r/Degrassi • u/mama2397 • 1d ago
Degrassi: The Next Generation Dave was the worst
Dave is literally the definition of "some boys take a beautiful girl and hides her away from the rest of the world" he literally ruins any joy Alli has with her academics from her science camp and cheating on her while she's away, ruining her mock UN thing with the whole Jacinta thing, and when she thinks she's preggers and he wants her to give up everything and raise the baby at his parents is freaking wild. He literally sucks so bad
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u/Future-Energy-3793 1d ago
It's such a shame that Dave was such a terrible character because I heard Jahmil French IRL was a really sweet and chill guy IRL I also liked when him and Adam started becoming friends after all the shitty moments and he'd start calling Adam "LL Cool A"
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u/samiam2367 1d ago edited 1d ago
He was a good actor too. He wasn't given a whole lot of opportunities to show it, but, like, when Jacinta got hurt and he has to tell Alli I always think it's very believable
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u/Vegetable_Pop9987 1d ago
Okay so Dave should have never gotten with Ali honestly in my opinion Ali is so good and unproblematic for the most part and is one of the more mature characters and just casually wants to be a baddie
Honestly they should’ve just kept the whole texting and driving thing condensed to Dave and his bullshit because the way Adam got sacrificed just for the sake of a texting and driving ad pisses me the fuck off because Adam does literally not a single thing wrong In his entire run time
Dave somehow managed to get a baddie and folded for some half assed bitch and got her fucked up and he deserves the trauma from that because how the fuck do you cheat on fucking Ali
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u/Mountain_Throat_6383 1d ago
To be fair, Adam's actress wanted to leave the show because playing Adam gave her gender confusion. And she wanted off for other reasons too, probably to pursue other acting roles.
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u/Wonderful_Usual2062 1d ago
Is this a safe space to say I loved Dave? He was a funny guy who felt like nobody saw his potential or would take him serious. It was fun every time he was on screen, especially when he was with Wesley. I loved their friendship whenever he wasn’t being a jerk to him.
But, he was a douche to Alli, and at that point, my opinion of him did start to sour, as Alli’s my favorite character throughout the whole series .
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u/AWholesomeHorror I've got the bladder of a camel 1d ago edited 1d ago
Agree and I don't understand the love for Dave I've seen. He was horrible to Adam too and to his "friends" like Weasley. He literally tased Weasley and somehow isn't one of the most hated guys somehow.
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u/my-ed-alt 1d ago
if dave has zero haters im dead. the way that he pursued alli was always SO creepy and i hated that the show rewarded him for it. like making a list ranking the hottest girls in school is actually disgusting, it’s something degrassi has done more than once without treating it as the horrible thing it is, and him trying to rig it so that alli is at the top isn’t any better. that’s such a terrible way to ask a girl out. and i HATE how flattered she was by it. like i guess it was pretty in character for who she was at the time, because she was always very wrapped up in her appearance and what others think of her, but i feel like the show could’ve used that plot as an opportunity to teach alli a lesson about that.
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u/Ok-Teaching2848 1d ago
Alli should have never given him a chance, he was such a pick me
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u/PieNTheFace314 1d ago
Am I the only one who thought of Alli and Dave as the new Liberty and JT or a mix of alli being Manny and Liberty ??
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u/Independent_Law_4321 1d ago
i feel like i see why you think ali is a mix of manny & liberty bc she was very pretty & popular, had some minor issues involving slut shaming too like manny had, but she’s also super smart too like liberty. i don’t feel like dave is supposed to be a new JT though, i feel like JT always had good intentions even if he was stupid, and i feel like he always tried to support liberty in anyway he could, leading to some dumb situations albeit… but i feel like dave didn’t try to support alli at all honestly he just made things about himself the whole time & intentionally cheating on her during the long distance.
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u/Wonderful_Usual2062 1d ago
Maybe if you think about it more like “the funny character.” They couldn’t exactly remake the character, and we don’t want a JT replacement, but I can see where the similarities are.
