The Buddyhood Publishing, founded in 2025 by Harleen and Andrew Ahluwalia-Cook, has chosen a subject many children’s and young adult publishers still handle cautiously: the internet’s effect on how young people think, compare, and form judgment. Its UNFOLLOW graphic novel series enters that space through fiction, using suspense and visual storytelling to examine misinformation, online pressure, and the hidden logic of the feed. Rather than urging readers to disconnect completely, the series asks what it means to stay online without giving up discernment.
That premise gives the books their relevance. Across the series, young protagonists begin to uncover forces manipulating digital spaces, from algorithmic amplification to the spread of misleading or harmful content. Beneath the fictional frame sits a familiar set of real anxieties: influencer culture, body-image pressure, unverified claims, and the psychological strain of constant exposure. The stories are dramatic, but their source material is ordinary life for a generation raised inside platforms.
A format that meets readers where they are
UNFOLLOW works in part because it uses the form of the graphic novel rather than an educational textbook. The quick pacing, strong visual rhythm, and immediacy of the format resemble the digital environments the books are critiquing. That lets the series capture attention before asking readers to slow down and think.
The timing matters. The National Literacy Trust reported in 2024 that only 32.7 per cent of children and young people aged 8 to 18 said they enjoyed reading in their free time, the lowest figure since the organisation began tracking the measure in 2005. Fewer than one in five said they read daily in their spare time. Graphic novels have continued to attract younger readers partly because they speak more directly to how many now process stories: visually, quickly, and in fragments.
The Buddyhood’s titles use that strength to examine current pressures. Books such as The Dark Side of Food and The Dark Side of Fashion look at how digital culture shapes ideas about health, beauty, and self-worth. Harleen framed the wider concern clearly in earlier discussion of the company’s direction: “We feel outright bans are unfair to young people and foster frustrations. We believe there is a lot we can all learn from communicating with young people who can help guide us to create a world online and offline that is sustainable for all.”
Online harm is wider than the children’s debate
Public debate often treats online harm mainly as a question of children’s screen time or age limits. UNFOLLOW pushes against that narrow frame. Its plots suggest that misinformation and manipulation affect all age groups, even if young people feel the effects with particular intensity.
That broader view gives the series more force. The spread of harmful content has been linked to anxiety, self-harm, eating distress, and distorted body image, while misinformation in areas such as climate and energy has widened cultural and political division. The forthcoming title The Dark Side of Energy appears to move directly into that territory, examining how narratives can be weaponised online and how complex issues are flattened into polarising claims.
Andrew described the purpose of the books in practical terms: “The idea is to give young people a place where their words are treated seriously. Afterall, they didn’t create the online tools that they are using so it is not their fault. We have failed them so we must work with them because collaboration not conflict is key.” That line helps explain why the series does not present readers as passive recipients of harm. It treats them as people capable of recognising manipulation and questioning it.
Agency rather than withdrawal
The most useful idea in UNFOLLOW may be the meaning of its title. “Unfollow” is presented less as a call to log off than as an act of judgment: deciding what deserves attention, questioning sources, and resisting manipulation. That makes the books less about avoidance than about agency. As a graphic novel format, it plays to the superhero theme encouraging young people to recognise that they all have an online superpower to unfollow; all they have to do is realise it.
For a publisher working during a reading-for-pleasure slump, that is a serious editorial choice. The series suggests that younger audiences are still responsive to stories, but less interested in ones that ignore their realities. UNFOLLOW meets digital anxiety with compelling narrative and leaves readers with something more practical than alarm. It offers a way to think about attention, influence, and choice in a culture shaped by endless scrolling.
