Instead of even trying to chase jobs that seem out of reach, Gen Z is embracing living like a rat—not showering or leaving the house for days at a time.
The millennial era of “work hard, play harder” and “girl bossing” has given way to a new trend. In China, at least, Gen Zers are proudly calling themselves “rat people”—they’re spending entire days procrastinating in bed, scrolling on their phones, snoozing and ordering take out.
I think it has something to do with “giving up” on the economy: if you have very low chances of landing a job anyways, why even try?
The article does not directly tell us how many people participate in this movement consciously. It does hint, however:
Today, over 4 million American Gen Zers remain jobless. In China, the government has said that as of February, 1 in 6 young people are unemployed.
Aren’t rats notable for their hygiene and social skills? Seems like a poor comparison.
Chinese culture has almost satirical levels of disrespect and misunderstanding of animals so it’s very much on character.
I used to have 3 rescue rats and they are incredibly clean, active and social animals. I’d used to take them outside and observe how they explore new areas and its was really incredible how coordinated and thought out their exploration plans would be and executed with utter most curiosity. Also very cute how they’d come back to me and ask to be taken home to their cage by basically hugging my foot.
One of the animals in the Chinese year is the rat. I don’t think that there is a “satirical level of disrespect” if the animal is that important.
If anything the zodiac contributes to misunderstanding of animals. It’s like saying in the west we understand the buffalo because we have Taurus as a horoscope.
“Americans hate cows because they don’t understand them, as evidenced by this foreign language article that compares Americans to cows”
Nah Chinese culture is very well known for this. Have you been living under a rock?
Chinese treatment of animals is beyond anything else I’ve ever seen. There’s just fundamental lack of education and respect for non-human creatures. It’s trully something else and I’m not being xenophobic here as it’s an objective truth.
Even for a country with strong Buddhist and taoist presence it’s almost impossible to find vegetarian food unless you go to "sùshí restaurants (special vegetarian restaurants near temples) and outside if that you’ll get straight up mocked for eating vegan.
Seriously, my least favorite thing about China. Even worse than whole censorship thing. It’s just so incredibly disrespectful to our fellow creatures to the point where it feels intentionally cruel.
I agree with you…but do you really think America or most of the West would be much better if not for modern animal rights activists?
Modern industrial society has such a wild disconnect from its food, and I don’t think most people would care if not for the likes of PETA et al always bringing to the front of their attention.
Myself and my kids are ovo-/lacto- vegetarian. My wife is full blown vegan. We raise a small flock of chickens for eggs and my oldest (2nd grade) loves our hens like members of the family.
You know how some of the kids bully him? By saying they’ll come to our house and eat our chickens. I think even a second-grader would know not to say that about a dog…but a chicken? Not even a thought. Even his therapist wasn’t disturbed by that until I told her that the chickens are treated more like pets than livestock.
And they should be treated better. They are beautiful, diverse creatures with their own social rules and personalities. You haven’t lived till you’ve gotten stoned and hung out with a flock of hens for a few hours.
I do agree that activism is required here and it maybe China is really stuck at progressing here as activism is basically illegal. The one case of animals activism that I know (posted in another comment) is zoo employees rising up against awful zoo conditions and animal torture and anti shark fin soup lead by Yao Ming and some other pop stars.
Animal activism just doesn’t really exist in China and it really might be the only way to progress this medium.
I’m honestly quite disappointed in Buddhism here. Chinese follow Mahayana branch of Buddhism (same as Japan, Vietnam etc.) Which aims to “help all beings to achieve buddhism” and yet animal rights are non existant and they perform all these rituals of releasing a fish or smt but never do any real action. Just shows how deeply rooted this issue is.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan_Giant_Panda_Sanctuaries
Oh, the inhumanity
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_welfare_and_rights_in_China
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_fin_soup
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Meat_Festival
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_zoo_scandal
Etc. Etc.
That being said, I do think Chinese government is at least trying to drag the culture into reality.
The panda zoos were meant to spearhead the change in animal perception but it didn’t really trickle down to other animals and is widely considered to be a failure in that regard. Though there’s a big law proposition right now but it’s stuck since 2009:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_protection_law_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China
So China is still good 50 years behind the developed world when it comes to animal respect if not more.
Rats are the best. Little pocket puppies
/r/rats is the reason I’m still on Reddit
The pet rats community here is far too quiet
the only thing that stops me from getting rats is the short lifespans. I love dogs, and ~10 years is already too short. Dealing with that every two would just break me.
agreed. They really should live longer. the universe is not fair
Are they? I thought they piss and shit poison and eat their babies for food. Are you thinking of mice?
You’re thinking of humans
Human eat their babies for food??
Small brain energy.
your mom definitely should have