China's unemployed Gen Z are proudly calling themselves 'rat people' and spending entire days in bed
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I always find these articles being so popular in western social media weird and subtly braggy. It's like the Lyndon Johnson quote about about making white feel better than black people so you can rob them of whatever. Such a distraction that makes people feel like we're better than them/at least we're not them. Yet pretty much every trend I've seen about Chinese ennui was at the time true of Americans and western Europeans just articles being written about the ennui would not be mainstream for a couple more years. Like minimalism during the financial crisis or recently quiet-quitting in the US were celebrated in US social media as great workers movements that are positive social movements and a sign of cultural strength while lying flat in China in US social media is a sign of societal decline. Whatever either is, it's the same shit. It's always weird exoticism to me. You don't get popular articles about youth expectations about young people in Romania or Greece
Americans shouldn't be looking at other countries to feel better about themselves regardless. They should be letting themselves feel bad so that they actually maintain some energy levels to fight for their own rights domestically instead of contributing to the constant stream of jingoism that has been American media since inception. Decades living and its a cycle of next enemy while economic disparity just keeps widening but people are pacifying themselves with the next enemy
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Rats are the best. Little pocket puppies
/r/rats is the reason I'm still on Reddit
The pet rats community here is far too quiet
the only thing that stops me from getting rats is the short lifespans. I love dogs, and ~10 years is already too short. Dealing with that every two would just break me.
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That’s just called depression. I’ve been experiencing that for years
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Late-stage capitalism induced depression
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The millennial era of “work hard, play harder”
I hate to be that guy that calls everything Orwellian, but this is NOT how Fortune was describing Millenials 15 years ago
15 years ago millennials were cast in the generic framework of lazy younger generation. Now we have hindsight for them to be able to observe what actually happened. Millennials absolutely became a workaholic play hard generation.
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One of the animals in the Chinese year is the rat. I don't think that there is a "satirical level of disrespect" if the animal is that important.
If anything the zodiac contributes to misunderstanding of animals. It's like saying in the west we understand the buffalo because we have Taurus as a horoscope.
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Careful, I hear ml and hexbear users gearing up anticapitalist rhetoric to one up you with. I see the fedoras and neckbeards in the distance
Bitch, you live in Alsace. You are a peasant. You need to give your fuckin' lord the grain. Your fucking children, you've had 15 children. You've never taken a bath. You've literally never. washed. your. penis. You've never used toilet paper. Motherfucker, you have worms. You are dying. You've had 40 children, 3 of them are alive. 2 of them are child soldiers in the Duke's army.
Bitch, the greatest thing you can hope for is to die at the old age of 36. You fucking can't read. You don't know what TV is. If you were transported into today, you would be the worst gamer of all time. You don't know shit. You literally probably don't even know what the direction 'left' is. I'm sure some Medieval guy is gonna get mad at me for this, bitch I've been to the Renaissance Fair. I've eaten a large turkey wing, which the Juggalos call 'bitch beaters', which I think is problematic but a funny thing to call them.
Motherfucker, you gotta recognize where you are, and then you gotta get passed that. You gotta be unemotional. You can't sink into this hole. You live in the oubliette. Your job is to crawl up the ladder, motherfucker. You live in the HOLE. You're in the HOLE. You are a RAT. And the rat, when he's in the hole gets fucked. People only throw trash in the hole.
You need to eat a body. And you need to carry the plague. And you need to carry a plague around this whole world, that will change this whole fuckin world. And all your enemies will vomit black bile and will choke on blood and will grow boils and die. But only if you get together with your other RATS. And you come up with some kind of super plague, to fuckin end your enemies and...
End. This. Nightmare.
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Friend, fuckin' same. It seems like all the propaganda hit pieces do is make them feel more relatable, damn.
You have more in common with a Chinese or Russian worker than any billionaire.
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If anything the zodiac contributes to misunderstanding of animals. It's like saying in the west we understand the buffalo because we have Taurus as a horoscope.
