Is work not working anymore? The rise of anti-work demands across online spaces in the coronavirus pandemic

Abstract

Following the pandemic outbreak, discussions about the meaning of work have grown larger in the Western public debate. Within this setting, online spaces have emerged as a privileged environment for such discussions: particularly, the lively Reddit’s online community r/antiwork, where millions of users gather daily to discuss work-related matters. Based on ethnographic content analysis of a set of posts from r/antiwork, the article critically discusses the ‘anti-work’ trend. We show how this online forum has been able to aggregate a set of conversations aiming at ‘resisting work’, and argue that, following the pandemic outbreak, the neoliberal ideal of self realisation through work is undergoing a crisis. Digital discussion groups, such as Reddit, may open a new space for workers’ organisation and theorisation of new meanings of work.