Young People and the Advancement of Culture

The Ministry of Culture is once again offering Indonesian citizens the opportunity to participate in submitting proposals for the Dana Indonesia Raya fund for cultural advancement. The official deadline for proposal submissions is 31 May 2026. The 2026 allocation for Dana Indonesia Raya is approximately IDR 500 billion, sourced from a cultural endowment fund valued at IDR 6 trillion. The government is sending a message that culture is no longer merely a matter of preserving the past, but rather an investment in the future. This moment should be read not just as a government grant programme, but as a strategic platform for presenting ideas, innovation, and creativity rooted in Indonesian culture. While many young people compete to create technology startups, an equal opportunity has now opened up to build a cultural ecosystem capable of generating social and economic impact, while simultaneously strengthening national character. Dana Indonesia Raya serves as a bridge between the creativity of the younger generation and a more vibrant, relevant, and globally competitive future for Indonesian culture. Dana Indonesia Raya, formerly known as Indonesiana, is a Ministry of Culture programme in cooperation with the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP), with the primary vision of encouraging a cultural awakening and advancement. Since its initial launch in 2022, Dana Indonesia Raya has supported numerous individuals, communities, and cultural institutions engaged in cultural preservation and advancement. In 2025, there were approximately 2,800 beneficiaries of this programme. The Dana Indonesia Raya programme acts as a space for shaping public awareness to engage in exploring the cultural roots of every region in Indonesia. Culture is not just history, but something that is happening now and will continue into the future. From the perspective of Carl Jung’s analytical psychology, past culture is an ancestral heritage that can shape the collective unconscious (archetypes) influencing the mentality of people and generations today. Archetypes conveyed through history, religion, customs, art, myths, and ancestral beliefs are potentials embedded in every generation, which can serve as a reference for young people to shape ideas and narratives in realising a more advanced culture. The challenge, then, is how to synergise today’s generation with the culture we have inherited from the past. We are faced with the erosion of cultural understanding and identity among the younger generation, especially Generation Z. The massive penetration of foreign cultures through digital technology, social media, and artificial intelligence is one indicator exacerbating the erosion of understanding and application of our own culture. Borrowing terms from David Stillman and Jonah Stillman, the character of Generation Z is that of a ‘phigital’ generation; they were born and grew up with digital technology and cannot distinguish between the real world and the digital world. This condition also blurs the boundaries between culture and the digital content they access. If we do not instil cultural values in the younger generation, they will form a culture through the content they frequently access in the digital world, which often deviates from cultural values. Various types of deviance among young people in the digital world are quite numerous, with the most prevalent being online gambling. According to data from the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) at the end of 2025, the total cash flow turnover for online gambling trends was IDR 286.84 trillion, with 422,141,166 transactions and 27,986 accounts held by online gambling players. Other negative content massively accessed by the younger generation is pornography. Based on 2025 data from the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs, there were around 219,578 pornographic contents on both websites and social media, ranking second after online gambling content. In addition, the problem of gadget addiction among children and adolescents, especially in online gaming, social media, and video platform activities, alienates them from social and cultural life. Culture as a source of morality needs to be continuously revitalised among young people. We need to package culture in a creative way. Efforts to revitalise culture through the digital space represent a major opportunity to instil moral values in the younger generation. The digitalisation of culture in popular packaging must continue to be ignited. The more cultural objects we present in digital content, the more fresh air we give to culture in shaping the identity of young people. We can now see the rise of music and videos containing local cultural elements, both in terms of lyrics and melodies, going viral on YouTube. One example is the song ‘Lathi’ performed by Weird Genius featuring Sara Fajira, which combines electronic dance music (EDM) with traditional Javanese nuances; the song, with its Javanese and English lyrics, has been viewed more than 156 million times. This is a sign that cultural objects packaged with popular culture are increasingly finding a place in the hearts of young Indonesians. We must be able to creatively package various cultural objects such as oral traditions, customary rituals, traditional knowledge, art, crafts, culinary heritage, and cultural heritage areas. These cultural expressions must be seen as a promising leading sector, and they must be driven by the hands of young people with a spirit of innovation and digitalisation. Artworks as collective cultural products must be reinterpreted creatively by young people, without abandoning the moral values contained within them. The blend of custom and creation enables tradition to be accepted by a wider audience. The birth of young people’s communities based on arts and culture from various regions of Indonesia is a precise strategy for cultural advancement. Young people possess a creative mindset, understand urban trends and culture, and, more importantly, they master digital technology.