Every few months, the internet comes up with a new term for lounging around and doing nothing.
If you're on TikTok as frequently as I am, you would have come across videos about quiet quitting, bed rot and bare minimum Monday. These buzzwords are exactly what they sound like: instructions on how to be lazy without getting caught.
And look, I'm not completely opposed to some of these ideas — quiet quitting for example means just doing your job instead of going above and beyond, and I respect that. However, putting a name to everything is getting a little... old.
Especially when I discovered that the new term Gen Z is obsessed with is hurkle-durkle.
No, you're not hallucinating and yes, you read correctly.
Watch: How to spot and combat burnout. Post continues below.
TikTok creator Chelsea Alysa (@groundedinneutral) shared a video demonstrating how to "hurkle-durkle", which just means staying in bed past the time you're supposed to be up.
The term originated from the word hurkill, meaning to crouch, and hurklin, meaning to stagger.
@groundedinneutral who else loves a hurkle durkle? ☁️ 🛌 Here I was calling it “laying in” completely unaware that there was this fun phrase floating around! It’s one of my favorite things to do on a weekend morning but sometimes I’ll wake up early on a weekday just to hurkle durkle. ps. It’s still a true hurkle durkle if you get up to bring coffee/breakfast back to bed. It’s actually ideal. Only a couple days away from a weekend hurkle durkle! ▫️follow @groundedinneutral for more cozy home content ▫️shop my feed on LTK & Amazon Storefront #neutralbedroom #bedroomdecor #bedding #makethebed #cozyhome #cozyvibes #neutralhomedecor ♬ original sound - Kira Kosarin
So... pretty much the same thing as rotting in bed.
"Just thought you guys should know that the Scottish have a word for laying around in bed," said Chelsea. "It's called hurkle-durkling.
"I do be hurkling, and I do be durkling."
De-productivity trends seem to be all the rage on the internet lately — there's living the 'soft life', which reminds us to live slowly and to remove ourselves from hustle culture. Some film themselves rejoicing over cancelled plans and longing for the pandemic lockdown, a time when staying in and doing nothing was acceptable.
The pandemic changed life as we knew it in more ways than one, especially with our approach to work. The minute we were forced to stay at home, the #GirlBoss era that we were striving towards turned into a need for more balance. People were tired of going the extra mile for jobs that gave little in return, so now, four years later, the upcoming generation is choosing to take a major step back.
But at what point do these trends start causing more harm than good? Being lazy every once in a while or over the weekend is perfectly fine and frankly, very much needed. But when it starts to seep into your everyday routine, it becomes a problem.
"It might be a red flag when the hurkle-durkle extends beyond a slice of the morning and drags throughout the day, or becomes a regular occurrence that takes us away from our responsibilities or creates isolation from friends and family," Marisha Mathis, a licenced clinical social worker told HuffPost.
"This can contribute to or be a symptom of something more serious, such as depression."
When we think of these terms as silly little TikTok trends, we fail to recognise the implications. It's easy to not get out of bed all day if we say we're "hurkle-durkling".
"I think there’s probably a limit or a time when it becomes an avoidance mechanism or sign that something else is going on," Dr Jessica Gold, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Tennessee Health Science Centre in Memphis said. "4
Burnout comes to mind if the thing you don’t want to get up and do is go to work."
As an introvert, I welcome the idea of staying indoors all day and doing nothing, however, even I have to place a limit on myself to make sure I'm not pushing it too far.
At the end of the day, let's stop creating terms under the guise of "self-care", because often, they have the opposite effect.
Feature Image: Canva.
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