Dazed & Confused

It’s a new year, and we’re already halfway through a decade born out of turbulence. The nostalgia gap is closing in on us as we struggle to face an uncertain future and instead cling to the definitive past. But as we cycle through eras at lightspeed, we’re slowly, but surely, exhausting what was. When the time comes, the burning question on everyone’s lips will undoubtedly be: What’s next? Across these pages, we’ve done our best to answer that question. Dedicated to a new wave of young, talented and hopeful individuals, the New Gen issue is full of stories that speak to the urgency of the current moment. At a time when people’s rights are being undermined and taken away, how can youth culture respond? For the issue, I challenged the…

“The barriers are starting to break down, the hurdles are becoming smaller – for all those people who once had little to no opportunities to enter this space, light is starting to appear at the end of the tunnel.” Ant Idahosa Friends Are Always Welcomed Friends Are Always Welcomed (FAAW) is a Londonbased creative production company redefining how the city’s emerging talents are captured. Led by executive producer Oniqur Rahman and producer Anthony Idahosa, FAAW crafts striking, concept-driven visuals, collaborating with artists including PinkPantheress, Len, Fimiguerrero and our cover star, Jim Legxacy, to help London’s creative scene flourish. Where are you based? ONIQUR RAHMAN: Upton Park in Newham, east London. ANT IDAHOSA: Essex, in a small town just outside of London called Ockendon. What do you do? OR: I run the…

When I think back to schoolteachers in my day – I’m a 30-year-old young millennial, meaning the cohort currently between the ages of 29 and 44 – I think mostly of stern, exasperated old fogeys or middle-aged women with weird-aunt energy, incapable of getting the projector to work. I distinctly remember the coffee breath. Sure, coffee breath is likely still a problem, but what’s different now is that the current generation of school kids are being taught by a generation that’s more similar to them than ever before. Older Gen Zs (born 1997-2012, currently between the ages of 13 and 28) are now in the workforce teaching children in their very own generation and the one directly below, Generation Alpha, born 2013-2024. This means that – unlike when millennials were…

Meet the Bakutytė sisters: Aistė (27), Algė (25) and Adelė (19). “We’re like the Kardashians,” says Aistė of their alliterative names, for which we have to thank parents Asta and Algis. Like any Lithuanian siblings, they bond via TikTok and on mushroom foraging trips, a national pastime that emphasises closeness to nature. Aistė and Algė have sorely missed that access to the outdoors since moving to London, part of a major wave of migration out of Lithuania since the country joined the EU in 2004. Aistė and Algė also share a new year’s resolution for 2025: to leave the UK for good and return home to Lithuania. “Honestly, life here sucks,” says Aistė of London, Algė nodding in agreement. The sisters are visiting their parents’ home in Kaunas, Lithuania’s second-largest…

When I speak to Golloria George, who is calling from the back seat of the car that’s just picked her up from Chicago airport, it’s been just over a week since TikTok was banned from phones across America -for about 12 hours, that is, after which President Trump put the ban on pause as part of his executive order spree. As someone who has built her career on the social media app, testing out the darkest shades of beauty products and amassing more than 3 million followers online, George was faced with the real possibility of losing, if not everything, then a substantial portion of her platform. “It felt like a very strange, dystopian thing to be happening, like they were taking away our freedom of speech and freedom to…

It’s the start of a new year, and Lagos is still wrapped in the cool, dry grasp of Harmattan – a season when desert winds sweep down from the Sahara, veiling the city in a hazy, ochre tint. The air is crisp but carries a harsh edge, leaving lips chapped and the streets cloaked in a fine, powdery layer of sand. Amid this seasonal stillness stands Sillylostpoet’s tripod, now dusted like everything else – a tool she has come to see as an extension of her craft. It’s not just a piece of equipment; it represents stability, creativity and defiance of societal norms. Today, the digital creator and author of The Darkness In My Mind immerses herself in the pursuit of content inspiration, carefully selecting lingerie for her next shoot.…