OPINION | The youth are not the future, we’re the now

Youth Day is not a hashtag. It’s a haunting handover and heartbeat we are still learning how to carry.

I recently felt that weight and movement — not in a policy report or a history classroom, but while onstage at the Riky Rick founded Cotton Fest this year. Ten thousand of us standing shoulder-to-shoulder and I looked out and said: “Iyoh, South Ahh ... Iyoh.”

It wasn’t just a chant. It was a call to memory. A spiritual reminder that we come from somewhere.

From V-Mash’s voice slicing through the TV static. From Brenda Fassie’s barefoot freedom. From Club Pelican – the first black-owned nightclub in Soweto, once run by my family – where jazz met revolution and glamour became resistance. From June 16 1976, when students turned uniforms into armour and the streets into battlegrounds.

In 2025, we’re still wearing that armour, just with better lighting and more glitter.

What does Youth Day mean to a 22-year-old TV presenter doing her final year in politics and international relations at the University of Pretoria? It means carrying contradiction in both hands. We are the most globally connected youth generation SA has ever produced. We speak fluent algorithm. Our sounds spark global dance trends. Our slang, amapiano moves and skits dominate TikTok feeds from eLokshin to London. 

And yet, many of us are still walking home with keys between our fingers – just to feel safe. Still choosing between transport money and printing a CV, only to be told to “come back with experience”. Still sitting in overcrowded classrooms without teachers. We are a generation SA loves to celebrate but struggles to serve.

Let’s start with the good. We’re builders. We’ve turned WhatsApp groups into movements, blogs, and brands. We’ve taken local sounds and made them global – from bedroom mixes to Boiler Room sets. We remix history into fashion, and reels become resistance. We turn trauma into art. We show up in spaces once closed to us: boardrooms, UN summits, global stages.

I say that as the Y20 ‘Meaningful Youth Engagement and Reforming Multilateralism’ co-chair representing SA at the G20. Not because I got lucky but because youth made a way.

Then, the bad. Youth unemployment in SA remains one of the highest in the world. Mental health support is still out of reach. Anxiety, burnout, and depression are our unofficial national languages. Townships that raised revolutionaries now bury potential under neglect and empty promises.

And the ugly. We’re hyper-visible but not protected. Brilliant but broke. Heard but rarely listened to.

Especially if you’re a young woman.

In a country where Olorato Mongale never made it home from a date, our safety is still treated like a side note. We carry trauma behind perfectly crafted selfies, knowing any one of us could be next.

And still, we rise. We rise by building what we can’t find.

That’s what Rai Talks is — my digital platform where we break down power, justice, and global systems in Gen Z language. That’s what TUNE IN was, a documentary and live show I created to archive SA youth protest through sound, fashion, and movement. It debuted to over 10,000 people at Cotton Fest. It wasn’t just a performance. It was protest through art. A continuation of Club Pelican. A new kind of freedom — one we own, not borrow.

Because here’s what we know: no one is going to hand us a mic. We build our own stage.

To be young in 2025 means being loud in a world that wants you quiet. Being complex in a country that wants simplicity. Owning your story before someone else packages it and sells it back to you. It means carrying the contradictions of a democracy still under construction. It means showing up anyway, even when we’re exhausted.

We are the remix generation. Raised on protest placards and pop culture. We cry. And code. We mourn. And meme. We are born free but not free from struggle.

So, where do we go from here? We want more than Youth Day speeches. We want Youth Day action.

We want policy that works. Education that doesn’t fail us. Safety that’s not negotiable. Jobs that don’t ask for 10 years of experience at age 22. We’re not asking to be saved. We’re asking to be seen. We are not a trend. Not a demographic. Not a campaign slogan.

And to every young person reading this, you don’t need a blue tick to be a leader. You don’t need a mic to move a crowd. You don’t need permission to be powerful. Your slang, your scars, your spark – it’s all valid. It’s all enough. You are the next Club Pelican. The next Brenda. The next revolution, dressed in thrifted jeans and gold eyeliner.

Iyoh, South Ahh. Iyoh. We’re not the future. We’re the now.

• Rakoditsoe is a model, actor, TV presenter and final year student in politics and international relations at the University of Pretoria.