You spend years climbing the corporate ladder, only to realize you're exhausted, underpaid, and no closer to buying a house than when you started. So you stop climbing. You don't quit—you just stop trying so hard. Millions of young workers across the world have reached this same conclusion, giving birth to movements with names that sound almost comical: "lying flat" and "quiet quitting." But there's nothing funny about what they represent.

When "Doing Your Best" Stops Making Sense

In April 2021, a man named Luo Huazhong posted something on China's Baidu forum that would spark a national conversation. "Lying Flat Is Justice," he titled it. Luo had quit his factory job five years earlier, spent time biking around China doing odd jobs, and decided he was done chasing the traditional markers of success. "I can be like Diogenes, who sleeps in his own barrel taking in the sun," he wrote.

Chinese authorities deleted the post within hours. Too late. It had already spread like wildfire.

A year later, halfway around the world, a TikTok video by Zaid Khan introduced American audiences to "quiet quitting." The concept was simpler than the name suggested: just do your job. Not more, not less. Show up for your 40 hours, complete your assigned tasks, then go home and actually live your life.

These weren't isolated incidents. They were symptoms of the same disease: a generation realizing the old bargain had broken.

The Grind That Broke a Generation

To understand why lying flat resonated in China, you need to understand "996 culture." The numbers tell the story: work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. Seventy-two hours weekly. This wasn't an aberration in China's tech industry—it was the expectation.

Alibaba CEO Jack Ma defended this brutal schedule in 2019, calling it a "huge blessing." He asked: "How can you achieve the success you want if you don't put in more effort and time than others?" Huawei went further, cultivating what they proudly called "wolf culture"—fierce internal competition where workers must "kill or be killed."

The 996.ICU campaign in 2019 had already signaled trouble. Thousands of tech workers protested online, the campaign name referencing the intensive care unit where they'd end up if they kept working themselves to death. But corporate China didn't blink.

Then the economy stumbled. By July 2022, youth unemployment hit 19.9%—the highest on record. A record 10.7 million college graduates entered the workforce that year, facing the worst job market in modern Chinese history. Antitrust crackdowns, property sector restrictions, and COVID lockdowns had slowed growth to a crawl.

Young Chinese workers looked around and did the math. Work yourself to exhaustion for what? Apartments you can't afford? Jobs that might not exist next year?

The American Version of the Same Story

American workers faced different pressures but reached similar conclusions. Gallup research found that 67% of employees reported being disengaged over the past 15 years. By mid-2022, that number had climbed to over 50% identifying as "quiet quitters," with another 18% actively disengaged—the worst figures since 2013.

Paige West, a 24-year-old transportation analyst in Washington, D.C., exemplified the phenomenon. Before quiet quitting, she suffered anxiety, sleep loss, nausea, and hair loss from work stress. Her factory-worker counterpart Luo described feeling "numb, like a machine."

West's solution was radical in its simplicity: "I decided to just go to work for 40 hours a week. That's it." Her stress evaporated. Unexpectedly, she received more praise from colleagues. Scaling back check-ins and concentrating on fewer tasks actually improved her output.

The pandemic had accelerated this reckoning. A PwC survey of 52,000 workers across 44 countries found that 20% planned to quit before the end of 2022. Workers had spent lockdown reassessing their priorities. Many decided their jobs weren't worth the sacrifice.

What Resistance Actually Looks Like

Neither movement advocates traditional protest. There are no marches, no strikes, no manifestos demanding policy changes. The resistance is quieter and, in some ways, more profound: withdrawal.

Lying flat adherents reject the entire game. No marriage, no children, no home ownership, no conspicuous consumption beyond necessities. Luo spent five years biking around China, reading philosophy, doing occasional odd jobs. He'd opted out completely.

Quiet quitters take a softer approach. They show up, fulfill their job descriptions, then leave. They don't volunteer for extra projects. They don't answer emails at 10 p.m. They've set boundaries that previous generations would have considered career suicide.

The symbol of China's lying flat movement became the leek—because leeks lying flat can't be caught in a combine harvester. The metaphor was clear: if you stay low, the machine can't grind you up.

Online forums discussing lying flat drew 200,000 members before authorities shut them down. The Chinese government understood the threat. This wasn't just about individual workers—it challenged the entire social contract.

When the State Fights Back

Chinese state media launched coordinated attacks on May 20, 2021. Outlets called lying flat "unjust," "shameful," and "poisonous chicken soup." Wang Xingyu, an official at China University of Labor Relations, wrote in Guangming Daily: "The creative contribution of our youth is indispensable to achieving the goal of high-quality development."

Translation: we need you to keep working yourselves to death.

WeChat disabled searches for "lying flat." Douban shut down discussion groups. Alibaba's Taobao removed lying flat-themed t-shirts from online stores. At a May 2021 conference, Xi Jinping called for "continued struggle" and greater self-reliance in science and technology—a message that directly contradicted lying flat philosophy.

The censorship revealed the movement's power. Governments don't censor irrelevant ideas.

American companies took a different approach, mostly ignoring quiet quitting or dismissing it as rebranded laziness. Some managers pushed back, arguing that "doing the bare minimum" showed lack of ambition. They missed the point entirely.

The Bigger Picture

These movements exist within a global context. Japan has its "hikikomori"—young people withdrawing from society entirely. The West experienced the "Great Resignation" during the pandemic. Across cultures, young workers are questioning whether traditional work ethics make sense anymore.

The numbers support their skepticism. Only 14% of European workers report being engaged at work, compared to 33% in the U.S. and Canada. In East Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, engagement sits at just 17%. Globally, 86% of workers report feeling disengaged.

This isn't about laziness. It's about diminished returns. Previous generations could work hard and expect tangible rewards: stable employment, home ownership, upward mobility. Today's young workers work just as hard—often harder—for less security and fewer prospects.

Luo and West represent millions who've done the math and found it wanting. They're not demanding revolution. They're simply refusing to participate in a system that doesn't serve them.

What Comes Next

Neither lying flat nor quiet quitting offers a sustainable solution to structural problems. Economies need productive workers. Individuals need purpose beyond mere survival. But these movements have forced an overdue conversation about what work should look like.

The old social contract promised that hard work would be rewarded. That contract has broken down. Until it's renegotiated—with better pay, reasonable hours, affordable housing, and genuine opportunities for advancement—expect more young workers to lie flat or quietly quit.

They're not being lazy. They're being rational. When the game is rigged, sometimes the smartest move is not to play.