#QuitTok, live streaming resignation is the latest trend. Explained

#QuitTok, even as workplace trends with Bare Minimum Monday, Great Resignation, refuse to die down, employees have now taken to live streaming their resignation on the popular social media platform Tik Tok. 

Employees are using real time footage to capture the moment they resign from their workplace, from the moment they said ‘I Quit’ to their bosses. Sometimes tense, often funny and nearly always compelling, these short video clips are attracting thousands – sometimes millions – of views on the social media platform.

What is the #Quittok trend?

Different from employees leaving on Zoom Calls, or documenting the second they turn in a letter of resignation, the #quittok trend captures the real time emotions and activities when the employee hits the resign button. 

How did the #Quittok trend start?

In September 2022, Christina Zumbo, 31, a now-former Australian government worker, shared the moment she clicked send on her resignation email, and waited anxiously for a video call from her boss.

Eventually, the clip received 53,000 likes and nearly 3,000 comments!

Marisa Jo Mayes, too, had been using TikTok as a “fun, creative outlet”, sharing content as a way of “fighting [her] unhappiness at work”, when she decided to live-quit her job with a medical device company, stated BBC in a report. 

Mayes’s 30-second clip shows her in the tense moments leading up to a call with her boss – and then her immediate relief. ‘It’s like an elephant foot off my chest, but I’m also sad,’ she captioned the video.

Two years after it was first shared in late 2020, it’s still one of the most viewed #quittok moments, with more than 200,000 likes as of this writing.

What is driving the #QuitTok trend?

The majority of users on TikTok are digital natives. They have normalised sharing every kind of milestone online. However, there is also a more fundamental change in attitudes that underpins the #quittok trend.

These young users have seen their parents ‘burnout’ or struggle after the 2008 economic crash. Some of them have also had their early work experience be marred by Covid-19 pandemic. 

Often these have turned up to be a stressor, a trigger point for the mental health of the young employees. As a result, on seeing content that depicts people quitting ‘toxic workplaces’ and standing up to unfair bosses as deeply aspirational.

What does this mean?

According to experts, the #quittok trend ahs the potential to breed transparency in the corporate world. However, long-term implications of live quitting and posting #quittok videos aren’t exactly clear