The hashtag #quitquitting on TikTok has 384 million views at the time of this writing. The concept of quiet quitting exploded after content creator Zaiad Khan, an engineer, posted a TikTok video in July about quiet quitting. It means you don't quit your job but you do quit the idea of going above and beyond at work. Quit quitting rejects the hustle culture mentality that your work is your life. According to a recent survey by Gallup, about half of the U.S. workforce is already quiet quitting. A survey by Adobe found that 45% of younger workers in the U.S. want to quit their corporate jobs to become content creators.
Quiet quitting like many things is not equal. The Washington Post reports that women and people of colour can't afford to quit because they are already at a significant disadvantage in the workplace. They are seen as troublemakers if they try to establish boundaries, have higher burnout rates, and are punished more harshly for mistakes. For more on quiet quitting, click here.
*Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes *
Welcome to the last Spinning Forward newsletter of 2022. Thanks very much for reading, sharing tips, and offering feedback on future stories and creators to profile.
This was a topsy-turvy year. Last year’s economic boom is how 2022 began. Then Russia invaded Ukraine in February. The worldwide inflation surge led to the highest inflation rates in four decades. Canadians felt the high prices of just about everything in their wallets.
The pandemic subsided but stayed. People resumed their lives but continued reflecting on what they really wanted. The Great Resignation saw Canadians resign from their jobs en masse in the summer and fall. At the same time, the quiet quitting movement exploded on TikTok among young people who rejected the hustle culture.
The UK government investigated the influencer pay standards and the online racial pay gap between content creators of colour and brands. Young people on social media platforms shifted toward “real” creators who weren’t perfect, and who shared information that informed and helped them. TikTok became the official TIFF partner for the first time as the popularity of short-form entertainment continued.
After Roe v Wade was overturned, many creators spoke out and became activists on social media, especially TikTok. Gen Z expects brands to be fun, transparent, and caring and wants them to speak out on social issues quickly. They embrace authenticity. Not surprisingly, the app of the year in the Apple App Store was the social media app, BeReal.
2023 will be a challenging year. Most social media platforms have cut their workforce significantly and introduced hiring freezes. Other sectors may follow soon. A recession in Canada, whether smaller or bigger, is all but certain. Creators are looking at other sources of income as advertisers and sponsors tighten their belts. Yet, Adobe, in a survey, found that almost half of young people in the U.S. want to quit their corporate jobs to become content creators.
The great resignation, quiet quitting and the “lying flat” (popular in China) movements are changing the way people view their relationship to work. Yet, one thing is certain. More and more people are embracing the YOLO economy and the notion that ‘You Only Live Once’. We'll see how they act on these forces in 2023.
HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🎉 🎊 🥳
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Publisher and Editor, Spinning Forward
Young people 👩🏽🎓 👨🏽🎓👨🏿🎓are incredibly hardworking 🧗🏽♀️and resilient, 💪 not the “snowflake generation” ❄️
Spinning Forward often talks to young people about their careers, their side hustles and their changing views about work. These digital natives are more entrepreneurial, and driven compared to previous generations. One reason they spend so much time online is because many feel the older generation doesn’t care what they think. Young people with traditional part-time or full-time jobs, often have one or more side hustles. They want meaningful work and regularly think about the question, "What should I do with my life?" Many take action on this question earlier and more often to help them get a handle on what feels like permanent financial insecurity and uncertainty.
Young people worry about the rising cost of everything. They worry they won’t get a job in their field chosen field, get stuck doing odd jobs and be a burden to their parents.
More people question the value of higher education A recent New York Times article, Americans Are Losing Faith in the Value of College, shows,
There are 2.5 million fewer Americans pursuing college or university since 2010. In the US, 52% of adults between 25 and 34 graduate from a two or four-year college or university program while in Canada, the number is 67%.
While more Canadians are well educated, the number one challenge remains the number of barriers highly educated immigrants and graduates face trying to find work in their chosen field. They often get stuck doing odd jobs to pay the bills and feel trapped in a constant state of financial insecurity and uncertainty.
*Young people see how stressed older people are. * A 2023 report by Gallup called the State of the Global Workplace found that:
52% of employees experience a lot of stress on a daily basis. Canada, and the US are the most stressed countries. Women employees are more stressed out at 57% than men at 42% in Canada and the US.
*Happiness at work has plummeted since 2020. * Human Resources cloud platform BambooHR’s 2023 report found that employees are more unhappy today than at the peak of the pandemic. They surveyed 57,000 employees from June 2020 to June 2023 across 1,600 companies in various industries. Macro stressors like rising inflation, the cost of living, return to work policies, disengaged employees and overall frustration are trickling down into everyday stressors. One alarming finding is that:
“Employees aren’t experiencing highs or lows—instead, they are expressing a sense of resignation or even apathy.”
