Hate Your Job? Try Posting About It Online

“Get your f**king a** up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days.” That was Kim Kardashian’s advice to aspiring business women in a 2022 interview with Variety, and it didn’t take long for her words to be criticized, scrutinized, and meme-ified. Though the delivery was a bit harsh, a quick scroll through TikTok’s FYP indicates that Kim may not have been entirely off base — at least when it comes to working in corporate.

By day, people are willfully clocking into their 9-to-5s. But as soon as their shift is over, they’re sharing their true feelings about their job, co-workers, and bosses on TikTok. They don’t hesitate to attach their names and faces to their grievances. Some fed-up employees even share soundbites from meetings to demonstrate just how dysfunctional their offices are.

Tags like #HateMyJob and #9to5IsNotForMe have been used in over 12,000 and 17,000 posts on the platform, respectively, and it stands to reason that number will only grow as the trend catches on. Of course, there are a lot of risks that come with posting this kind of content, from facing repercussions at work to getting fired or even deterring recruiters from working with you in the future. But the creators at the forefront of this movement don’t seem to fear the consequences. In fact, in some instances, they welcome them.

Meet The Anti-Corporate Influencers

Josh Rosen, 24, was working in marketing when his irritations with corporate culture set in. After a particularly frustrating day at work last November, in an attempt to blow off some steam, Rosen propped his phone against a bench in Midtown, Manhattan, and recorded himself throwing a public tantrum complete with flailing arms and whining groans for six seconds.

“I was just having a really bad day and I was being micromanaged,” Rosen tells Bustle. His anger resonated with people; the video received 2.7 million likes and nearly 20 million views.

After the cathartic release of his work-inspired fit, Rosen posted several more of his tantrums, and soon, they became a daily occurrence. Some days he would exclaim things like “Hot people don’t work!” Other days he would simply thrash his limbs around on the streets of New York City.

Over time, he realized just how valuable his content was, not only to himself, but to others who could relate. “People will [reply] and be like, ‘Ugh, me at my desk right now,’" Rosen says. “It feels great.”

After five months of these videos, Rosen revealed he no longer had a job. In the April 22 video, the creator said that he and his boss had mutually agreed it would be best for Rosen to pursue other opportunities “given [the] circumstances.” Though he was laid off, there were no hard feelings between Rosen and his manager — in fact, his superior (and most of his co-workers) were supportive of his content. “My boss was really proud of me,” says Rosen. “He was like, ‘You have a talent and you should go for it.’" That said, his manager “definitely took a lot of flak” from higher-ups.

“OK, well, I'm just going to take my loud mouth somewhere else and just kind of vent about it online.”

After the separation, Rosen decided to transition to full-time content creation. He wasn’t nervous about the change; he had some money saved, and if anything, he felt the timing was “almost sort of divine,” as he was seeing a lot of success on TikTok that week, had several brand deals lined up, and likely would’ve left his job soon anyway.

These days, Rosen tantrums in solidarity with viewers who still work in corporate, focusing on topics like mental health, being confused in your 20s, and advocating for healthy work environments. He has no plans to return to the corporate world anytime soon, though if things got dire, he would be willing to take on a creative role at a 9 to 5. “[Right now] I'm trying to put faith in myself and just pursue my own thing,” the creator says.

Ciara, 25, who asked to go by just her first name, was hired for a remote design role in January 2022. She recalls her boss “turned into a micromanager” about a year in, but she didn’t hit her breaking point until November 2023 when, during her annual review (a meeting that had been rescheduled several times at her manager’s request), she was offered a measly $1,000 raise.

“I didn't have high hopes [going into the meeting] because we were always given empty promises but this was just the cherry on top,” she says. “Knowing all of the hard work I had been putting in, I was definitely expecting more. It was a slap in the face, honestly.” According to Ciara, her manager promised they’d reassess her salary again in March during that meeting, but she never received a raise.

The meeting left her feeling underappreciated, and that’s when Ciara began posting about her job online. “I was like, OK, well, I'm just going to take my loud mouth somewhere else and just kind of vent about it online.’”

Her Sunday scaries were always uniquely bad when she was employed because she feared a colleague would come across her content over the weekend.

She was nervous at first, but she worked up the courage to do so after thinking about her co-workers’ TikTok habits and figured her content probably wouldn’t come across their feeds. On the off-chance she did get caught, she knew she’d have her graphic design small business to fall back on. Ciara also recognized that getting in trouble would’ve put an end to her problem once and for all, and admits this mentality helped fuel her online presence. “I was so tunnel vision on hating my job so much that I just didn't care,” says Ciara.

