The tech industry is in shambles right now, and the best place to see it is on social media. TechTok is the catch-all term for the content creators on TikTok who, for the past several months, have been showcasing their fabulous lives in tech. This includes lavish job perks like gourmet food, unlimited snacks and coffee, Uber rides, team dinners, happy hours, company-sponsored messages, doogie daycare, and immaculate workspaces. These perks, obviously, made viewers both envious and curious. How can I, too, get a job at a FAANG company?
But that was then, and this is now, and technology has not been able to catch a break. There have been over 100,000 people laid off from companies in the tech space, and that includes big, small, and medium companies alike. Very few companies seem to be sparing others. Both companies with record profits are laying off people, as are the ones that are barely treading water. And there seems to be no rhyme or reason, either.
There are people who got laid off and were young and just starting out. There were people who had several years of experience who got laid off. There were people on maternity leave, on vacation, or on client site visits who found out that they were laid off and access was revoked. All of this, looking in from the outside, seemed and still seems incredibly traumatic, and witnessing these layoffs has certainly had a ripple effect on the internet. Though historically, layoffs have been taboo to share and talk about publicly, everywhere from Linkedin to YouTube to Instagram to TikTok, people have been sharing their layoff stories, some even televising the exact moment their layoff occurred. You see videos of people crying, distraught, and processing their emotions in real time. And it can be a very raw moment and a connective moment between the viewer and the person behind the camera.
Anyone who has been through a layoff can attest that layoffs stink and that they are absolutely no fun to go through or live through. Seeing those in the tech industry, however, has led to very mixed reactions online. Some have touted that the tech industry was due for a course correction due to its mantra of infinite growth," especially during the pandemic when most people were staying at home, which led to many companies thinking their profits would be endless because of the reliance on the online world instead of being outside. Some people took the more jealous route and felt that the layoffs were reasonable because most people didn’t do their job or that most workers were too busy posting on social media than working.
And let’s unpack that, shall we?
Growing up, I was told that social media was not something to make public but more of a private life that you shared with your closest friends. If you were applying to college or grad school, it was common advice and common knowledge that you were to scrub your social media presence clean in order to present yourself in the best light possible to colleges, universities, and eventually potential employers down the line. Times have obviously changed, and the usage of social media has gone up drastically. People use sites like TikTok, Instagram, and the like to film every aspect of their lives, from what they eat in a day to what they spend in a day, and that of course is naturally going to extend to what they do for work and how a day in their life is going to look like on the job.
However, the mismatch comes from corporations and companies not being either aware of their employees social media accounts and actions or not having updated policies enough to address this as an actual concern that needed probing into. This isn’t to say that employees haven't faced disciplinary actions because of too much social media usage. There have been several reports, such as this one and this one, on people getting fired or let go because they shared too much about their company or job on their personal social media profiles. There is a delicate balance in all of this, and it is something that people do need to be reminded of.
Still, there is a difference between one of these firings and massive layoffs impacting thousands of people at very different companies. Some of those people do have social media profiles, but most do not. There might be a weak correlation between managers and higher-ups picking out people who might be showcasing a specific lifestyle in particular, like a digital nomad or always partying, but I bet that is very far and few in between to be super noteworthy. The reality of it is less glamorous. TikTok or TechTok didn’t cause layoffs; corporate greed and miscalculations did. Corporations, especially in the tech sector, miscalculated their growth and misread the longer-term impacts of the pandemic. They thought people would definitely stay at home and use Netflix, Facebook, and Zoom, but the reality was much more complicated when people started emerging from the cocoon and realizing they wanted to spend more time offline than online. Shareholders probably got upset, and one of the quickest ways to recoup value is to do a certain percentage of layoffs, and that impacted everyone in those industries.
Does that mean tech as an industry is a no-go?
Not quite. Tech is still a robust industry with plenty of job openings and skillsets that are needed. AI and ChatGPT are not going to take over everyone’s job just yet, but it probably behooves people to have a diverse set of skills and to develop a robust set of interpersonal skills that won’t be that impacted by AI. It also might mean that competition for entry-level and midlevel jobs could become more intense.
And what about TechTok?
There are still people making content about their roles, jobs, and day-to-day lives in tech. The videos coming out are definitely giving more of a subdued look instead of the hyper focus on perks and having a good time as they used to. The videos seem more focused on their day-to-day duties and what it is like to have that specific role, or what duties you might see associated with the role. For a lot of people, there isn’t much to show, especially if you are spending a good chunk of your day in meetings, reviewing documents, answering slacks, and responding to emails. Though the tone seems more formal and informative than just look at my glamorous life here.
There are also people who are documenting the days after their layoff. The road didn’t end for them! And if anything, that is a positive twist for people to see that a) there is more to life than your 9–5 job and b) you can survive after a layoff and be relatively okay. I have seen videos of people discovering hobbies and leaning more into rest and relaxation during their new-found time. I have seen people decide they want to create content full time as opposed to working a full-time job. I have seen people job hunt, get multiple rounds of interviews, and prepare themselves for the next step in the process. People are still living and trying to thrive, and of course they are still documenting the process.
And that’s probably going to end up being the new fact of life for some time. If anything, it allows us to take off the rose-colored glasses we had about tech and other high-powered industries and see them for what they are. No industry is perfect or has all the answers. Companies are fallible and make mistakes. People are fallible and make mistakes. And life goes on. If anything, maybe this whole experience teaches us that we are more than just our job and that we have to embrace reality as a push and pull, a give and take, and that there is no such thing as a perfect job, place, or person after all.