Author: Anne Helen Petersen

A single essay did it. BuzzFeed ran How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation in January 2019, it drew more than seven million readers, and the site's most-read piece of that year became the 2020 book Can't Even. Petersen argues that burnout is structural rather than personal, following it through work, parenting, and the way rest itself turned into something to be optimised. Her doctorate, in media studies, is from UT Austin, and she taught at Whitman College before turning to journalism. In August 2020 she left BuzzFeed to run her newsletter Culture Study full time. Out of Office, on remote work, appeared in 2021, written with Charlie Warzel.