Andrew Jenks, host of MTV’s World of Jenks, recently posted a piece over at Huffington Post that we think nicely summarizes the plight, aspirations and ambitions of his generation. Today we got the opportunity to talk to Andrew about what inspired him to write it, and what he plans to do with his ever-expanding television and social media audience.
Here’s a transcript of the chat:
DYLAN: Andrew, what puts you in the position to author something like this?
Andrew Jenks in studio with Dylan
ANDREW: Well, I guess I’m a voting citizen so that counts for something. On top of which, I have this television show on MTV and there’s a lot of kids my age that happen to watch it. So, it puts me in the unique and extremely fortunate position of having a microphone. And when you do have a microphone and people are listening to what you have to say, you might as well do something with it, right? So, I assume to write and try and fight for things that I think that young people, people my age, are struggling with.
DYLAN: Tell us first off about some of the struggles that have been brought to your attention because of your unique position.
ANDREW: Yeah, and I write about that in the blog post. I’ve had the great, great, great privilege to travel the country and talk to various colleges, even high schools. There are just a lot of stories and a lot of people that come up to me, and in ways, seem desperate. I write in my piece that there is this 23 year old girl who ran up to me with just a handwritten note explaining how she had terrible issues with depression, how her job and her university had promised her some sort of health insurance, both of which fell through. She had a one-year-old kid, and she was just really struggling, and you could see it in her eyes when she passed me that note. I consider myself a filmmaker first, and it’s just a feel that you get out there, that a lot of kids are really struggling. There was an article that was just out a few weeks ago out of U.C. Davis, about how they have a food bank for hungry students. A lot of them were trying to save money by not eating or skipping meals. These are sort of sad realities that we have to face, and things that I’ve sort of definitely faced as I’ve traveled around. I kinda came to the conclusion that we need to start coming up with answers, and not rely on other people, but really rely on ourselves, and come together in some way.
DYLAN: You write in your piece that “these are not just notes of desperation, these are remarkable stories of resilience. What do you mean?
ANDREW: Well, I think the act in and of itself of sharing your story, a lot of times, just demonstrates resilience, because clearly you haven’t given up. You’re out there looking for answers. That’s the one thing I concluded, is that there’s so many kids out there that are just searching for the answer, and they’re not sure what it is. Because, like me, they’re not necessarily policy wonks or, like me, they don’t pretend to have a litany of answers, but they know that certain things just don’t seem fair. And that includes — I just read that the average student is $23,000 in debt when they get out of college. That just doesn’t seem fair when 26% percent of us are unemployed. It’s simple things like that that make it so clear to me that we need to kind of stand up and speak out, and do so in a civic way.
DYLAN: You’ve also published, from one of your Twitter followers, it says “what’s known as ‘The Greatest Generation’ rose from deep economic problems in war. Today we have a new set of challenges. I want to inspire my peers to create a future they believe in, rather than live in a future they have been told to believe in. What does that mean?
ANDREW: It kind of means that we can be part of the solution, and not the problem. And rather than sort of feeling bad for ourselves, as we come to understand this murky future — worse than murky, outrageous future that America is going to be going through, what can we do to help everyone else out, including ourselves? I think it’s been well documented and well published that we are getting hurt, in many ways, not just education, but health care and debt, so what can we do as a generation to help fix this? We’re one of the first generations to have access to internet, access to information, access to transparency — or at least better access to transparency — and I think it’s really up to us to use that. We’ve been the pioneers in creating it, with guys like Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, and I think we need to be the pioneers in using it to our advantage.
DYLAN: What do you say to those who hear someone like yourself and feel skeptical? They argue that your generation is too distracted by things like Facebook — that there’s a certain level of of disengagement that is thematic to your generation?
ANDREW: I guess. I mean that seems like kinda the old lines about a lot of young people, right? That young people are disengaged, don’t care, never vote. But I think there are different ways of engaging young people, and when they’re getting particularly screwed for lack of a better term, I think that’s good reason for all of us to stand up. Maybe ten years ago, it was easier for young people to be disengaged, but now that we’re getting out of college and seeing that we’re in terrible debt, and getting out of college and seeing that we have no jobs, and getting out of college and seeing that we have no health care, it’s something that I think is worth our attention.
DYLAN: You say, “in the coming months, I along with many other young people will work together to achieve a civic discourse that results in a world that our generation will be proud to hand off to the next.” What kind of world would that be?
ANDREW: It would be a world where health care is much more accessible, I think it would be a world where education is fair. It’s indisputable if you’re living in a poor area, you’re not going to get as good of an education — no one will really question that. So I think for me that’s really the main priority — seeing that all of us get an equal education, and have that opportunity to go out and get jobs, and change the world for generations and generations to come. And also doing it in a civic tone, in a peaceful way. I think there’s ways to do this without using the language that other people choose to use. We’re all from the same country, and we all want better things for it, so it’s a matter of informing those that are misinformed. And that’s what we want to pass on.
DYLAN: If you were to look at the opportunity you have — which is obviously immense, with the platform that you have at MTV, with the ability to publish and really be the reporter that you’re able to be, and collecting the stories that you’re able to present in this piece, can you describe a little bit your own personal feelings having found yourself at a very young age — 24 years old — both with the opportunity to serve as a messenger at the level that you do and also the responsibilities that come with it.
ANDREW: You know, well I guess that’s what I would say to a lot of young people — and something that I’ve kind of briefly talked about on this podcast here — is that I’m not someone that’s pretending to be extremely well educated — I didn’t even graduate college. Not to say that you can’t be smart without graduating college, and I’m also not necessarily in the stratosphere of policy and how to make the world a better place all the time. I make documentaries about living different people’s lives. I’ve had the ability to get to know people from different walks of life, and see how they’re kind of being affected in negative ways because of the way D.C. seems to be dealing with things. I’m certainly passionate about my fellow peers and the people that come up to me. And if I were to not write something like this after hearing all these stories, there would be something wrong with me. I mean, I see people in tears, and young people just really struggling. And it’s just so disheartening to see. Anything that I can do to try and make it better for them is something that I’m going to do. And if that includes writing a piece to try and really bring a lot of different young people together to achieve a civic discourse that does result in a better world for us to pass off to the next generation, then that’s what I’m going to do. It requires going out of your safety zone a little bit, I think. It requires us studying — I’ve certainly done a lot of reading in the last couple months — to better educate myself, and I think that’s what a lot of us have to do. Kind of take it upon ourselves.
DYLAN: Andrew Jenks — I couldn’t think of a better place to end this particular conversation. Andrew, of course, the host of MTV’s “World of Jenks” and certainly worth a look if you haven’t had the chance. Take a look at the piece that Andrew wrote today on the front page of the Huffington Post. Worthy of not only retweeting, but posting on your own Facebook pages and sharing with as many of your friends as you can.
No comments:
Post a Comment