Slacker generation’s social-media movement against ‘996’ work culture is a warning for Beijing
Infosys’ emeritus chairman. Be that as it may, “birds” perched across trees in China have been tweeting a story that isn’t music to those in China who have been pushing the infamous “996” system for decades on end: working 9 am to 9 pm 6 days a week. That’s actually two hours more than the duration of a working week suggested by our favourite task master.
In viral videos, young people in China have been engaged in a serious, new form of sticking it to The Chair-Man. Reacting against Xi Jinping’s version of JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” finger-wag, the new social media trend has young people—what policymakers insist on calling “youth”—record themselves with their hands tucked inside oversized t-shirts, perched on any piece of furniture, and then change the video backdrop to make themselves look like they’re sitting on trees. The effect is powerfully, even scarily, surrealistic.
And the purported message is in the captions with the video posts: “Don’t go to work, just be a bird instead.” This is not your usual leave application While this should not, in any way, disrespect hardworking—or even workaholic—cuckoos, it is a powerful agitprop against China’s version of “Protestant work ethic” (read: slave driving). Overtime work is what made China the “factory of the world”. Capitalism with “Chinese characteristics”, conjoined to Confucian values of obedience and hierarchy (callout to Manusmriti fans), produced more than a generation of grunt workers in the Mao-mai-baap communist state.
