Jaden Smith has a lot on his mind. The 18-year-old Karate Kid star took to Instagram live on Wednesday, January 11, to share a few thoughts with his followers in a rant about having to tell his father, Will Smith, he’d failed, and saying he was moving out of L.A.
In the clip, Smith appears to be sitting in a car at the DMV when he allows his thoughts on the DMV, creativity and social media to tumble forth unfiltered. “It’s going to be so funny to tell my dad that I failed straight up,” he says, possibly referring to telling his actor father about his driver’s license test. Someone off-camera assures him he didn’t fail.
The actor and model then says he is planning to leave Los Angeles. “Everybody follow your heart, you know what I’m saying?” Smith continues. “Do exactly what you want to do, be the you that you want to be. I’m about to move out of L.A. There’s a lot of bad things here. Create the life you want for yourself. Don’t try to be somebody else.”
The outspoken teen then criticizes what he sees as a lack of opportunity for young people to express their creativity. “It’s hard these days to really create the life you want for yourself because there’s nobody really here that’s, like, supporting the youth or the youth’s creativity.”
Smith then muses about his frustration with society’s skewed priorities. “What is Instagram live?” he asks rhetorically. “Why aren’t scientists Instagram live-ing? Why am I? Why aren’t people Instagram live-ing to cure cancer right now? Why aren’t people Instagram live-ing about peace right now? This makes no sense. Nothing about this life makes any sense.”
Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s oldest son then expands his thoughts to a larger world view. “Why aren’t we Instagram live-ing about saving people’s lives? You know? Sitting here on Instagram, sitting here being distracted by everything … And we’re not even focusing on our own lives,” he says. “We Instagram live to escape. We go on people’s Instagram lives to escape so we don’t have to focus, so we don’t have to think about the fact that nobody wants to support our creative endeavors and nobody wants to help us be creative. Nobody wants to give us the support system to make something that’s actually better for the world.”
