Quiet Quitting

About

Quiet Quitting is a slang term that describes the act of going to work and doing the bare minimum required of your job, not going above and beyond and doing just what you're paid to do, in order to maintain a more healthy work-life balance. Quiet quitting is often described as the opposite of hustle culture. The term was first used online in March 2022 and was popularized by Twitter and TikTok later that year, receiving both support and criticism online, some finding the term pointless.

Origin

The earliest known use of the term "quiet quitting" was posted by Twitter^[1] user @DrJustinC90 on March 24th, 2022, in response to a tweet reading, "Pre-writing a doctoral studies paper on the greatest leadership challenge we face today. What would you select?" He writes: "Building/sustaining individual and collective teacher efficacy in the midst of the great resignation (or era of 'quiet quitting') due to burnout, poor leadership, limited autonomy, etc."

On March 30th, YouTuber^[2] Timothy Ward posted a video describing quiet quitting, claiming the term has been growing. He describes why people are quiet quitting and the pros and cons of quiet quitting, highlighting the importance of balancing a good work-life balance without succumbing to hustle culture. At one point, he wonders if the quality of work being produced by quiet quitters is worse than those who aren't quiet quitting. Ultimately, he says people should quit their jobs and find ones they like if they don't enjoy them to the level where they're quiet quitting (shown below). The video gained over 649,000 views in five months.

Spread

On July 25th, 2022, TikToker^[3] @zaidleppelin posted a video describing quiet quitting and denouncing hustle culture, garnering over 3 million views in a month (shown below). This video helped spread the idea of quiet quitting to TikTok and in August, numerous TikTokers uploaded videos discussing quiet quitting.

On August 7th, Telegraph^[4] reported on the trend of quiet quitting. On August 9th, they tweeted^[5] a link to the article. On August 11th, TikToker^[6] @baobao.farm posted a video where she disagrees with the idea of quiet quitting, saying it sounds like a "coping mechanism" to her and suggesting the name is pointless, that all it really means is "setting boundaries." At the end of the video she says, "The term quiet quitting kind of normalizes the idea of going above and beyond in your job because if you're not, you're 'quiet quitting.'" The video gained over 34,000 views in five days (shown below).

On August 12th, Twitter^[7] user @urbanbohemian retweeted the Telegraph article, writing, "I still crack up every time I see a reference to 'quiet quitting' because it is literally clocking in, doing your job, and clocking out. Capitalism did a number on folks that they have to do the absolute most at their jobs, stole their work-life balance and gave back nothing," garnering over 33,000 likes and 7,100 retweets in four days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References