China’s frustrated millennials turn to memes to rail against grim economic prospects
- Chinese youth are venting their disillusionment with bleak job prospects and widening inequality with new memes and buzzwords online
- The stinging online sentiment jars with the government line that China’s economic boom is creating opportunities for young people
The phrases “involution”, “Versailles literature” and “working man” are gaining enormous popularity across Chinese social media platforms from Weibo to WeChat as millions of youth make psychological adjustments to cope with a rapidly changing society.
For young Chinese, especially those with a college degree, there is a growing perception that their career prospects are darkening, their social mobility shrinking and the country’s wealth gap widening – although this point of view diverges sharply from the government narrative.
The disconnect has given rise to buzzwords like nei juan, or involution. The term was originally used to explain a process in which additional input cannot produce more output. In the case of a farmer tilling a paddy field – no matter how much additional labour he puts in, there is a limit to how much rice can be produced.
Yan Fei, a sociology professor at Tsinghua University, said the term represented a kind of helplessness felt by many young Chinese.
“They expend so much effort but still can’t improve [their lives],” Yan said in a video published on Pear Video, a popular short video platform.
In October, Xiang Biao, an anthropologist at Oxford University, warned an excessively competitive work environment among younger generations reflected broader social problems.