Author| Akagi bottle
Edit| Mia
Naked words, gap year, career change, and stall culture seem to be becoming mainstream words among young people.
Recently, a video of "Master Chen, the flashman", has made the protagonist Chen Tao's past experiences such as "graduate student in the Department of Philosophy, former journalist, public relations, new media" and the current identity of the "delivery man" violently collided, and the transformation from mental work to physical work, combined with the theory of taking off the "Kong Yiji long robe", set off a wave of public opinion for a while.
At the same time, many public figures also frequently appear in the scene of daily life and become practitioners of manual labor. Liu Haoran and Dong Zijian set up a bartending stall, former idols Xu Bingchao switched to selling buns, Chen Xiang night market sold grilled sausages and so on. On social media platforms, articles and videos with tens of thousands of clicks such as "Big Factory Naked Remarks Gap Year", "30-year-old Switched to Dry Goods Sharing", "Butterfly Wings Stalls Sold Out", "Fancy Side Business Don't Step on Thunder" have been active for a long time.
Whether it is a 38-year-old journalist who switched to delivering takeaways, a celebrity stall selling buns and grilled sausages, or young people who resigned naked, from the social issues caused by a resignation of "the world is so big, I want to see it" a few years ago, to the freelance practitioners who return to their hometowns to farm, start businesses from media, and work in coffee shops, young people who yearn for freedom, under the repeated beating of the epidemic in the past three years, employment pressure, and the rapid iteration of Chat GPT on traditional jobs, may usher in a new wave of career exploration. We chatted with several young friends, and behind the keywords such as cross-industry, manual work, and self-employment, we were able to glimpse the contemporary attitude of young people towards the workplace.
Do you regret switching careers naked? Regret not sooner
The 28-year-old former variety show promoter Ah Zhen chose to resign naked in 2022. Recalling the four years of working in the entertainment industry, the last straw that finally crushed Ah Zhen was that most of the time he was doing repetitive work, and once he couldn't find the meaning of raising the ceiling and working.
Based on the embarrassment that the entertainment industry is often tied by insufficient budgets, after resigning, he set his job search goals on the brand market of the new consumer industry that is still relatively rich. After a period of exploration, Ah Zhen successfully crossed industries to a clothing company to make a brand.
"After staying in a certain industry for a long time and being familiar with the way that industry works, it is bound to be difficult to adapt to changing careers. For example, other industries usually need to clock in at work, which is really painful for entertainment people with disordered work and rest. ”
Ah Zhen, who values the sense of value and growth brought by his work, does not have much excitement and sense of achievement in the new field at present, "After all, it is cross-industry, and it is still in the exploration stage." The more anxious part of the moment is uncertainty about the future of the industry. Ah Zhen said.
There is always a mental and physical presence, which is a common state in the entertainment industry. Although there are not many colleagues around Ah Zhen, most of them are waiting for opportunities, and Ah Zhen believes that "the people who choose to stay may be out of habit, or they may still be afraid of the unstable environment, temporarily want to stay in their comfort zone, or have a love for the content industry." ”
Like Ah Zhen, there are not a few young people who choose to "resign naked". The Just So Soul Research Institute's survey of Soul App users "Insight into Generation Z's Work-Life Attitude: The Dreams and Choices of the Courageous Generation" shows that more than seventy percent of young people are not worried about "naked resignation", and eighty percent of young people have the idea of changing careers.
When asked, "If you went back a year, would you choose to quit naked or enter the current industry?" Ah Zhen said categorically, "Yes." I feel that I am still too late to transform, and I should try more while I am young! ”
Failed to open a store, become a "worker from scratch"
Qingqing, a 24-year-old former script killer shop owner, went from starting a business to turning into a worker for two years.
After graduating from university in 2020, Qingqing and a friend partnered to open a script killing shop in Beijing. Qing Qing, an undergraduate accounting major, was immersed in her family's business thinking and had the idea of "working for herself" before graduation, a vision that was even stronger after she was subjected to the rush hour commute of the Beijing subway during her internship.
Qingqing said frankly that starting a business was also a stepping on the wind. According to Xiaohei Detective's data: in October 2020, the number of "script killing" stores across the country has grown from 2,400 to more than 25,000, most of the stores are concentrated in business districts, universities and other crowded places, and the number of offline experience players exceeds 30 million.
Qingqing's store is rooted in the "golden age" of the offline script killing industry. With family sponsorship and partner support, Qingqing and her friends prepared a start-up capital of about 500,000 yuan to rent a shop of less than 200 square meters near a university in Beijing's sixth ring road, with an annual rent of 180,000 yuan, and the decoration cost was almost 300,000 yuan. "At that time, I wanted to do a big job, after all, it was the first time to start a business, and each theme room was carefully decorated. Coupled with buying a book and asking for Dm, there was a period of time when the business was really good, and I could see the hope of returning the book. ”
"It's really mixed in the past two years." Qingqing still remembers that in 2021, the Beijing New Year policy was released, and the offline entertainment format opened a short carnival. That period is the highlight of the business, the store can be described as "three days and three nights, three midnights, day and night" state, daily turnover is more than 10,000. After a short revelry, everyone can guess what follows.
