China’s youth are rioting with ‘gross’ work outfits in the new video trend

CNN
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There’s a new kind of “get ready with me” video popular in mainland China: one of the “gross” work outfits.

China’s youth put on their worst pajama bottoms and the hairiest slippers and head to the office in an ironic rebellion against everything from bad bosses and poor working conditions to low wages and long hours. And they happily show off their creations online.

For months, Chinese social media users have been posting under hashtags like #grossoutfitforwork #uglyclothesshouldbeforwork #ootd (outfit of the day) asking others to share their own photos, creating a competition over who wore the worst.

The hashtag “grossoutfitforwork” has racked up more than 140 million views and tens of thousands of discussions on Chinese social media platform Weibo alone. In late February, a post from Douyin (China’s version of TikTok) user Kendou S, in which she claimed she had been chastised by her boss for her “crude” outfits she wore to combat the cold weather, went viral.

In a follow-up video, which has been liked 752,000 times and reposted more than 1.4 million times, Kendou S shows off one of her offending outfits – revealing layer after layer of mismatched pieces – a fluffy white hat, gray balaclava, tatty red gloves, puffer coat, pink padded jacket, fleece sweater dress, plaid pajama pants, fur lined slippers and knee high socks.

In response to similar posts, a woman who posted a photo of herself in a neon yellow vest and baggy knee-length shorts wrote: “My coworker says I dress like a wild man,” while another commenter showed off a dirty yellow and blue jacket. said, “My boss gave me 50 yuan (about $7) to wash my clothes and I was banned from ever shaking hands with customers again.”

“Earning so little salary, with ugly colleagues, what else do you expect from my outfit?” read another post.

After embracing “tang ping” or “lying flat,” a philosophy that rejects the rat race and consumerism in favor of a less stressful life, young Chinese have been hosting “severance parties” and even getting paid to become “full-time kids” . ” ‘Gross outfits’ appear to be the latest attempt by a disenchanted Generation Z to make a statement as the country faces a bleak economic outlook and record high youth unemployment.

Young people in China are entering a tough job market, with the government reporting in January that the unemployment rate would reach 14.9% among 16 to 24-year-olds in December 2023. The figure, published after a five-month gap, excluded 62 million full-time students. This figure peaked at 21.3% earlier in June.

“They’re kind of saying, why bother if your job and future life prospects don’t look so bright,” says Bohan Qiu, the 29-year-old founder of the Boh Project, a Shanghai and Seoul-based creative, public relations and brand advice for fashion brands and more. “They used to see (work) as chasing a dream… and (companies) motivated everyone to fight for the (economic) pie. Now people say, ‘No, that doesn’t exist, or it could be a lie,'” Qiu said.

While the examples that have gone viral on social media are more extreme, Qiu says he believes casual dressing for work has always been popular in China and will continue to be so. This, he said, will be especially true in workplaces where overwork and long hours in front of a computer are the norm, and also among a younger generation that became accustomed to remote work during the pandemic.

Qiu added that although his staff do not dress like the people in the viral videos, they do tend to dress modestly. Employees have been known to come in wearing sweatpants, shorts, slippers and the like, he said, and that was accepted “as long as they looked cool.”

Even those who post their ugly outfits on social media have no problem looking good – even outside the workplace. Many have posted that they simply prefer not to have the “banwei” or “stench of work” on their favorite clothes.

And while Chinese state media was quick to criticize the trend of “flattening out” or “letting it rot,” People’s Daily called the phenomenon of dressing ugly at work a kind of “self-deprecation” and said that “as long as employees” dress appropriately, have a correct working attitude, do not influence other people and do not involve issues of principle”, there is no problem.

Qiu, who works in the fashion industry, also finds himself dressing up after moving to Shanghai. He said many of the smart suits he wore in Hong Kong are now languishing deep in his closet.

And as temperatures rise, some have started sharing their chunky outfits for spring.

One Douyin user posted a photo of a particularly egregious combination: grubby mustard toe socks and torn black sandals with gaudy plastic baubles.