r/antiwork

r/antiwork
Figure of a person lying down, used in the header of r/antiwork
Type of site
Subreddit
Founded2013 (2013)
Founder(s)Doreen Ford, and one other
URLwww.reddit.com/r/antiwork/
Users1,300,000 members

r/antiwork is a subreddit associated with the anti-work movement. Posts on the forum, which uses the slogan "Unemployment for all, not just the rich!", commonly describe employees' negative experiences at work; members of the subreddit have also organized actions including a consumer boycott of Black Friday as well as the coordinated submissions of fake job applications after Kellogg's announced plans to replace 1,400 striking workers.

The popularity of r/antiwork increased in 2021, with more than 1,300,000 members as of December 2021, representing an increase of more than 900,000 members that year.

Formation

r/antiwork was created in 2013[1] by Doreen Ford, also known as Doreen Cleyre after Voltairine de Cleyre, along with a friend who later ceased involvement with the subreddit. Ford describes the subreddit as a big tent of the anti-work movement.[2]

Content

r/antiwork uses the slogan "Unemployment for all, not just the rich!" Members of the subreddit are known as "idlers" in reference to the Protestant work ethic. Posts commonly criticize hustle culture[3] and share stories of employees' negative experiences at their jobs,[4] including unfair treatment and poor working conditions[5] as well as poor pay.[6] Other posts express members' happiness after quitting their jobs,[7][8] a trend which began on the subreddit in 2020 and has been linked to the Great Resignation in 2021.[9]

The subreddit includes a digital library of texts including Bullshit Jobs,[9] "In Praise of Idleness", and Bartleby, the Scrivener, as well as a collection of anti-work quotes,[10] a soundtrack that includes "9 to 5", and an FAQ page.[9] Open discussion of worker salaries is encouraged, as is union organization.[11]

Ideology

The subreddit is antiwork, not reformwork. We’re not liberals, a capitalist ideology. We’re leftists, anti-capitalists, and we want to abolish all work.

– 2021 post on r/antiwork[2]

Members of r/antiwork hold varying views on work. The majority support a change in what is conceptualized as "work," while some advocate for the abolition of work altogether, and others are opposed to meaningless work or to work in a capitalist system.[3] As membership in the subreddit has increased, some longtime members have objected to the perceived liberal ideology of newcomers.[2]

In November 2021, founding moderator Doreen Ford told The Independent that "The main goal of the anti-work movement is just to abolish work, but what that ends up looking like is very different, depending on who you ask," noting that members of r/antiwork include "people who are anarchists, people who are Communists, people who are social Democrats, people who like Bernie, people who like Andrew Yang" and concluding that "there’s lots of different kinds of leftists."[12]

Activity

During the COVID-19 pandemic, members of r/antiwork shared various mouse mover strategies to combat bossware intended to monitor the productivity of employees working from home.[13]

In 2021, members of r/antiwork called for a consumer boycott of Black Friday, calling it "Blackout Black Friday".[2] In December 2021, various members posted images of anti-work manifestos which had printed from receipt printers and referred readers to r/antiwork. Some Reddit users suggested that the printouts were fake, but the founder of cybersecurity firm GreyNoise told Vice that network traffic suggested they were being printed remotely to printers that were "misconfigured to be exposed to the internet".[14]

On December 9, 2021, after Kellogg's announced plans to hire new permanent workers to replace 1,400 striking workers, a thread on r/antiwork urged members to submit fake applications for the new positions in order to overwhelm the company's hiring system. As of December 10, 2021, the thread had more than 62,000 upvotes; the director of communications for the union representing the striking workers described it as "phenomenal". Members reported having submitted fake applications and that the application site had crashed repeatedly;[4] a spokesperson for Kellog's denied that the website had crashed, telling Business Insider that the hiring process was "fully operational".[15] The initiative spread to other social media platforms.[4]

Popularity

In January 2020, the r/antiwork subreddit had about 70,000 members.[16] In February 2021, 235,000 people were members of r/antiwork, more than double the number of members from March 2020. Huck attributed the subreddit's growth in membership to the COVID-19 pandemic and related events including a rise in union busting as well as increased acceptance of mutual aid networks and the four-day workweek.[3] As of December 2021, the subreddit had more than 1,300,000 members, a 279% increase from 2020[4] with a gain of more than 900,000 members in 2021.[2] According to Reddit, r/antiwork was one of the 15 fastest-growing subreddits as of November 24, 2021.[17]

In 2021, opinion pieces in The New York Times and The Guardian expressed solidarity with r/antiwork.[9]

See also

References
  1. Kiersz, Andy; Kaplan, Juliana (November 25, 2021). "Inside the rise of 'antiwork,' a worker's strike that wants to turn the labor shortage into a new American Dream". Business Insider. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  2. Daro, Ishmael N. (November 18, 2021). "The Real Point of Reddit's Antiwork Sub". Slate Magazine. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  3. Pirnay, Emma (February 15, 2021). "Inside the Reddit community calling for the abolition of work". Huck Magazine. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  4. Sato, Mia (December 10, 2021). "Redditors are spamming Kellogg's job portal to support striking workers". The Verge. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  5. Breslin, Maureen (December 10, 2021). "Reddit users spam Kellogg job portal amid worker strike". TheHill. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  6. Vinopal, Courtney (December 9, 2021). "Reddit users are taking up the cause of Kellogg's striking workers". Quartz. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  7. Goldberg, Emma (December 4, 2021). "Public Displays of Resignation: Saying 'I Quit' Loud and Proud". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  8. Aratani, Lauren (November 28, 2021). "Goodbye to the job: how the pandemic changed Americans' attitude to work". the Guardian. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  9. McMenamin, Lexi (November 9, 2021). "This Antiwork Subreddit is Watching the Great Resignation". Teen Vogue. Retrieved December 14, 2021.
  10. Hunt, Elle (October 27, 2021). "The pandemic made me question my relationship with work – and I'm not alone". the Guardian. Retrieved December 16, 2021.
  11. Lanigan, Roisin (November 3, 2021). "This subreddit will make you want to quit your job". i-D. Retrieved December 16, 2021.
  12. Flynn, Sheila (November 12, 2021). "The rise of antiwork: Is there really a world without jobs?". The Independent. Retrieved December 16, 2021.
  13. Cole, Samantha (December 8, 2021). "Workers Are Using 'Mouse Movers' So They Can Use the Bathroom in Peace". Vice News. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  14. Franceschi-Bicchierai, Lorenzo (December 2, 2021). "Hackers Are Spamming Businesses' Receipt Printers With 'Antiwork' Manifestos". Vice News. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  15. Jankowicz, Mia (December 10, 2021). "A TikToker said he wrote code to flood Kellogg with bogus job applications after the company announced it would permanently replace striking workers". Business Insider. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  16. Davies, Pascale (November 25, 2021). "Why is this Reddit group calling for a Black Friday boycott?". euronews. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  17. Ballentine, Claire (November 24, 2021). "The Anti-Work Brigade Is Coming for Amazon on Black Friday". Bloomberg News. Retrieved December 16, 2021.
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