于电视剧领域，以免陷入数据收集的无尽深渊。若您愿意协助我扩展此数据集，请在数据集的讨论标签页告知我！

**方法：**
如上所述，此数据集系人工收集。数据包括符合以下标准的电视剧：
- 该剧的第一季在美国的发布时间介于2000年至2021年之间
- 该剧主要场景设定在高中或以青少年角色为中心

**数据来源：**
对于每一部剧集，我通过以下途径收集了主要角色和配角的数据：
- 演员生日数据来源于每位演员的imdb个人主页。任何缺失的数据均表示该演员未在主页上列出生日信息。
- 角色年份与角色年龄主要通过各电视剧的Fandom网站收集。
- 角色性别与角色年份和年龄的收集方式相同。在角色明确表明其性别的情况下，记录该明确声明。在某些情况下，角色性别和演员性别可能不同，因此此数据仅指角色性别。

**计算方法：**
当仅知道学校年份时，确定角色大致年龄的假设如下：大学新生 = 18岁，高中毕业生 = 17岁，高中二年级学生 = 16岁，高中一年级学生 = 15岁，高中二年级学生 = 14岁，第五年级学生 = 17岁，七年级学生 = 12岁，六年级学生 = 11岁。

**数据集更新时间：**
2024年1月5日

**作者：**
艾默·托马斯