One of the hottest topics on social media in the last few weeks has been "quiet quitting", with videos using just one associated hashtag racking up nearly 40 million views on TikTok.
The movement — often exclusively ascribed to Gen Z and younger Millennial employees — is a pretty broad church, though all participants push a rejection of hustle culture. Quiet quitting embodies the idea that you should do your explicit job description, and your explicit job description only, in the workplace.
Despite being relatively contained to social media, the idea has provoked numerous think pieces from major publications on the subject and, of course, some backlash.
Work to live
Quiet quitting follows on from "antiwork" — another online movement that aims to push back against corporate culture. On the forum r/antiwork, which gained traction over the pandemic and now has more than 2.1 million users, redditors discuss negative experiences with bosses, the modern labor force and capitalism more generally.
With average wage rises falling behind inflation, many employees appear to be re-evaluating their place in the working world — at least on TikTok and reddit.