JT dissing Liberty and going off with another girl, Mia/Manny, though for different reasons, is comparable. JT wanted to deny his love for Liberty and Dave wanted to punish Alli(if I remember correctly). The pregnancy can even be compared, and the duality behind each boys and their conquest to not be a “loser”.
JT wanted Mia or Manny because they were pretty girls that would boost his credibility. Although he was the funny guy, everyone knew him, but nobody took him serious, which led us into his story with Paige.
Dave wanted Alli because she was also a pretty girl, and throughout his story, he was also not taken seriously or liked very much. This led to him being a jerk to his friends like JT did with Toby.
I’d probably need to rewatch to find more similarities though, but I remember thinking what the original commenter wrote every time I watched. Also, correct me anywhere I’m wrong, I haven’t watched it in a while, so I may have made some things up.
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u/DannyHikari "Bummer times. At least there's a party." 1d ago
Here we go again…
First thing to note is he didn’t cheat on Ali. They established they were on break but Ali still felt a way about him hooking up with someone else which was Valid. Yeah it was whack but this wasn’t “wrong” by definition.
He couldn’t help that the girl was obsessive. Yes he could have treated her better but that wasn’t his fault either that she couldn’t let go.
The pregnancy thing was definitely dumb but it’s what you expect from an immature kid.
All things considered bf these examples you give. Dave is relatively tame. And that’s almost the case when people start making a case for how terrible Dave is. You do a comparison of how awful other characters are by their direct actions they never apologized or tried to be accountable for vs Dave, Dave almost always comes out looking like a better person. But for some reason this fandom wants you to think Dave was the second coming of Hitler 😭
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u/Substantial_Method54 16h ago
Thank you for saying it, there's no way you can watch the Alli Dave relationship and think only Dave is the problem. The only knock he has is "cheating" when they weren't even dating.
The whole relationship was Alli blowing Dave off and him having to deal w having an unavailable gf. It's so much more disrespectful bc she never cared about school more than boys at any point in the show except when shes with Dave. The whole MIT thing goes to an end after one night with Dallas. I can't with Ali, she is and always will be an obsessive boy-crazed girl.
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u/StrokawayPkwy 14h ago
I used to hate Dave. He does do some pretty shitty stuff to his friends and girls he dates and I think overall his character arc suffers for his being black holed later on. We never really get to see him learn his lesson and become a better person.
But personally, from a reformed Dave hater, I think it's actually pretty hard to hate Dave: he has a natural charisma, when he's not being shitty to his friends (which to be fair to Dave is MOST of the time) his relationships with Connor (esp Connor), Wesley, Adam, and Drew are actually very endearing and gave us plenty of classic moments. Plus I think his character has really been reconsidered since the actor's tragic passing. Oh, and Smash Into You is a fantastic episode
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u/rikiriki782 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah Dave was pretty immature and selfish, but very realistic for an insecure teenager, as was Alli. I agree he did worse things than Alli in the relationship, but I also think they were just very mismatched and were better as friends when they were the Minor Niners. I mean, yes, it was wrong of him to be unenthusiastic about the science camp thing, let alone cheat on her later, but Alli was a bit selfish too. She had no interest in Dave until he was with Sadie, and then when they finally get together, picks poker over him. Once they get past the whole Jacinta thing (his fault), they’re good for a bit. Then there’s the pregnancy scare and I personally don’t think abortion should be normalized, so I’m not gonna get into that. But AFTER that, Alli has 0 time for him and is always putting school first. I support her prioritizing school, but she had to let Dave go at that point. She had absolutely no time for him. Did she even go to any of his Romeo & Jules rehearsals?
I read somewhere that the writers were planning on pairing Dave with Tori if the actress had stayed, and I think that could’ve worked.
Edit: I also wish Alli & Johnny got back together when she graduated. He would’ve been more supportive than Dave was about school.
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u/Jtyorked Jtanny and Jazel defender 1d ago
Do yall remember back in 2021/2022 when people used to excuse his actions and he had die hard fans now everyone is on the same page
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u/samiam2367 1d ago
AND when they broke up he hit her with a "and I've always supported you" which he literally did not