BENI: A place for 'weird kids' to define themselves

Photo courtesy of BENI

Nadir Nahdi explains why he was inspired to create BENI, a space for young people who refuse to be pushed into boxes and be defined by a mainstream, cultural norm. As a 'brown' kid who calls London home, he did his best to make sense of seemingly disparate worlds. BENI is a way to reach out to others like him and help create, inspire and redefine the narrative about themselves.

What is BENI?

BENI is a content platform exploring alternative culture and identity. Currently, it’s a YouTube channel: I travel the world producing videos about young people who aren’t easily put into categories as they constantly negotiate the multiple identities of culture, spirituality and modernity. … They’re the kids that the crowds think are a bit weird, quirky and different.

Where did the idea for this project come from?

It totally came from my own experience. Growing up, I felt like I was completely alone … But as I grew up, I met exceptional young people worldwide in a similar position as me. Their ambitions, outlook and lives were completely intersectional. They excelled in whatever they did and benefitted everyone around them, not just any specific group or people.  

They aren’t defined by the prejudice or stereotypes that exist about them. Excellence, creativity and an insatiable desire to shape the culture of the future is where they begin. 

Photo courtesy of BENI

How is BENI a producer of 'social, digital and experiential culture'?

I find BENI really hard to explain to people who don’t understand it. This is because everything it represents is a lived experience, and those who live it totally get it. But those who don’t, they’ll ask you to tell them what it is in a sentence. For me, that represents everything wrong in the world. I can’t distil my complex life into a sentence. People need to realise we are wonderfully diverse and complicated beings whom you won’t understand in one tweet.

How does BENI work?

The way BENI works is unique, because it’s totally plugged into the zeitgeist. What are young people interested in? What are they watching? How is media produced today? Who is dictating the culture of the future? This knowledge allows it to create content for young people to watch that has substance to it yet is still entertaining and relevant. 

If you look at the content landscape right now, 80 percent of people from our diverse backgrounds are creating content that lacks any real substance or creativity: pranks, make-up tutorials and food. Where’s the stuff that pushes our creativity? The content that raises the bar? The substance that instigates meaningful discussion and inspires others? If we want people to take us seriously, we need to start creating seriously good stuff. I’m not saying BENI has achieved that yet, but it’s definitely the main objective I will continually strive for. 

Specifically, how the collaborations work is by finding people across the world who reflect the ethos of BENI. By cataloguing their experiences, we string together skills, mindsets and experiences for the viewer’s benefit. This catalogue will be useful to an emerging generation who finally feel connected to similar people, empowering them to innovate further.

What are you currently working on?

Currently I’m working on a project called GO BACK HOME. At some point, you would have had this said to you [if you were] living in the West. It leaves the diaspora with a troubled understanding of where they really belong. So I actually GO BACK HOME to the places of my parent’s ethnic heritage on a road trip to Yemen, Indonesia, Pakistan and Kenya. I’m travelling to these places to see if I feel more at home there, as supposed to the place of my birth, London. Will I feel more at home? What is home? What does youth culture look like there? Are there people like me? Where do I belong? 

The overall lesson, I hope, is that I won’t feel entirely at home anywhere. Instead, I’m part of a third culture, a hybrid generation that has to create this belonging and culture anew. I hope to meet similar people along the way.

Nadir Nahdi, creator of BENI / Photo courtesy of BENI

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