“It’s a flex to spend 12 hours in the office and post about it online. But it’s also a flex to spend five hours a day at the gym and to let everyone on Instagram and TikTok know.”

"It's a flex to spend 12 hours in the office and post about it online. But it's also a flex 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 for social tech companies, targeting Gen Z internet culture, targeting American and Nigerian youth.

Sharing your work on SNS is a flex...

The accelerated phenomenon of voluntary job withdrawal that began during and after the COVID-19 pandemic has raised questions about the “changed meaning of work” for many who relied solely on their salaries. In Korea, there was a time when there was an abundance of successful mentors who filled YouTube with the keyword “earning 10 million won a month”.

But based on that time, the question that really became important to us was

• Not whether we can earn more through work, but

(Rethinking the reciprocity that sustained dedication to work, a new way to make work meaningful)

• Whether we can create the conditions of the life we want within time?

(Not freedom from work, but freedom to create the conditions of life, a new way to define one's own life)

This means a change in the standard of freedom from work,The weight of work, which played a central role in life, has perhaps been adjusted to the point where there is no longer a need to shout about work-life balance.It seemed like.

The premise of this project conducted by ethnographers regarding this Anti-work theory was as follows.

• Why should we assume that all work is inherently meaningful?
• Because it is rooted in the broader ideology and institutions that social theorists call “labor society”.
• Philosopher Andre Gorz, 1980, Those who do little or no work are acting against the interests of the community's electricity, so they are not qualified to be members of the community.

The following changes in trends were identified through field research.

• Many young people have begun to question traditional institutions such as family and government.
• They define themselves as the Soro Soke generation.
• For the parent generation, speaking out was a sign of disrespect, but technology makes it possible.
• “Food” and “health” stood out as key criteria for approaching a good life, and often included cases where people ate well and lived well while working less or not at all.

Shifting the weight to the question of what a good life is.

Of course, these research findings may be limited to some young people in the United States and Nigeria. However, on the other hand, it overlaps quite a bit with the image of MZ office workers that we have become familiar with through the media, such as newspapers and YouTube content.

Perhaps this content could be a good reason to ask yourself and your colleagues a question on the eve of Labor Day tomorrow.

“Are we living well now?”

Source:
Jobs Not To Be Done: Anti-Work Theory and the Resilience of Mutual Aid⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