Still, this mindset only got her so far. Her Sunday scaries were always uniquely bad when she was employed because she feared a colleague would come across her content over the weekend and she’d have to face the consequences on Monday. Much to her relief, she never got in trouble, though she did have several co-workers who were aware (and wholly supportive) of her online activity.

Ciara resigned from her role over Zoom in April with a one-week notice — and recorded the conversation for TikTok with a voice filter. After she resigned, her superior told a co-worker that they had gotten the sense she was burnt out four months prior, but according to Ciara, no one brought this up to her, nor did they try to improve her situation by offering more help or time off.

Today, she runs her own graphic design business full-time, in which she now sells “corporate slander” stickers with phrases like “I don’t get paid enough for this sh*t” and “9 to not for me.” Though the decision to leave was a “daunting” one, she shares she’s always wanted to be her own boss and is a “big saver and cautious spender.” Because of this, she built up her savings before taking the leap and is currently supporting herself. If the well ever runs dry, she can turn to her boyfriend for temporary financial support, and would happily pursue odd jobs over rejoining the corporate workforce. “I'm determined to do whatever it takes to avoid it,” Ciara says.

Pushed To The Brink

Though some might think these creators are motivated by the allure of going viral, Ciara says it was a combination of the lack of an HR department, an unclear PTO policy, and constant micromanaging that pushed her to her limit and inspired her to take her grievances to TikTok. In fact, she saw posting on the platform as a “last resort” for getting out of her job, as she was actively looking for ways to make money beyond her 9 to 5.

“If [it was] a healthy environment, I would have nothing but good things to say,” the TikToker says. “But they just pushed me to that point, so I was like, ‘You all did it to yourself.’”

Rosen’s pivot to anti-corporate content, on the other hand, was much more spur-of-the-moment — as most tantrums are. He continued making them under the guise of satire and comedic relief, but his continued efforts are rooted in a desire for change that allows everyone to “live a life they want.”

“It's weird that we all [walk] into work with a pit in our stomach every morning,” Rosen says. “It's weird that we get nervous to ask to live our life and have anxiety about asking to take PTO that we have. It's weird that we have anxiety to ask to step out for 45 minutes to go to a doctor's appointment, and that people actually give us problems for it, and it just doesn't make sense.”

Work Woes Are Nothing New

Across the country, professional morale is low. A 2023 State of the Global Workplace Report from Gallup found that nearly 6 in 10 employees were quiet-quitting their jobs, while 15% of young workers (ages 18-29) reported feeling not too or not at all satisfied with their jobs in 2023, per the Pew Research Center.

Experts warn that complaining on the internet isn’t always the answer. “Whatever you do while under your current employment, it is safe to assume you would do to a future employer,” says J.T. O’Donnell, a job search career coach and the CEO of Work It Daily. “[Recruiters] don't want to hire you for fear you would do that to them.”

If you really need to get your concerns off your chest, a vent session with your friends, family members, or even your most trusted work wives always helps. Just make sure to do so in private, and keep the convo as far away from Slack as possible.

Gen Z Mindset

In an era where shameless posting about cringy Hinge matches and voluntarily sharing embarrassing “put a finger down” stories have become the norm, it was only a matter of time before that candidness expanded to the workplace. Add creators’ apparent disregard for their digital footprints with their feelings of burnout and their strong dissatisfaction with unmanageable workloads and unfair treatment, and this Gen Z trend was bound to find an audience on TikTok.

Zoomers who prefer LinkedIn over TikTok are also in favor of this movement, says Gen Z career coach and speaker Ang Richard, 24, as the sentiment behind these videos seems to resonate across generations. Even Richard supports the content, despite working in career services and understanding the risks. “I feel it's justified when we're working 40, 50, 60 hours a week with oftentimes college degrees, advanced skill sets, lots of great things to bring to the table and we're not being respected for the value that we bring,” she tells Bustle.

That said, if this genre of content is your niche, Richards recommends disclosing your “online brand” with a supervisor upfront to protect yourself from future consequences. If you’re exploring other professional opportunities, she also warns that some employers may not be willing to consider your candidacy over this kind of content.

Gone are the days of making your Instagram private when applying to jobs, or changing your name on Facebook to prevent prospective internship programs from finding photos of you clutching red cups. Nowadays, Gen Z employees are electing to be unapologetically themselves online — consequences be damned.

Sources:

Josh Rosen, TikTok creator

Ciara, TikTok creator and small business owner

J.T. O’Donnell, job search career coach and CEO of Work It Daily

Ang Richard, Gen Z career coach and speaker