Why do young people from ten years ago not feel lonely or lost after the New Year?

A veteran headhunter with fifteen years of experience shares his insights, personally helping countless grassroots individuals get into big companies, witnessing the full cycle of social mobility's opening and complete solidification.
Ten years ago, Tencent and Alibaba were extremely low-threshold options for ordinary second-tier computer science students—just knowing some Java basics and being able to perform simple CRUD operations was enough to get in.
At that time, Pinduoduo would hire anyone willing to go to a shabby office in Changning District for an interview, offering salaries that doubled compared to the previous job, with stock options handed out like worthless paper by weight.
Country Garden was an extremely low-threshold choice for ordinary third-tier graduates returning to their hometowns in glory—management trainees only needed to be healthy and willing to work on construction sites, and by year's end, bonuses could reach hundreds of thousands.
Taobao C-store and micro-businesses could be started just by picking up some white-label goods from Huaqiangbei; social youth who dropped out of middle school could earn enough by posting dozens of moments on social media daily to afford a down payment on a house in Longhua, Shenzhen.
Back then, no one would lament after the New Year that "without family support, you can't make it." As long as you dared to take risks at the right moment, switching jobs could lead to visible social mobility. Who would worry about a mid-30s crisis or a guaranteed life?
That was a period of wild growth driven by the mobile internet boom and the real estate bull market. Hot money flowed everywhere, trial-and-error costs were extremely low, and society was tolerant enough for ordinary people to take risks and still make money.
Now, workers over 35 face layoffs and widespread job cuts after the New Year, with their minds preoccupied with finding so-called "underlying logic" and "bottom-line confidence."
Ten years ago, being seen as a "idle local" with no prospects was considered a dead-end, just waiting to be wasted. Today, that has become an unattainable high ground that countless people struggle to reach. The real society has long become a zero-tolerance meat grinder—ordinary people can't wait until they turn 35 to have a profound realization. Any attempt at trial-and-error without background will directly plunge you into an abyss from which there is no return.