What can artists do in situations when their hands are being tied behind their backs?

Make art!

MILLI gets YOUNGOHM, who sports the best mullet in all of Thailand, to do a dreamy Hip Pop song together, and then flips the script to make it a cultural time bomb. ‘The Future Is’ starts off as a love story set in high school, with maybe an ode to Squid Game here and there.

Eagle-eyed fans will notice that MILLI’s number on her school outfit is 393, which is in reference to Article 393 of the Penal Code that she got fined for. YOUNGOHM’s number is 113, which represents the law against overthrowing the constitution. The boys who harass MILLI are 250 and 010, both numbers having political ramifications.

'The Future Is' gets even deeper as YOUNGOHM raps at the principal who has his back turned to him. When they finally get a moment alone and the scene turns from love to a fight, there’s a banner that states DO YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE, one of the phrases most often used during the protests.

Eventually, the two take off their Virtual Reality headsets and are back in the real world. The title, ‘The Future Is,’ has been deliberately left open for viewers to decide which is the real world and which is augmented reality.

Making art with a political message is never easy. While things might not change today or tomorrow, the hands of the clock will always move forward for the younger generation. The final words on the screen are Time’s Always With Us, and that’s very true for this struggle.

Watch MILLI and YOUNGOHM ‘The Future Is’ below.