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Hustle culture? No, thank you. The brave YOLO generation

A new lifestyle

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You Only Live Once, that’s the motto. Who would have thought that a verse by Drake could sum up the new philosophy of millennials and digital natives. YOLO, the acronym quoted by the Canadian rapper is a direct descendant of the now-inflated carpe diem: it indicates an approach to the world of work in which it is not the career but the working well-being that is central.

 
 
 
 
 
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Let’s start from the Randstad WorkMonitor 2023, annual report of the well-known recruitment company, conducted in 35 countries around the world, according to which:

  • 61% of the respondents would not accept a job that undermines the work-life balance (a percentage that rises to 74% in young people).
  • 45% would not give up the time flexibility; 40% to the remote mode.
  • 42% would reject a company whose values are not in line with their own.

Numbers that outline a real cultural revolution, accelerated by the pandemic period. While there was a lack of sociality, physiological in all jobs, the value of free time was rediscovered; the desire to reduce formalism and conventions; the need to reconcile career and family.

 
 
 
 
 
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But the most surprising fact is that more than 50% of respondents are sure to find a new job if they should give up or lose the current one. It is the voice of the younger generations, who do not fear dismissal or precariousness. They struggle, unconsciously perhaps, to reverse the trend of the world of work, in which they dominate devaluation of skills and people, miserable wages legalized by surreal contracts and minimal possibilities for human and personal growth. All this has a name: hustle culture. A model in vogue in the West as much as among the giant socialists of the East (never heard of the fairy tale of Stachanov?), which elevates to a single dogma the renunciation of everything in the name of work ambition; that label as loser anyone who does not think only of work. Commandments of a fanaticism that already sprouts in university circles: there is no need to quote the recent news to highlight the tragic results.

 
 
 
 
 
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This is followed by a cascade resignation (2.2 million of those registered last year) and divorces from the fixed post, sacred according to the Zalonian mantra, in the name of the most current work where and how much you want, the basis of digital nomadism. Here emerge stories of exploited people disguised as interns and apprentices, who show their real conditions: if they find people like Alessandro Mancini, journalist and founder of the Instagram page Generazione Yolo, these make even more noise.

 
 
 
 
 
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What are the paths of those who have decided to change their approach? There are those who try to make their passion a profession, becoming content creator, Twitcher, web editor, social media manager. Or those looking for realities in which greater attention is paid to corporate welfare, the maintenance of flexible work and where, perhaps, you experience the four-day workweek.

 
 
 
 
 
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The desire to say enough about a worn-out system, to improve their conditions, is seen by many as a courageous choice; even supported in many countries. Yet in Italy, where the reports show an alignment with the needs of other countries analyzed, there is the feeling that the new generations are advancing too many demands: the artillery Boomer is always ready to shoot empty judgments, to the sound of young people today do not want to struggle and in our time we were satisfied. Perhaps remembering that they were not the creators of the well-being in which they grew up, and that instead have contributed largely to the current discomfort, would help to understand that those of the Yolo generation are not whims. There is still a way to go, and starting with a transparent debate is the first step.

Image Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash