Hustle Culture
Etymology
"Hustle" entered English from Dutch husselen, "to shake," and drifted through senses of jostling, energetic effort, and shady scheming. Combined with "culture," the phrase crystallized in 2010s startup and social-media life to name the glorification of the grind — captured in slogans like "rise and grind" and "sleep when you’re dead." The term is often used critically, by people naming the thing in order to reject it.
noun phrase · /HUSS-uhl KUL-cher/
A set of attitudes that treats relentless work, constant side projects, and the grind itself as signs of virtue and the price of success.
What it names
A name for the mood that turns overwork into a moral identity — useful when you want to question the assumption that being perpetually busy is the same as being valuable.
Example
The company preached hustle culture so hard that leaving at six felt like a confession.
Related idea
Presenteeism is one of its symptoms — being seen working — whereas hustle culture is the whole belief system that makes the performance feel necessary.