Work is Dead, NEET is Born: The Cultural Uprising of a Meme Coin

"Work will become optional, and everyone will enjoy high income." This is not the first time Musk has expressed such a view.

Since last year, Musk has repeatedly expressed this view—AI will make work optional, and having a job will become a modern hobby, much like growing vegetables or grains evolved from an ancient means of survival. We will enter an era of high per capita income, where working to survive is no longer necessary.

However, he also mentioned in an interview last year that before humanity truly enters this wonderful stage, we will experience confusion and turbulent pain.

AI is indeed causing job losses.

@secureainow launched a website, jobloss.ai, last week to track AI-related layoffs across the US in real-time. The site aggregates data on publicly disclosed layoffs caused by AI since January 1, 2025. From February 2025 to now, in just one year, the publicly reported number of job losses attributed to AI has risen from 1,750 to 127,648. This might be one of the "rapid increases" we least want to see in history:

Amid the turbulent global situation and the confusion and pain of employment prospects, a different kind of energy has erupted in the cryptocurrency market, specifically on the Solana network.

"We collectively bought an internet coin, and then we never have to work again."

$neet, over the past year, there hasn't been another coin like it on the Solana network—a meme coin that, after experiencing three massive drops of over 80%, still managed to hit a new all-time high market cap of $47 million the day before yesterday.

Not in Employment, Education or Training

Neet, meaning "Not in Employment, Education or Training."

The term sounds quite bleak, reminiscent of the familiar Chinese concepts of "lying flat" and "Sanhe Gods."

In July 1999, the phrase "Neet" first appeared in a report titled "Bridging the Gap" published by the UK's Social Exclusion Unit, which surveyed unemployed young people not in education. On March 15, 2005, Urban Dictionary user Rolf Mason submitted an entry for "Neet," defining it as a sociological term "for the lower class of society that lacks motivation, drive, or ambition."

With the development of AI, the uncertainty of employment prospects, and global turbulence, this concept, which traces back to the tail end of the last century, has once again entered the mainstream spotlight.

"Neet" featured on FOX 26 News

It is against this backdrop of the times that the cultural connotation of "Neet" has quietly changed.

The Cry of the Young Generation

"Why can't I choose to lie flat?"

"Sanhe Gods" originally became a popular term from the Baidu Tieba forum "Quit Gambling Bar," referring to the "brothers" who, having lost everything to gambling, lingered around the Sanhe Talent Market in Shenzhen. Burdened with debt, some even sold their ID cards for money and couldn't leave the Sanhe area. Losing hope in life led them to a state of long-term, gradually accepted poverty and aimlessness, choosing to survive with extremely low living costs, "working one day and playing for three."

In 2020, the Sanhe Talent Market was relocated, and the original site was rebuilt into "Strivers' Square." The very next year, in 2021, "lying flat" began trending as a popular internet term in China.

The core of culture evolves with the times. "Lying flat" first appeared in the Baidu Tieba "Anti-Marriage Bar" in 2011, gained popularity in fan circles in 2016 ("Lie flat and accept the ridicule. This time I can't defend [celebrity name], I'll just lie flat and let you mock me").

By 2021, "lying flat" was seen as a response by young people to their disappointment with reality, addressing issues like class solidification, involution, the shrinking middle class, in-work poverty, and overwork—"Rather than involution, it's better to lie flat." This phenomenon is not unique to China. In South Korea, the "Sampo Generation" (giving up three things: dating, marriage, and children) and even the "N-po Generation" emerged due to economic pressures. In the US, the "quiet quitting" wave surged, with many choosing to resign actively in response to work, a trend economists and media dubbed the "Great Resignation."

In the era of rapid AI development, whether it's "Neet" or "lying flat," the disillusioned young people, lost in confusion and disappointment, are no longer choosing "passive resistance" but rather "active offense":

"If I waste 90% of my life on repetitive work day after day, have I ever truly owned my own life?"

"The world is so vast, yet I live like an NPC."

"The 9-to-5 life is a scam."

As the younger generation comes of age, the life and world their grandparents and parents described to them—study hard, get a good job. Work hard, find a good partner. Buy a house, buy a car, live happily ever after—has already shattered.

This shattering has led young people to no longer find life's purpose or meaning through work. Work no longer provides identity or emotional connection for the youth. Coupled with confusion about employment and anxiety about unemployment, young people not only no longer believe in the traditional path to success but have also developed widespread skepticism towards the traditional world system.

