“I recently learned about this term called quiet quitting, where you’re not outright quitting your job but you’re quitting the idea of going above and beyond,” New York engineer Zaid Khan explained in a short TikTok video. “You’re still performing your duties, but you’re no longer subscribing to the hustle-culture mentality that work has to be your life. The reality is it’s not. And your worth as a person is not defined by your labor.”

Khan’s video went viral, spawning millions of views and a flood of similar content. It turned a private attitude of workplace disengagement into an acceptable, even lauded, practice.

Quiet quitting, though not a household term in the West prior to Khan’s TikTok, was nevertheless ubiquitous. According to a Gallup survey of workers age 18 and older taken in June 2022, quiet quitters “make up at least 50% of the U.S. workforce—probably more”  with the percentage particularly high among workers under age 35. In Gallup’s “State of the Global Workplace 2023 Report,” 59% of the global workforce were said to be quiet quitters.