“Work will become an option, and everyone will enjoy high income,” this is not the first time Musk has expressed such a viewpoint.

Since last year, Musk has repeatedly expressed the idea that AI will make work optional, and going to work will be like farming, transforming from a means of survival in ancient times into a modern hobby. We will enter an era where everyone has a high income, and we no longer need to work to survive.

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

AI is indeed causing unemployment.

@secureainow launched a real-time tracking website, jobloss.ai, last week to monitor layoffs across the United States caused by AI, aggregating data on layoffs disclosed publicly starting January 1, 2025. From February 2025 to now, in just one year, the publicly disclosed number of unemployment cases caused by AI has risen from 1,750 to 127,648. This could be one of the fastest spikes we have ever seen:

Amidst the turbulent global situation, the uncertainty and pain of employment prospects have sparked a different kind of energy in the cryptocurrency market, on the Solana network.

“We bought an internet coin together, and then we won’t have to work anymore.”

$neet, for nearly a year, is a meme coin on the Solana network that has not found a counterpart like it again—after experiencing three massive declines of over 80%, it still managed to reach a historical high market value of $47 million the day before yesterday.

Not in Employment, Education, or Training

Neet means “Not in Employment, Education, or Training.”

This term sounds quite bleak and reminds us of the familiar Chinese contexts of “lying flat” and “Sanhe Gods.”

In July 1999, the phrase “Neet” first appeared in a report titled “Bridging the Gap” published by the British Social Exclusion Unit, which surveyed unemployed young people who were not in school. On March 15, 2005, Urban Dictionary user Rolf Mason submitted an entry for “Neet,” defining it as a sociological term “applicable to the socially underprivileged who lack motivation, ambition, or drive.”

With the development of AI, the uncertainty of employment prospects and the turmoil of the world, this concept tracing back to the end of the last century has once again entered the mainstream discourse.

“Neet” appeared on the FOX 26 News program

It is against this backdrop that the cultural connotation of “Neet” has quietly changed.

The Youth's Outcry

“Why can’t I choose to lie flat?”

“Sanhe Gods” first gained popularity in the Baidu Tieba forum “Gambling Abstinence Bar,” referring to those who, having gone bankrupt due to gambling, lingered in the Shenzhen Sanhe Talent Market. They are burdened with debt, and some have even sold their IDs to make money, unable to leave the Sanhe area. Having lost hope in life, they have long been accustomed to this impoverished and laid-back lifestyle, choosing to survive with very low living costs, “working one day and playing for three.”

In 2020, the Sanhe Talent Market relocated, and the original site was rebuilt as the “Strivers’ Square.” In the following year, 2021, “lying flat” began to become a popular internet term in China.

The essence of culture evolves with the development of the times. “Lying flat” first appeared in 2011 in the Baidu Tieba forum “Anti-Marriage Bar,” gaining traction in 2016 within fandom communities, where people would say, “I can’t keep up with XX celebrity, I’ll lie flat and let you mock me.”

By 2021, lying flat was seen as a response by the young demographic to disappointment with their reality, addressing issues like class solidification, internal competition, the shrinking middle class, working poor, and overwork, leading to the sentiment “rather than compete, it’s better to lie flat.” This isn’t just a phenomenon in China; in South Korea, there emerged the “three throw-away generation,” choosing to abandon various life goals due to economic pressures, and even the “N throw-away generation.” In the U.S., the “Quiet Quitting” trend emerged, where many chose to resign as a response to work, referred to by economists and media as the “Great Resignation.”

In this age of rapid AI development, whether it’s “Neet” or “lying flat,” those lost young people no longer choose “passive resistance,” but instead, choose “proactive engagement”:

“If I spent 90% of my life wasting away in repetitive work, do I really have my own life?”

“The world is so big, yet I live like an NPC.”

“A nine-to-five life is a scam.”

The younger generation, stepping into adulthood, confronts the life and world that their grandparents and parents envisioned for them—study well, find 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 the meaning of life and a sense of belonging through work. Work no longer offers them identity and emotional connection; coupled with confusion about employment and anxiety about unemployment, young people not only do not believe in traditional paths to success anymore, but they also have a general skepticism about the traditional world system.

