I speak about the youth of today with some understanding because I would classify myself as the youth of today. If like myself you’re a numbers person you can consider youth to be the 18 to 25 market.
Let me give you some background to this post: I went to watch a movie on Sunday called “Starter for 10″. I’d firstly like to say that if you like movies about such as the Breakfast Club and other stories about “youth” experiencing life then you’ll love this. Secondly the thing that stood out for me in the movie was how the university the main character was at was filled with people protesting various causes. These causes ranged from “Ending Apartheid” to the cutting down on Nuclear warheads.
This brings me to the point of my argument: I spent four years at Wits University and never, ever, ever did anyone ever protest against anything! Never once has anyone seemed to care enough about a problem in our world to actually get up and try to raise awareness. It strikes me as ultimately very sad that my generation, with its energy and passion wastes their life on celebrity gossip and consumerism.
It just fascinates me that we are essentially the most hollow, empty generation ever. We have no great war to fight for, we literally don’t seem to care about what is happening around us. The causes are there, it’s just that no one cares. It’s for this reason that I feel our country and the world is on a downward spiral. People seem more interested at the imminent release of the new Apple iPhone (which will hopefully have 3G and a keyboard) than the fact that the Amazon is being burnt down.
All this got me wondering what on earth is going on. It’s not that there is a lack of causes to fight or people to save, it’s just that people are more interested in where Britney Spears is going drinking than how many people were killed in Tibet this week. I’ve been briefly speaking to the people in my class about the South African Million Man March and no one seems to know anything about it. Does this not strike you as odd?
Am I missing something here? Did I spend too many hours in a library and never saw people of my age getting involved? If anyone has any idea whether there was something I missed or if there is anything worthwhile to get involved with then please tell me!
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Boet, you have to realise ONE thing to get your head around this: the MEDIA rules the world.
In the early 1920s, the papers were full of war stories and depression had set in..
Now-a-days, we have a sensationalised media frenzy that devoures celebz for breakfast (or is it us that do in the loo when we pick up ‘People’ magazine?)..
Are you seeing my point?
You, like myself, are a South African. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess you’re also white?
I’ve come to the conclusion that white 0 – 30 year olds have very little culture/beliefs/heritage in this country. Arg, dinner time.. more to follow – watch this space
Hey Chris
Yip, pale white male here.
I agree with you that the youth of today have no culture due to the lack of anything beyond stories about rubbish celebrities.
My issue is that without any culture how do you have any passion and thus drive? This fact scares me greatly!
Eagerly awaiting the rest of this comment though
Student apathy is a huge problem in SA, I’ve been a student at UCT for many years now and similalry i’ve seen very little protests. Funnily enough though, its not that there are no cause’s to support, or no one is aware of them, but here at UCT our problem seems to be that if someone tries to organise a protest (and trust me loads of intrest groups do) they get very little support. Most students these days are more interested in keeping their heads down and getting a degree than supporting a cause. Maybe we’ve all become far to cynical… or should that be lazy?
Nick, I wouldn’t say lazy. If anything, we are FINALLY moving into a more ‘education orrientated’ way of living in SA. Slowly.
I do, however, think that the case with a lot of my peers is that they simply do not appreciate anything. Wars / Great Depressions / you get the idea are all things that previous generations had to slog through to make it to where they are today. They remember the (bad) old days.
I was at UCT for a year and for the duration of my stay, I can safely say that the most memorable thing about it wasn’t the protests, or the causes, it was the HOT summer fashion exhibited by the girls. Yummy.
The youth of the 21st century is a Puppet of Trend.
I personally, have NO drive other than my self-inflicted motivation, which at the best of times can be minimal. But like all good things, it’s taking time. Hmmmm, what i’d give for a ‘leader’ woth idolising.
South Africa, if i could hug you, I would. I hear you crying…
SaulK
Interesting article you’ve written here, just view the world and tell me what exactly you see. Technology has become no.1 and besides what we mostly lack these days is the community spirit, socialism has been erased by capitalism and imperialism thus leads us to the type of lifestyle we live in.
As for the million man march I knew from the time it commenced and the foreman behind it Desmond Dube, if you observed the whole arrangement it was too commercial which again brings us to what we refer to as consumerism.
It was his publicity stunt and few men participated, foremost it was held at Union buildings in Tshwane, how many men were able to go there? The youth of Soweto uprising, Chatsworth, Langa and Gugulethu dedicated their lives and didn’t go arround asking for donation in order to demonstrate against Bantu Education.
My focal point is we lack UBUNTU and that will result in what we call lost generations.