The young are tearing up the rules of our culture again, are exacting a casual retribution on the ageing hipsters of the record and film industries, ignoring the politicians and laughing at the last century’s sources of authority. But in all this magnificent disorder their relationship with Channel 4 seems only to get stronger, because Channel 4 is somehow one of them, a unifying point of identification across all the new youth tribes. Only Channel 4 seems to be a place where we can all connect with their disparate energies and unruly potential.

And I think I know why. It has nothing to do with the brand being young. Channel 4 connects with them because it is a lifelong servant of the idea of youth. It has a constitution that has to ask questions and a temperament that relishes the discomfort of conflicting ideas. Channel 4 believes the new is to be nurtured, not just welcomed. In a new century where inventiveness is society’s necessity not its ornament, we have never needed Channel 4 more. The idea of youth that it so profoundly embodies matters because without it we will never make sense in this bewildering new century.

Thank you Channel 4 for helping this ageing fan remember that the young are worth it and that youth, full of force and fascination, belongs to all of us.