Hustle culture the sequel: The cult of performative workaholism

When we wrote a piece on hustle culture earlier this year, we did not expect the article to become so popular. In fact, not only the article itself got popular, but also the posts on our social media discussing the topic. Little did we know that this topic – or issue? – is more widespread and relatable than we initially thought.

Hence, we see it as an open invitation to bring you a related article on hustle culture’s bastard sibling: performative workaholism. Let us dissect the phrase as we begin. Performative behavior is an action taken specifically with an audience in mind, to elicit a response or reaction, while workaholism is the compulsion or the uncontrollable need to work incessantly (Oates, 1971).

While there are many differing opinions, most would agree that workaholism involves the following components: feeling compelled to work because of internal pressures, having persistent thoughts about work when not working, as well as working beyond what is reasonably expected of the worker despite the potential negative consequences.

Hence, we can understand performative workaholism as a compulsion to work incessantly that is intended to elicit a reaction. In this case, we all pledge ourselves to the cult of busy-ness and signal loudly to others just how productive and busy we are because society has gradually determined that if you are not constantly working, then you are lazy.

In a world where hard work and grind have become aspirational, we sure feel compelled to show how hard we hustle every chance we get.

We started a survey with our readers – mostly within the 23-32 age bracket a.k.a. young professionals – on the phenomenon of performative workaholism. We found that 80.2% of the respondents are aware of the concept. A whopping 96.5% of respondents reported that they have encountered content promoting “hard work”, “hustle”, or “grind” on various platforms, digital or otherwise, and their responses to these content are mixed.

One respondent wrote, “At first, I did not care much about it, but due to polarisation, I started feeling the FOMO and that I am among the minority if I am not working hard. Though that is untrue. It just so happens that I entered a circle where the majority of the people think that hustling is living.”

Another shared, “Initially it felt motivating, and me as the reader felt validated that hard work is necessary to achieve the so-called ideal life. Yet when I am feeling tired, those types of content feels like pressure, because it feels as though we are not allowed to feel tired, while in reality feeling tired is completely normal.”

65.5% of respondents find that the romanticisation of hard work makes them want to look busy or hard-working in their daily lives or social media; and these respondents have different ways to show how “busy” they are. Posting work stations, work documents, or meetings on social media seems to be the most popular way, including one respondent who wrote, “Posting my 172839393 opened tabs on IG story.”

Some take different routes, such as the person who shared that they “used to subscribe to the mentality that ‘you don’t live if you don’t hustle’. So I used to ‘work’ overtime even though there was nothing to work on.” There are also others who resort to volunteering activities to appear busy.

Working has become glamourised. It is as though workers are expected to love what they do, then promote that love on social media, where we then see a fuse between their personal and workplace identities.

This is perplexing to see because this was not always the case. It may be hard for “hustlers” to comprehend, but work was once seen as painful toil, and best avoided. But something changed in the 16th century – when work started to be perceived as morally good.

Recently, the news about China’s 996 culture went viral. It turns out that the culture of working from 9am to 9pm for six days a week has become normalised in the country. Thankfully, there has been an outcry of opinions highlighting the brutality of the culture.

It really is not hard to see why the millennial and Z generations are often referred to as the burnout generations. The advancements of technology have provided them with a work environment much different to what their older counterparts had.

In fact, burnout is so common now that it is a diagnosable condition according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The symptoms of this condition include feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job and reduced professional efficacy.

So how did we get here? This phenomenon surely did not occur overnight. Our collective burnout has been branded as “millennial angst”, and it seems that it is here to stay. Partly, this angst is a byproduct of the structural inequities millennials have inherited. With never ending student loans, sky-high mortgage, side hustles and unpaid internships, we do not have it all that easy despite how it looks.

Perhaps there is no escaping from the world of hustle culture and performative workaholism, but we can adopt a different perspective in facing them. For example, we need to reassess how we define “resilience” at work.

“We often take a militaristic approach to resilience and grit. We imagine a marine slogging through the mud, a boxer going one more round, or a football player picking himself up off the turf for one more play. We believe that the longer we tough it out, the tougher we are, and therefore the more successful we will be. However, this entire conception is scientifically inaccurate,” wrote researchers Shawn Achor and Michelle Gielan in a Harvard Business Review article.

First and foremost, resilience goes hand in hand with rest and recovery. Hence, to applaud employees for staying in the office until midnight to finish a project is to feed the misconceptions about resilience. A lack of recovery is costing companies $62 billion a year in lost productivity. This shows that having restorative rest away from work actually improves productivity.

We need to start resetting our minds to perceive working as means to an end instead of a way of life. One respondent summarised the concept nicely, “The line between loving our work and needing validation is thin. Loving our work makes us want to share stories and the fruits of our work. The difference is in the emphasis, in loving our work the emphasis is on the process and result. Whereas in performative workaholism the emphasis is on a specific work ethic, while in reality we don’t work for the sake of that work ethic itself.”