Time & Perspective Quote by Matthew Vaughn

Vaughn is selling alienation as both a rite of passage and a critique of the modern social order, and he does it in the language of someone who’s spent a career packaging big feelings for mass audiences. The repeated “I think” is doing quiet work: it’s a hedge that reads as humility, but it also invites consensus. This isn’t a manifesto; it’s a permission slip. By framing not fitting in as something “everyone has,” he turns a private shame into a shared plot point, the kind that can anchor a movie pitch or justify an entire character arc.

The real bite is in the double emphasis on “especially.” Teenagers feel out of place, sure, but Vaughn widens the lens to “the society we live in,” suggesting the problem isn’t just adolescent insecurity; it’s an environment engineered to intensify it. In the era of constant comparison, algorithmic popularity contests, and hyper-visible identities, “fit in” isn’t a neutral desire. It’s a metric, a performance, a moving target.

As a producer, Vaughn’s intent is also strategic. He’s aligning himself with the audience’s most common formative wound to create instant emotional access, then gesturing at a broader cultural culprit without naming it, keeping the statement portable across contexts: high school hallways, social media feeds, fandoms, even workplaces. The subtext is reassuring and a little defiant: if you feel misplaced, you’re not broken; you’re responding normally to a system that profits from your uncertainty.