"Fate wants me to learn about struggle, but all I understand is absurdity."

The redefinition of the cultural connotation of "Neet" solved the biggest challenge in the communication path of the $neet meme coin:

"Why should I buy a coin that associates me with a bunch of unmotivated, self-indulgent people?"

"You're not unmotivated; you're bravely fighting to reclaim your own life."

Brave Warriors

In the view of the $neet community, "Neet" is their life attitude and a form of "cultural warfare."

"I could also choose to be a diligent office worker, if such a life genuinely makes me feel passionate about living. But I must have the right to choose whether to have a job—a life of sacrificing time for money."

One of the articles revered as a guiding principle in the $neet community, "The 10 Commandments of Neet," was written by the well-known meme coin trader @NEETOCRACY. The article emphasizes from the outset:

"Unemployment does not guarantee happiness or meaning in life. Some freelancers are actually happier and freer than neets because they have planned and optimized their lives. Happiness is not just about quitting your job; it's about following a set of principles that ensure a life full of meaning and happiness."

These ten commandments include: Don't dwell on the past or the present (focus on people and things tangible in real life), go outdoors more, invest and spend wisely (avoid reckless speculation, don't fall into consumerism traps), make many friends, don't indulge in fantasies, maintain a tidy home environment, don't get addicted to short videos, read daily, maintain fitness, and practice "work minimalism."

"Time is your most valuable asset. If you work 9-to-5 to survive, try to do the work smartly and reduce the time it occupies in your life."

Therefore, the $neet community is not entirely composed of unemployed people. On the contrary, some still work, but jobs considered "respectable" in the世俗 sense are seen as shackles they need to break free from.

The meme coin, as a cultural vehicle, resonates with people of different languages and cultures globally, bringing them together through holding an asset. They attempt to use humor to dissolve世俗 seriousness and cruelty, initiating a genuine cultural movement.

On May 20, 2025, the creators behind $neet used the creator incentives from pump.fun to organize an offline "No Work" protest on Wall Street:

On October 3, 2025, they held another one in Times Square:

These guys aren't just complaining about work; they're serious.

Marathon

For long-term holders of $neet, the past year has been a "marathon" trial in terms of returns, enduring three massive drops of over 80%.

But the community does not view $neet merely as a meme coin, but as a cultural symbol. As community member @901Fin said:

"Meme coins are not merely speculative or fun assets; their essence is condensed cultural signals reflecting how identity, finance, and internet-native communities fuse. This dimension has been underestimated across multiple crypto cycles. People think meme coins are meaningless due to a lack of traditional fundamentals, but they actually represent tokenized identity. They are financialized belief systems, on-chain tribes, digital banners under which people gather."

Therefore, beyond the dev, we can see community members around the world placing $neet alongside scenes of leisurely living in photos:

We can also see community members like @neekneeo constantly taking to the streets to talk with passersby, asking their views on work, and promoting the vision and philosophy of $neet.

He even recorded a crazy video while riding a roller coaster

Beyond community members, it's quite important that $neet's dev @primed25 and other key creators have never left. In the current crypto market, where launching a meme coin costs only $2 and lacks constraints, it's extremely rare to brainstorm daily for nearly a year to produce hit content.

I call Primed a "crusader" with firm beliefs, but he doesn't see it that way:

"I'm not a crusader. Crypto players want to see a change in how the market operates, and so do I. Tokens like $SPX, $MOG show 'what's possible,' which is why I initially deployed $neet and fight for it."

His reason for persistence is simple:

"A good coin is one that resonates widely and makes people actively want to create content for it. They are passionate about the idea, not just for money. The meaning of $neet is to spread 'what true neet culture actually is. Neet is not the homeless, self-indulgent vagrant people imagine, but emphasizes and demonstrates the freedom we, as humans, can actually possess."

From a meme coin perspective, players believe $neet has achieved great success—it survived for a year and broke its all-time high, is the only token in pump.fun's Glass Full Foundation portfolio to survive and remain profitable, and has holders like Hugo Martingale, Head of Markets at Polymarket, and知名 crypto KOL mitch.

From a creator's perspective, the tweets created by the Neet official account frequently go viral, even getting quoted and receiving Musk's转发 and affirmation:

But whether for the dev or the creators, from a cultural perspective, their journey is far from over. Just like the phrase they often send to each other in group chats:

"j*b not started."