being done by younger people, who are choosing to freelance in hopes of gaining more control over their career path. As a society, we’re gradually starting to view “work” not as a single place of employment, but as a series of engagements or projects. The millennial generation in particular views the traditional aspiration to a corporate job in an

But many younger workers — knowingly and unknowingly following in a long tradition of labor activism and more radical anti-work politics — are immersed in media (particularly on TikTok, but also on Reddit) that invites them to question the directive to “love” your job or even want to work.

It’s because there’s still a widespread reverence for the “ideal worker.” We commonly define the ideal worker as someone who starts working in early adulthood and continues, full-time and full force, for 40 years straight. The concept reflects a breadwinner-homemaker model that dates back to the Industrial Revolution and functioned fairly well thr