Deddy Corbuzier’s Close The Door YouTube channel became a key public square where the next act of the national narrative unfolded in early September, hosting Abigail Limuria to discuss democratic deficits and Ulta Levenia to talk about instability risks, with both drawing millions of views.

Other platforms like Malaka Cinematic Podcast and Akbar Faizal Uncensored amplified this narrative clash, making digital spaces as crucial as the streets.

Neither guest was entirely new to Deddy’s orbit. Ulta had appeared on his channel as far back as 2023, while Abigail had crossed paths with him in other formats, supplementing her own strong social media presence. Their return in the immediate aftermath of the riots lent weight to their voices, presenting them as credible interpreters of a shaken nation.

Deddy, in this context, was not just a host but a curator of legitimacy. By staging these two contrasting voices in quick succession, he framed them as emblems of Indonesia’s divided youth - between reform and resilience, making his platform as consequential to the political imagination as the protests themselves.

All those digital platforms turned raw protest energy into curated narratives, risking the sanitization of activism into mere entertainment.

Abigail and Ulta, though nearly the same age, represent sharply divergent currents within their generational cohort. Positioned between the youngest Millennials and the oldest of Gen Z, they share the same precarity of their peers- about 16 percent youth unemployment, a 2.31 percent inflation rate squeezing the workforce, 56 percent of jobs being informal and a 40 percent drop in young farmers as agriculture ages. Yet their idioms diverge dramatically.