“It's flexing to spend 12 hours in the office and post about it online. But it's also flexing to spend five hours a day at the gym and let everyone on Instagram and TikTok know.”
“It's flexing to spend 12 hours in the office and post about it online. But it's also flexing to spend five hours a day at the gym and let everyone on Instagram and TikTok know.”
This is a quote from an interviewer who participated in an ethnographic project targeting Gen Z internet culture for a company in the Social Tech field, interviewing American and Nigerian teenagers.
Sharing your work on SNS is flexing...
The phenomenon of voluntary job resignation, which accelerated during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, left many who relied solely on salaries questioning the ‘changed meaning of work.’ In Korea, there was a time when some successful mentors flooded YouTube with the keyword ‘earning 10 million won a month.’
However, based on that time, the question that truly became important to us was
- Not ‘Can I earn more through work?’, but
(Reconsideration of reciprocity that sustained dedication to work, new ways to make work meaningful)
- ‘Can I create the conditions for the life I want within the time I have?’
(Not freedom from work but freedom to create the conditions for life, a new way to define one’s life)
This signifies a change in the standard of freedom from work,an occasion where the weight of work, which had played a central role in life, was perhaps downsized to a point where there was no longer a need to shout ‘work-life balance’it seemed.
Regarding this Anti-work theory, the premise of the ethnographic project conducted by the researchers was as follows.
- Why do we have to assume that all work is inherently meaningful?
- Because it is rooted in the broad ideas and institutions that social theorists call the ‘labor society’.
- Philosopher Andre Gorz, 1980, ‘Those who do little or no work are acting against the interests of the collective strength, and thus are not qualified to be members of the community.’
The following changes in trends were reportedly confirmed through field research.
- Many young people have begun to question traditional institutions like family and government.
- They define themselves as the Soro Soke generation (the generation of outspokenness).
- For the parents’ generation, speaking one’s mind was a sign of disrespect, but technology makes it possible.
- ‘Diet’ and ‘health’ have emerged as major criteria for accessing a good life, and often include eating well and living visibly well while working less or not at all.
A shift in weight towards the question of what constitutes a good life.
Of course, the results of this study may be limited to young people in specific parts of the United States and Nigeria. However, on the other hand, it also overlaps quite a bit with the image of MZ office workers that we are accustomed to seeing in the media, such as news outlets and YouTube content, so I wanted to share it.
Perhaps this content could serve as a good basis for us to pose questions to ourselves and our colleagues as we approach Labor Day tomorrow.
“Are we living well right now?”
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