If you haven’t been paying attention, we’re in the middle of a labour revolution.
Here’s a snapshot from the Washington Post:
178 US employers facing strikes
12 strikes so far this year in the US with 1,000+ employees per
4.3 million Americans quit their jobs in August alone
Add to that the many stories of low-wage employers complaining of a “labour shortage” and reports of restaurant employees quitting en masse, temporarily shutting down franchises.
Anyone with a a few brain cells and perhaps a penchant for socialism (and I mean that in a good way) can tell you the problem isn’t that people don’t want to do jobs (I mean, that’s also true though), but that no one wants to work long hours for shit pay, no benefits, no respect, no hopes of climbing some sort of ladder, and all so the Bezos of the world can pocket another billion.
It’s been called The Great Resignation. The tl;dr is that people are fucking over it. Between rising wealth inequality, stagnant wages, the ever-rising cost of living, people with the least security working the worst jobs in a pandemic, millennials being shit on, and Gen Z not even getting the dignity of being shit on it was all bound to happen.
In fact, while writing this, my girlfriend got a push notification from the McDonald’s app saying people should know they can drop their resume off in person.
Aside from being in the general ~culture~, this has all been playing out on social media as well. This isn’t a TikTok exclusive thing, of course. I’m sure you’ve seen antiwork sentiments on Twitter, or the r/antiwork subreddit, or antiwork meme accounts on Instagram. But seeing as this is a TikTok newsletter, we’re going to talk about that. And that includes how when it comes to class, things get messy.
The unhappy millennial
We’re going to start with what I’ll call the softer side of the labour revolution: disgruntled millennials.
There’s a whole class of millennials who are now firmly embedded in in corporate culture, and according to TikTok, they kind of hate it. You know what I mean — endless Zoom calls, cubicles, teaching your own manager how to use Google Sheets, all of that.
There’s one TikTok creator in particular who’s basically made a channel around it. @Rod (a good username get, I’ll admit) makes a lot of TikToks about the millennial white collar experience.
Here’s a digest:
I mean, you get it. And look, I’m not criticizing! I found myself both seeing and liking a lot of Rod’s TikToks because, well, this is me!
I now work at a tech company after recently working at another tech company, but like a media tech company. And I’ve spent more time in Google Meet than Zoom but that’s merely a workplace specific quirk — the rest holds true. I am that kind of millennial. I am in fact incredibly priveleged to be that kind of millennial, but let’s put a pin in particular that thought for now.
This coprorate-culture-sucks style of TikTok has become increasingly popular.
Like, here’s one about that one coworker who’s just so busy all the time.
Or this reminder that we work so hard for what feels like very little.
Or the banality of workplace discourse.
I also enjoy anything that makes fun of the general absurdity of LinkedIn.
It’s fun! This is all very fun. But it also comes from a very particular class. It’s funny to complain about saying “Happy Monday lol” in a Slack message when, but it feels especially okay when you still have a decent wage and an okay health benefits package.
I’ve noticed a lot of this style of TikTok comes from people who look like me—white, late 20s to early 30s, and in some sort of white collar techy job.
I don’t want to paint too broad a brush here. Just because you’re working in a certain industry doesn’t mean you’re actually able to cover your bills, or that the relentless existential anxiety isn’t real.
But I’ve also found these TikToks aren’t particulary solutions-based. Those solutions being unions, striking, or more of a sense of solidarity beyond “work sucks.”
One I saw recently did strike me as interesting though. This one lamenting how those with tech jobs seem to do less but earn more. But then the caption calls it a “Wall Street vs. Silicon Valley” issue and, well, you probably came from a certain background if you’re working in either place.
Algorithms and whatnot
TikTok keeps feeding me videos like this because I keep liking them. That’s how TikTok works, after all. It very quickly figures out what you like then shovels more of that content at you.
In fact, not just more of the same, but increasingly amplified. Media Matters found that interacting with transphobic content can quickly send you down an alt-right “rabbit hole.” This WSJ video shows how even starting to like sad content send you to even more extreme, depressing content.
I’ve experienced this myself. As I’ve written about before, I have my own issues with food and body image. For a time, I often found myself watching content about problematic eating. These had more of an anti-diet approach, but I’d also find myself lingering on some problematic content because, well, recovery is hard, friends! This seemed to lead to more content along those lines at one point I found myself seeing explicity pro-eating disorder content. I now make an effort to avoid any diet-related TikToks, no matter their intention.
All that to say, TikTok is smart. It figures out who you are and keeps you in a lane.
And maybe (probably) that’s why the majority of angsty work TikToks I saw in my own feed fell more into the above category of disgruntled millennials. So I went looking for something spicier.
Marx bless Gen Z
I’ll excuse your total lack of surprise on this, but Gen Z seems to be having more of a go at capitlism and how it handles labour. And look, big caveat that this isn’t a hard rule, wokeness crosses generational devides yadda yadda. But damn, the kids are all right.
If you search more pointed tags, like #anticapitalism or #antiwork or #eattherich, you get some good shit.
Look okay I don’t have proof these people are Gen Z, but call this a hunch I’ve been working off of. Millennials got a taste of the promises of capitalism from our Boomer parents and teachers. We had a moment of peace before several unprecedented financial crises. Gen Z didn’t even get that. It was just straight into the fire.
I’ll also note that I’ve seen a hell of a lot of (truly excellent) communism memes from Gen Z, those scamps.
Although this content does make its way to my feed sometimes, I hate that I’ve trained the app to keep me on a less revolutionary tract. It certainly says a lot about my relative comfort, and the desire of the algorithm to keep me comfortable. But change doesn’t come from the comfortable.
All that so say
The labour revolution is alive and well on TikTok. However, the algorithm might only be showing you part of it.
This problem is not unique to TikTok, I know. What better example is there of only showing content you’ll like than Facebook.
But what I’m thinking about is that the class of creator making the angsty millennial stuff is also generally the class of journalist covering this moment in history. As a former journalist, and also as a human with eyes, I know that media’s class (and race and gender and sexuality and disability) blinders mean you’re only seeing one perspective. And the same can be true on social media.
I don’t have a grand takeaway here. I just know that as a former union organizer, the actual work of changing labour conditions is a slog. A worthwhile slog, but a slog nonetheless. I hope that you get to see labour acitivism in its full glory on your For You page.
As always, please feel free to subscribe and tell your pals about Berries and Cream and let me know what you liked about this newsletter.
Yes, I’m asking you to click links, sorry