In 2013, the subreddit r/antiwork was born. “Unemployment for all, not just the rich!” read its tagline. America was experiencing a mood change at that time. Occupy: The Movie had just hit theaters, lodging the eponymous movement in the national consciousness; the Socialist Alternative party had just won its first ever seat on Seattle’s city council; and Senator Bernie Sanders, the longtime independent from Vermont and self-described “democratic socialist” was considering a presidential run.
Born of the moment, r/antiwork offered a space where people could envision a life free from work – or at least, too much of it. Anchored by Marxist philosophy, people used it to commiserate, share memes and trade war stories about the horrors of modern-day working in America. Then the pandemic hit, laying bare inequities long faced by lower-wage workers, particularly in the United States. The subreddit exploded. Screenshots of resignation texts to bosses went viral – “Eat. My. Ass.” read one memorable text, in response to a boss who had warned against such an “impulsive decision”. In December, users bombarded a Kellogg’s application site that had been launched to replace 1,400 striking users with fake applications. As media reported on the “Great Resignation” in the wake of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ report that 4.5 million Americans left their jobs in November 2021, an all-time high, r/antiwork inched closer to the mainstream.