“Fate wants me to strive with knowledge, but I only know absurdity.”

The redefinition of the connotation of “Neet” addresses the biggest challenge in the dissemination path of the $neet meme coin:

“Why should I buy a coin and associate myself with a bunch of aimless, self-indulgent people?”

“You’re not aimless; you’re courageously fighting to take back your own life.”

Brave Warriors

In the eyes of the $neet community, “Neet” is their lifestyle and approach, a “cultural war.”

“I can also choose to be a regular office worker if such a life truly allows me to feel the passion of living. But I must have the right to choose whether to work—sacrificing time for money—this is my right.”

Among the revered articles in the $neet community is “The Ten Commandments of Neet,” penned by the well-known meme coin trader @NEETOCRACY. The article emphasizes at 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 resigning; it is following a set of rules that ensure life is filled with meaning and joy.”

These ten commandments include ignoring the past and present (focusing attention on people and things that can be touched in real life), going outdoors more, investing and consuming wisely (not speculating randomly, not falling into consumerism traps), making friends, avoiding fantasies, maintaining a tidy living environment, not getting addicted to short videos, reading daily, keeping fit, and practicing “minimalism in work.”

“Time is your most precious wealth. If you have to work nine-to-five to survive, then try to work smartly and reduce the time work occupies.”

Therefore, the $neet community is not just a group of unemployed individuals. On the contrary, some are still working, but what is considered “decent” work in a worldly sense is seen by them as shackles to break free from.

This meme coin, as a cultural carrier, allows people from diverse languages and cultures worldwide to resonate and come together through the ownership of a single asset. They attempt to humorously diffuse the seriousness and brutality of the world, sparking a genuine cultural movement.

On May 20, 2025, the creators behind $neet held an offline “No Work” protest on Wall Street with incentives provided by pump.fun:

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

These individuals are not just complaining about work; they are serious.

Marathon

For long-term holders of $neet, the past year has been a “marathon” trial in terms of returns, experiencing three declines of over 80%.

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

“Meme coins are not merely speculative or novelty assets; their essence is concentrated cultural signals reflecting how identity, finance, and internet-native communities merge. In several crypto cycles, people have consistently underestimated this aspect. People think meme coins are meaningless due to the lack of traditional fundamentals, but they actually represent tokenized identity. They are a financialized belief system, an on-chain tribe, and a digital banner uniting people.”

Thus, beyond the devs, we see community members around the world ensuring that $neet appears in photos alongside leisurely living scenes:

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

He even recorded a wild video while riding a roller coaster

Beyond the community members, it’s also crucial that the $neet dev @primed25 and other key creators never left. In the current cryptocurrency market, where one can issue a meme coin for just $2 with no relevant constraints, it’s exceptionally rare to see a relentless pursuit of creating viral content for nearly a year.

I call Primed a “crusader” with a firm belief, but he doesn’t see it that way:

“I’m not a crusader. Crypto players want to see a change in how the current market operates, and so do I. Tokens like $SPX and $MOG showcase ‘what is possible,’ and that’s why I originally deployed $neet and fought for it.”

His reasoning is straightforward:

“A good coin is one that resonates widely and motivates people to actively create content for it. They are passionate about this idea, not just for monetary reasons. The significance of $neet lies in spreading ‘what real Neet culture is.’ Neet is not the homeless, self-indulgent stereotype people think, but emphasizes what freedom we actually have as human beings.”

From the players’ perspective, $neet has achieved tremendous success as a meme coin—it has survived for a year and reached new historical highs, being the only token in pump.fun’s Glass Full Foundation holdings that has survived and remained profitable, holding currency by individuals like Hugo Martingale, head of the Polymarket market, and well-known crypto KOL Mitch.

From the creator’s standpoint, the tweets created by Neet’s official Twitter account have frequently gone viral, even getting retweets and affirmation from Musk:

Yet, for both devs and creators, their journey is far from over. Just like a phrase they often send each other in group chats:

“j*b not started (work has not yet begun).”

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