Youth isn't wasted on the young

05 June 2015 - 09:09 By Leonie Wagner

Office jobs, sending a fax and waking up early on a Saturday are all so 1976, and young people today are #overit. So when anyone under 25 years old is asked about a real job or the amount of time spent on their phone, auto-reply is activated.But help is at hand. DStv's youth entertainment and music channel MTV has launched a campaign to educate mature citizens on the ways of the young and free.This is the supposedly "apathetic" generation. Accusations levelled against them range from lacking respect, laziness, fickleness and having no direction to self-absorption and narcissism.MTV's Youth of Today campaign gives "fabulous" young people the chance to challenge these misconceptions, and in the only way they know - multi-faceted with hashtags and an Instagram page to verify it all.Channel director Dillon Khan said the aim was to celebrate young people doing great things.He said youngsters were misunderstood by older people and needed to respond to accusations that they are useless.That response will be broadcast on Youth Day, June 16, when people aged between 18 and 25 will share their stories on MTV and MTV Base.Now all that's left is to find these young people.MTV has invited viewers and social media users to nominate candidates.The calibre of potential myth-buster will have to be high, it insists.Zama Phakathi, 24, who runs her own pop-up art gallery in Johannesburg, is one of the nominees.Phakathi said: "When I was asked about getting a real job, I told my mom it's a norm and I'm not about that. Getting a job and working for someone means selling my time and my time is expensive."Other candidates include a professional Instagrammer, music producers and entrepreneurs.Though it seems that the average first-year student might not make the cut, no one is excluded. ..

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