‘Get fired with me’: Why Gen Z-ers are filming themselves being made redundant (and going viral)

Losing your job is often a shocking moment that most people want to keep private – but suddenly #layoff videos are taking social media by storm. Here, work influencer Gabrielle Judge explains the important lessons her generation’s oversharing is teaching us all...

Hard labour: the rise of the ‘gig economy’ has changed how we talk about our working lives (Supplied)

You could argue that it started with the “get ready with me” videos – users posting clips of themselves applying make-up to get ready while sharing deeply personal revelations. Everything is covered; bad dates, bad sex, terrible experiences with parents and even death and suicide – and often these most intimate experiences will become a treding topic. So it is no surprise that in our chronically online society, young employees are now sharing their most vulnerable work moments too.

Historically, lay-offs have been a taboo subject, often discussed privately in hushed tones. Where baby boomers and Generation X might have viewed being made redundant as a personal failure, my generation sees them as a regular, albeit unfortunate, part of modern work life. We have an unspoken understanding that our job will never love us back and this is our response to that.

The lay-off wave in early 2023, including 12,000 at Google, was the wake-up call that I remember. The prevalent LinkedIn posts like “On no longer being a Googler” highlighted how deeply personal identities are intertwined with our jobs. For younger employees, these mass redundancies risk creating career gaps with long-term effects. This was a significant realisation in my own career, motivating me to scale my business to leave corporate life.