What does money mean to you? That’s the subject of a new documentary airing tonight on Channel 4. Filmmakers Fred&Nick’s film Payday focuses on four 20-somethings making ends meet in one of the UK’s most diverse areas – Croydon. From the guy with the self-made millionaire dad to the girl with mental health problems living on a park bench, it takes a look at what it means for young people to earn and spend money in the financial crisis.
It’s narrated by George the Poet; a spoken word performer and social commentator who grew up on an estate in Harlesden before attending King’s College Cambridge – and after working on the documentary is worried about the future. ‘I’m very concerned with the challenges facing my generation because a lot of people just aren’t conscious of how much of a challenge there is,’ he told The Debrief. ‘I think the problem is most people aren’t historians or economists so a lot of them struggle to put things in a global context and just talk out of their arse, for want of a better word.’
So what was his biggest learning? ‘Basically, a lot of people are getting left behind, so to say that people are being ungrateful is just being blind to the fact that society is moving in a particular direction.’
'I have no desire to enter conventional employment and, interestingly, the people around me are completely the same'
George also thinks that 20-somethings aren't getting much of a voice. 'The government cuts have directly impacted most of the people I know and without films like Payday I don’t see marginalised groups getting a shot at telling their own story. It’s easier for the rest of the population just to tune out and be like, “Well, there must be a logical reason." I’ve got friends that are full-time carers for their parents through no fault of their own. This isn’t a career, this isn’t something that they’ve done now they’ve settled down, it’s just their lives and they struggle with it massively because the slashes to the benefits that they were receiving have been devastating.’
In Payday there’s a guy who’s a boxer, and another girl who’s a stripper. Only one of them seems to have a ‘conventional’ job – does George think young people are turning away from more established career paths? ‘I think so. I have no desire to enter conventional employment and, interestingly – OK, I’m in entertainment – but the people around me aren’t and they’re completely the same. Most of my friends are between 26 and 29 and they all do things that don’t rely on conventional markets or sectors.’
Does this spring from a distrust of big organisations? ‘Definitely! I don’t think people higher up will ever care enough to share enough. Everything that happens economically is in the context of markets and if we start to control our own markets and find our own ways of making money that no-one can take off us then we’ll become the masters of our own destiny. Unfortunately, that’s just the way it is.’
And could the government do anything to help? ‘I’ve definitely given up on them. If they could somehow let go of this flippancy of real people and stop being so frivolous about actual people’s lives and start thinking about what they could seriously do to invest in lives that probably don’t have any worth to them in the immediate sense, that would be amazing. But it’s not going to happen.'
And what does that mean for the future? ‘The next generation are going to rise and step up to the plate because they have to. There’s no other way. It might come with a few more riots, it might come a bit of social discord – I pray it doesn’t come with hostility towards new immigrants which I fear it might, but I think in an ideal world everyone will just unite and get smart. You don’t have to be aggressive or revolutionary, just get smart. That’s all I want.’
Payday is on Channel 4 tonight at 11pm.
Follow Jess Commons on Twitter @jess_commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.