Instead of even trying to chase jobs that seem out of reach, Gen Z is embracing living like a rat—not showering or leaving the house for days at a time.

Instead of even trying to chase jobs that seem out of reach, Gen Z is embracing living like a rat—not showering or leaving the house for days at a time.

The millennial era of “work hard, play harder” and “girl bossing” has given way to a new trend. In China, at least, Gen Zers are proudly calling themselves “rat people”—they’re spending entire days procrastinating in bed, scrolling on their phones, snoozing and ordering take out.

I think it has something to do with “giving up” on the economy: if you have very low chances of landing a job anyways, why even try?

The article does not directly tell us how many people participate in this movement consciously. It does hint, however:

Today, over 4 million American Gen Zers remain jobless. In China, the government has said that as of February, 1 in 6 young people are unemployed.

  • skisnow@lemmy.caEnglish
    130·
    2 days ago

    The millennial era of “work hard, play harder”

    I hate to be that guy that calls everything Orwellian, but this is NOT how Fortune was describing Millenials 15 years ago

    • GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.worldEnglish
      23·
      2 days ago

      Ah, yes, the rhetoric ‘grind culture’ disguising working three jobs just to eat and sleep in conditions that are semi-humane. But being scolded and scorned for never being able to buy a house because we like avocado toast. Working so hard, but never working enough in the same breath.

      It was never about the fucking toast. ‘Goblin mode’ and ‘adulting’ and ‘gamer shut-in’ and ‘NEET’ was never about being lazy. It was always about painting out the propaganda to guilt us into not meeting the model of expectation instead of our elders accepting blame. Maybe, hear me out, they should open their eyes and see that we’re living in a level of poverty so hilariously deep that not even our kids–Gen Z and Gen Alpha–will be able to dig it out.

      They’re not giving up because they’re lazy. They’re opting out of a system designed to fail.

    • conicalscientist@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      1 day ago

      15 years ago millennials were cast in the generic framework of lazy younger generation. Now we have hindsight for them to be able to observe what actually happened. Millennials absolutely became a workaholic play hard generation.

    • Fingolfinz@lemmy.worldEnglish
      321·
      2 days ago

      Yeah wtf is that? I’m a fucking burnout who is so lazy my hair is just a matted mess and has been for like a month

    • Baggie@lemmy.zipEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      Man I remember when I was allowed to work hard, now robots get all the jobs and I’m stuck. It’s really weird.