Gen Z is the “side-hustle” generation. For all the talk of quiet quitting, a 2023 report by data analytics company, Kantar, called Connecting with Workforce, found they are not the “snowflake generation” but incredibly hardworking and resilient. 40% of Gen Z have two or more roles (jobs). What’s driving them is economic insecurity and uncertainty, the lingering effects of the pandemic, and seeing mass layoffs in well known companies.
Gen Z has experienced an unprecedented number of shocks. The start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2022 was followed by the global racial protests, shifting to school online and the war in Europe. Then came the global rise in inflation, rising food prices and food insecurity, mass layoffs in high wage jobs and the affordability crisis in cities around the world. Toronto is the most expensive city in Canada and ranked the 90th in the world according the 2023 Mercer Cost of Living survey.
Gen Z creators of color want to be business owners. Given the challenging environment, they strive to turn side hustles into viable businesses. Adobe’s 2022 "Future of Creativity” study found that,
”53% of Gen Z content creators of color want to be business owners while only 42% of Gen Z white creators want to own businesses.”
Young people of color in traditional jobs believe they’ll be laid off first in a recession. Most don’t expect to be promoted into management positions in Corporate Canada, no matter how hard they work. Another reason for wanting to be business owners is to create generational wealth and have something to pass on.
Niche is the new mainstream. Earlier this year, YouTube Canada Head, Andrew Peterson, said,
”Niche content really is the new mainstream”.
He believes YouTube’s algorithm will find people just like you and your content. But what he doesn’t mention is what if you don’t yet know yourself? What if you’re unclear about your interests and proclivities that help you eventually discover your niche?
Most creators, especially creators of color, early on, don’t get support for family when struggling to find their niche. If the “Bank of Mom and Dad” is paying your bills, they expect their kids to find a traditional day job instead of becoming a creator. Parents who don’t get what the creator economy is, tend to focus on the bad stuff like the cryptocurrency crash that wiped out savings, and long hours that lead to burnout. Many mistakenly view it as a scam or gimmick often because they don’t know where to get trustworthy information.
🧑🏻💼🧑🏾💼 ⚖️ “Lazy Girl Job” is a new workplace phrase meant to challenge toxic workplace expectations and like quiet quitting is a response to hustle culture, the Great Resignation, and worker exploitation. Created by Gabrielle Judge in May 2023, it refers to well-paying white-collar jobs that prioritize work-life balance. The #lazygirljob hashtag has garnered over 21 million views on TikTok. Women of color and other underepresented groups may have negative consequences if they promote a “lazy girl job”. As LinkedIn career expert Andrew McCaskill points out,
People of color have always had to work harder for the same recognition. They are disproportionately impacted during times of economic uncertainty and recessions.
In a TikTok, Judge says, the “lazy girl” phrase was a marketing gimmick. While it began with young white collar women, the phrase extends beyond Gen Z and includes men. Related to the workplace, a Cigna 360’s Global Well-Being Survey 2022 revealed that 91% of Gen Zers and 87% of millennials report being stressed due to financial insecurity and uncertainty.
Why it matters? While trendy phrases come and go, the sentiment against overwork and the desire to reassess life priorities after the pandemic are here to stay. This shift in attitude is one reason side hustle businesses are so popular.
Permanent Guest: One Filmmaker's Drive to Break the Silence Around Childhood Sexual Abuse
Content warning: This article covers childhood sexual abuse and may be distressing for some readers. If you or someone you know has been affected, support is available. Please refer to community resources at the end of the article.
Most children who are sexually assaulted never say a word about it — not to a teacher, a friend, or a parent. They choose silence. Roughly 1 in 8 children in South Asian countries experience sexual assault before the age of 18 (2025 Searchlight report, Childlight - Global Child Safety Institute)."
Toronto-based writer and director Sana Jafri also choose silence in her 14-minute short film, Permanent Guest. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in the Short Cuts program in 2025. It opens quietly in a family home, with a visiting uncle and a household going about its everyday business. The camera moves freely when the uncle is absent. After he arrives, everything tightens with wider angles and still frames.
The film centres on Fatin (Rasti Farooq), a 26-year-old woman in Lahore, Pakistan, who doesn't speak but whose face says a lot. She lives with her mother Yasmeen (Nadia Afgan). Her life is upended when her 70-year-old uncle ("taya"), Shabeer (Salman Shahid), comes to stay. He abused her as a child and his presence is normalized in the household as the family prepares for a wedding.
For Jafri, this story and the reason she chose the film's name reflects how many survivors quietly navigate life within their extended families. She says,
"The guest can be in our lives temporarily. But the damage that they do stays forever. It's quite permanent, and it lives with us every single day."
