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Biography
Dablink|This article is about people who lack work ethic. For other uses, see Slackers (disambiguation) .merge|work aversion|date=March 2012The term " slacker " is used to refer to a person who habitually work aversion|avoids work or lacks work ethic . Slackers may be regarded as belonging to an Economic materialism|antimaterialistic counterculture , though in some cases their behavior may be due to other causes ( apathy , Depression (mood)|depression , laziness , etc.).
Origin
According to different sources, the term slacker dates back to about 1790 or 1898.cite web |url= http://www.etymonline.com/index.php? search=slacker& searchmode=none |title=Online Etymology Dictionary, slack (adj.) |publisher=Douglas Harper It gained some recognition during the British Gezira Scheme in the early to mid 20th century, when Sudanese labourers protested their relative powerlessness by working lethargically, a form of protest known as "slacking."V. Bernal, "Colonial Moral Economy and the Discipline of Development: The Gezira Scheme and 'Modern' Sudan," Cultural Anthropology , Vol. 12, 1997, 447–79Robert Sydney Smith, Warfare & Diplomacy in Pre-Colonial West Africa ( University of Wisconsin Press 1989), 54-62
World wars
In the United States during World War I , the word "slacker" was commonly used to describe someone who was not participating in the war effort, especially someone who avoided military service, an equivalent of the later term "draft dodger". Attempts to track down such evaders were called "slacker raids."New York Times: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html? res=9401E6D81439E13ABC4852DFBF668383609EDE "Take Slackers into Army," September 10, 1918, accessed April 21, 2010 During World War I, U.S. Senator Miles Poindexter discussed whether inquiries "to separate the cowards and the slackers from those who had not violated the draft" had been managed properly. A San Francisco Chronicle headline on September 7, 1918, read: "Slacker is Doused in Barrel of Paint."Christopher Cappozolla, Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen (NY: Oxford University Press, 2008), 43-53, quotes 50, 229nFor one of many uses of the word during the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti , see G. Louis Joughin and Edmund M. Morgan, The Legacy of Sacco and Vanzetti (NY: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1948), 119 The term was also used during the World War II period in the United States. In 1940, Time quoted the U.S. Army on managing the military draft efficiently: "War is not going to wait while every slacker resorts to endless appeals." TIME : http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,801969-3,00.html "The Draft: How it Works," September 23, 1940, accessed April 13, 2011. See also: New York Times : http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html? res=F00611FB3F59147B93CBAB1782D85F478485F9& "Wheeler Assails Bureau 'Slackers'," September 29, 1943, accessed April 21, 2010; New York Times : http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html? res=F40712F63C5C167B93C6A81783D85F478485F9& "Nazis Round Up Slackers Facing British 8th Army," August 14, 1943, accessed April 21, 2010
Evolution
The shift in the use of "slacker" from its draft-related meaning to a more general sense of the avoidance of work is unclear. In April 1948, the New Republic referred to "resentment against taxes levied to aid slackers."Michael Straight, Trial by Television and Other Encounters (NY: Devon Press, 1979), 76
Late 20th century
The term achieved renewed popularity following its use in the 1985 film Back to the Future in which a character says "You've got a real attitude problem, McFly. You're a slacker& #33; You remind me of your father when he went here. He was a slacker, too."Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088763/quotes "Memorable quotes for Back to the Future (1985)", accessed August 6, 2010 and in the 1991 film Slacker (film)|Slacker ."Slacker" became widely used in the 1990s to refer to apathetic Generation X youth who were cynical and uninterested in political or social causes compared to their elders in the baby boomer generation.
The term has connotations of "apathy and aimlessness."cite web |url= http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/slacker? view=get |title=slacker |author=Compact Oxford English Dictionary It is also used to refer to an educated person who avoids work, possibly as an anti-materialist stance, who may be viewed as an underachiever .cite web |url= http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/slacker |title=slacker |publisher=Random House, Inc. |year=2006
Popular culture
"Slackers" have been the subject of many films and television shows, particularly comedies. Notable examples include the films Slacker (film)|Slacker , Clerks , New York Times : http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/books/chapters/0604-1st-lutz.html? pagewanted=3& Tom Lutz, " Doing Nothing ," June 4, 2006 accessed August 6, 2010, and excerpt Tom Lutz, Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006) The Big Lebowski , Bottle Rocket and Office Space ,Citation needed|date=August 2010 as well as the television show Beavis & Butt-head .Citation needed|date=August 2010
The movie Slacker Uprising described an attempt to rouse those under 30 to participate in the 2004 U.S. election.Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0850669/ " Slacker Uprising (2007)", accessed August 6, 2010 The The Idler (1993)|Idler , a British magazine founded in 1993, represents an alternative to contemporary society's work ethic and aims "to return dignity to the art of loafing." The Idler : http://idler.co.uk/shop/index.php? main_page=index& cPath=3 "About The Idler", accessed August 6, 2010
See also
Goldbricking
Hikikomori
NEET , "Not currently engaged in Employment, Education or Training"