The biggest headache for the 24-year-old Qingqing is that "my father calls me almost every week, and the content must revolve around telling me to go back to my hometown to buy a car and a house." Because my family is also in business, my parents have never wanted me to be outside, and they always put pressure on me with statements such as 'go home and find a stable job, buy you a house and a car, girls don't have to fight so hard, and there is no shortage of money at home'. ”
After the partner withdrew, Qingqing's dream of opening a store was temporarily extinguished, but she never thought of returning to her hometown. Now I am in a state of doing resumes while going to the storefront and preparing to start working life, "Watching the store with almost 200,000 plates at that time to be sold at a discount, the frustration was quite strong. But Qingqing, who was bent on "making a comeback", decided to save up his own start-up capital this time and didn't ask his family to take money. Qingqing is now very interested in the entertainment industry, and may find a job related to self-media while learning from experience while observing the possibility of entrepreneurship, "Maintaining as much freedom as possible has always been my career goal."
Setting up a stall to do business, is it "intentional or careless" for the artist to "change careers"?
When Xu Bingchao, who entered the audience's field of vision through the talent variety show "Youth Has You" in 2019, regularly appeared at the door of a certain technology and business university, 2-3 hours a day, he was not engaged in a signing meeting, nor in a reality show experience, but selling buns made by himself.
The stall is out at five or six o'clock, and it is sold out at eight o'clock. Fans have already inquired about Xu Bingchao's stall rules. One customer who goes to the queue every day said, "The buns in the wonton skin buns are really fresh and delicious. ”
In an interview with Chinanews.com, Xu Bingchao once said that the sale of buns happened by accident. I was amazed by this bun on the street of my hometown during the New Year, so on a sleepless night, Xu Bingchao had the idea of bringing the bun to more people to eat, so he went to visit the bun master, who said that more than ten years of old craftsmanship is not passed on, soft grinding and hard foam, the master promised to teach the bun secret. #Xu Bingchao selling buns on the streets of Hangzhou#Soon on the hot search.
Coincidentally, in 2022, some netizens met Liu Haoran and Dong Zijian selling bartending at a stall by the Liangma River. According to Liu Hao's subsequent interview report: Every afternoon, at home, cut lemons, prepare mint leaves, fill large plastic buckets with ice, go to the river at eight or nine o'clock to set up a stall, a large group of people drink and chat, a large cup of mojito sells 20 yuan.
More and more young people want to live manual labor. In Xiaohongshu, there are endless cases of baristas in the Internet, state-owned enterprises and other industries, and there are many young people on Douyin who set up stalls and mobile phones to cook instant noodles and stir-fry pho. As early as last year, the popularity of the stall economy has repeatedly landed on the topic list, and now the stall economy is showing a younger and refined trend, and the spirit of young people who dare to think and dare to do and the promotion of social networks, the reduction of various types of information gaps, have promoted a strong force of action. The 25-year-old Ah Zhi became a freelancer after resigning in 2020, and after the Zibo barbecue exploded on the Internet, he has left for Zibo to investigate, ready to see the possibility of returning to Beijing to open a store.
Of course, in addition to inadvertently developing the main business/side business, there are also artists who develop the stall culture into a new marketing method. For example, Chen Xiang's "National Swing (Circular Stall) Beijing Station" has quite some battles of national tours. In this way, the stall culture may become a new publicity method for film and television dramas in the future.
Ah Zhen, who has also tried to set up a stall in the park and grow it at home, told the entertainment unicorn, "Doing manual work is a kind of resistance to mental internal attrition. Who doesn't want to raise pigs to farm? Love for the land is engraved in Chinese DNA, and it's fun to watch plants and animals grow. The theme song of the variety show "Let's Farm" sings 'The land will not live up to every drop of sweat.' ’”
As a former variety show publicity, Ah Zhen also understands that some of the artist's stalls are unavoidable. "In view of the non-compete constraints brought by the contract, some of it should have a marketing component. But it is true that the current market will prefer the image of down-to-earth artists. ”
epilogue
The rise of digital careers and the possibility of side hustles created by stall culture have provided a better buffer zone and career possibilities for young people chasing gap year with naked resignation. According to the Occupational Classification of the People's Republic of China (2022 Edition), 158 new occupations were added to the net number, bringing the number of occupations to 1,639, and 97 digital occupations were identified for the first time. In the aforementioned "Report", it is also shown that in SOUL, about 26% of young people are "side hustle youth", and e-commerce (20.4%), self-media (17%) and knowledge payment/skill payment (16.8%) are the most popular side hustle TOP3. With the rise of the metaverse concept, many new occupations have been born, and 3.3% of young people have begun to engage in metaverse-related occupations such as "face pinchers".
In many interviews, these young people who have changed careers have invariably pointed to freedom and happiness in the gains of this moment. Chen Tao, a 38-year-old delivery clerk, has published "happy delivery theory" such as "delivering food is happier than writing public relations drafts in a company", "revising the draft means negation, but delivering food only once and will receive thanks"; After Ah Zhen changed careers, he felt that he should make a decision earlier and try more while he was young; Liu Haoran recalled in an interview that time when he was selling alcohol at a stall, "walking home at four or five o'clock in the morning to sleep, and those days were very happy."
When career changes become more frequent, and complex jobs such as stalls that seem to test social and negotiation skills begin to become a testing ground for young people, when all walks of life dominated by a sense of gain and achievement are "expanded" and "transformed" by young people who fit the aesthetics of the times. What we see is that more and more young people are opening a door to the place that Chen Tao said "at night, there are few cars, the wind blows, and there is a feeling of freedom and flight when running".