China is doing it wrong! You're supposed to GET paid to sit at a desk and pretend to work at an office.
this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2025
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You're supposed to pay $4 for a coffee to sip at while you pretend to write a screenplay in a cafe.
This isn't that far off the mark...
These companies have "pretend to work" in their names. I watched this video from someone who actually includes context from Chinese people: https://youtu.be/W7VJLipgiuQ
Yea, this is pretty accurate. Younger people struggling to find jobs and due to cultural reasons they want to hide the fact that they're unemployed from their family or whomever. @xiaohongshu@hexbear.net and others have been saying the job market in China, especially for young people, is not doing the greatest right now. Vindicated once again!
Proof that gommulism doesn't work! (Don't look at employment in kkkapitalist countries though, nothing to see here!)
Holy shit, it's...real? Totally eating crow rn
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
The average USA manager cubicle.
how does your brain get to the point where you read shit like this and think "yes this is true"
This was posted about and talked about on here over a year ago and as far as I could tell it is a real thing for weirdos. I remember one person who like financially didn't have to work but didn't have a job or whatever so they'd rent one of these places to go play pretend for the social perception of "not being useless"
got to pick the brain of a member of the leisure class who decided to play-work instead of getting into politics or full time partying
Is it really that odd? We already have people playing sim games This is basically more realistic VR job sim game.
Full time partying lands you in rehab.
It's pretty simple, some people want to feel like they're being useful.
It is this time. The place that started it is literally called "pretend work company."
I mean, if anything, this is just proof the Cultural Revolution didn't go far enough. People are only doing this because their needs are met but they feel cultural pressure to work in typical "business" roles.
It literally is. High youth unemployment + strong cultural bias against same == this.
A service that enables unemployed people to still interact with others instead of festering alone at home doesn't sound like the worst thing in the world. Would be nicer if it were focused on actually trying to help them get a job though.
We should have public spaces that people can exist without buying something.
This is called the library and I go to it for like 20 hours a week to avoid going insane as a NEET.
Libraries are great!
I wish they were open 24/7
So... China has WeWork?
I mean, if the office space is clean, warm and has decent internet, then $4 a day for hotdesking is a bargain
Ah yeah the ol' "ghost cities" full of actors like the DPRK.
Weird RP for the Chinese bourgeois
Oh I was wondering why I was getting it recommended. Seriously? Was it all for this? They already do this shit in the west, albeit far less effectively, by going to Starbucks
This is not news worthy at all, oh, and, it was titled in a way that made me think that there was a mass movement of people pretending to work to get paid and not people paying to pretend to work.
China is so DYSTOPIAN you have to PAY to work at your made up "JOB"