"Americans hate cows because they don't understand them, as evidenced by this foreign language article that compares Americans to cows"
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If only all the rats of the world combined into an unruly rat king... Then things would change.
Master Splinter?
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Late-stage capitalism induced depression
The environment doesn’t help whatsoever and capitalism absolutely breeds this but it’s not the sole cause. Depression is still a disorder that needs to be treated and would still exist even without this hostile environment we live in
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The environment doesn’t help whatsoever and capitalism absolutely breeds this but it’s not the sole cause. Depression is still a disorder that needs to be treated and would still exist even without this hostile environment we live in
Fair. Maybe I should get treated
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"Americans hate cows because they don't understand them, as evidenced by this foreign language article that compares Americans to cows"
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Nah Chinese culture is very well known for this. Have you been living under a rock?
Chinese treatment of animals is beyond anything else I've ever seen. There's just fundamental lack of education and respect for non-human creatures. It's trully something else and I'm not being xenophobic here as it's an objective truth.
Even for a country with strong Buddhist and taoist presence it's almost impossible to find vegetarian food unless you go to "sùshí restaurants (special vegetarian restaurants near temples) and outside if that you'll get straight up mocked for eating vegan.
Seriously, my least favorite thing about China. Even worse than whole censorship thing. It's just so incredibly disrespectful to our fellow creatures to the point where it feels intentionally cruel.
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Master Splinter?
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Fair. Maybe I should get treated
If you have the means, I highly suggest it. I put it off for longer than I should have and finally got on medication and the difference has been night and day in quality of life, I experience a lot more clarity in my thought process. It’s definitely worth looking into if you think you may be struggling with depression. And it won’t disrupt the hatred of capitalism, I promise. It’s only helped me become a more clear headed anarchist
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Nah Chinese culture is very well known for this. Have you been living under a rock?
Chinese treatment of animals is beyond anything else I've ever seen. There's just fundamental lack of education and respect for non-human creatures. It's trully something else and I'm not being xenophobic here as it's an objective truth.
Even for a country with strong Buddhist and taoist presence it's almost impossible to find vegetarian food unless you go to "sùshí restaurants (special vegetarian restaurants near temples) and outside if that you'll get straight up mocked for eating vegan.
Seriously, my least favorite thing about China. Even worse than whole censorship thing. It's just so incredibly disrespectful to our fellow creatures to the point where it feels intentionally cruel.
Chinese treatment of animals is beyond anything else I’ve ever seen.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan_Giant_Panda_Sanctuaries
Oh, the inhumanity
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the only thing that stops me from getting rats is the short lifespans. I love dogs, and ~10 years is already too short. Dealing with that every two would just break me.
agreed. They really should live longer. the universe is not fair
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You're thinking of humans
Human eat their babies for food??
Small brain energy.
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Human eat their babies for food??
Small brain energy.
your mom definitely should have
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Wasn't there also the "lie flat" trend? It's not just Gen Z who are calling uncle. If I had the means, I'd join them.
Do you mean planking?
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Instead of even trying to chase jobs that seem out of reach, Gen Z is embracing living like a rat—not showering or leaving the house for days at a time.
The millennial era of “work hard, play harder” and “girl bossing” has given way to a new trend. In China, at least, Gen Zers are proudly calling themselves “rat people”—they’re spending entire days procrastinating in bed, scrolling on their phones, snoozing and ordering take out.
I think it has something to do with "giving up" on the economy: if you have very low chances of landing a job anyways, why even try?
The article does not directly tell us how many people participate in this movement consciously. It does hint, however:
Today, over 4 million American Gen Zers remain jobless. In China, the government has said that as of February, 1 in 6 young people are unemployed.
I'm doing the same thing in the US after getting laid off, have no energy or motivation to apply for jobs or prep for interview. I'm kinda depressed about this situation but also kinda happy to have the freedom to actually rest and breath again, for a first world country the American work system is draconic, and tying Healthcare access to a job is just inhumane
