NEET

Are you just living in your sister's basement, occasionally watching her kids, doing the laundry, or just playing video games, with no career prospects, no college courses or job training in your schedule and, from a business point of view at least, not contributing much, if anything at all, to the economy? You might be a NEET. Not currently engaged in Employment, Education or Training.

The NEET is most commonly an older teen or college-age male. A NEET is either between jobs and the unemployed period has got extended; an idiot who has failed the entrance exams for college; a Lazy Bum with no goals in life, freeloading off whichever pals or family members will allow them to sleep in their basement, or they are motivated but only to do geeky hobbies that don't have a real career-oriented path (a basement Garage Band, cosplaying, penning Giftedly Bad poetry, or playing a Role-Playing Game).

Occasionally the NEET might also be a shut-in, and shunning society due to being unable to function well in it, because of some debilitating disorder, agoraphobia, depression, anxiety, or peer pressure.

Whether their condition is their fault or not, they are likely to get no respect whatsoever, be called an embarrassment to their friends and family, or have "Get a job, you bum!" yelled in their face at least once. Often more than once. Living in a family member's basement or living in a van by the river will probably cramp their dating prospects, too.

In most stories featuring this trope, the NEET is the designated Butt-Monkey, treated with No Sympathy. The Deadpan Snarker will take every opportunity to remind them that they’re useless, while more sentimental characters would, at best, try to motivate them to get a job and get back in the game with a Rousing Speech.

Anything else, such as treating their situation as a symptom of a systemic problem of modern society, is uncommon enough to be considered a subversion, except in Kitchen Sink Drama, where joblessness is depicted as the side effect of capitalism's grinding wheels and boom-bust cycles. Regardless, it must be noted that the modern unfortunate conditions on the job market in many developed countries mean that the unemployed gradually undergo a shift from mockworthy targets to being considered genuinely unfortunate. Thus, in order to actually deserve mockery, a NEET in modern media is often given other typically negative qualities such as being a slob.

If they aren’t the Plucky Comic Relief, then they are more than likely The Hero, and the premise behind their story involves finding a worthy goal in life and/or public acceptance. An Aesop can develop in two ways from there onwards: they might get into that college after that cram session with The Smart Guy, get together with a crazy girl who would kick their ass into gear and give them motivation, and generally become a fully functional member of society... or they can give said society the finger, prove that Hard Work Hardly Works and find a non-work outlet for their Brilliant, but Lazy tendencies that render them appreciated in other ways than most people are. They may be The Stoner if they spend their days in a haze of cannabis smoke.

Pretty Freeloaders generally manage to dodge this stigma on the account of, well, being pretty or handsome, despite the fact that they might not contribute money or sweat equity to the household, as it's more socially acceptable for a woman to be without an income than it is for a man (though this is changing). Only a woman in these circumstances who is also actively being hassled for not having a job or being in school can be considered a NEET. A housewife does not count, despite technically fulfilling all three of this trope's requirements, as they are a homemaker and/or stay-at-home parent, so they are doing contributing to society.

Compare This Loser Is You, Hikikomori and The Thing That Would Not Leave. In Spanish, this trope is called Ni-Ni ^note "ni estudia, ni trabaja", "neither studies, nor works".

In Real Life, the OECD puts the age range for NEET at 15-29. About 1/3 of the NEET cohort is still looking for work; 2/3 are discouraged and are no longer looking for a job. While fictional depictions like to show middle-class slackers sleeping in their parents' nice house, OECD data shows that NEET youth are more likely to come from poor families and have physical/mental health issues, addiction problems, and poor literacy skills. Young women are more likely to not work or go to school due to being the sole or primary carer of a family member (e.g., a child or an elderly parent or grandparent), hence, technically NEET, but not a "slacker".

Contrast Idle Rich, which is, when a college-age rich person does it, basically NEET but with a trust fund.

See also The Slacker.

Not to be confused with Keet, though a keet NEET could exist (i.e. Jyushimatsu Matsuno).

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The main character of AIKI gets called a NEET by his mother when she shows up... which amuses the hell out of the rest of the main characters, who can't quite connect "NEET" and "Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy" together. Shortly afterwards, though, his mother forces him into a job as a teacher at a school focused on the martial arts.
• The author of Brave10 describes lone Ninja Saizo as basically a NEET before he found a master and joined the Braves.
• The apartment neighbor in Crayon Shin-chan is portrayed as a cross between this and hikkikomori, having failed the college entrance exams multiple times.
• In Danganronpa 3: The End of Hope's Peak High School, Monaca Towa announces her intention to live in outer space as a NEET. She became disillusioned with the whole hope versus despair debate after hearing Nagito Komaeda ramble on about it and realized she didn't want to end up like him. That, and she realized that hope would likely win out in the end, making the entire conflict too boring and predictable.
• Eden of the East: Some of the characters are NEETs portrayed fairly sympathetically. The 20,000 missing NEETs are a plot point.
• Discussed and joked about briefly during an early chapter in Gakuen Babysitters. While playing house with Kirin, Usaida plays the role of Ryuuichi and Kirin's eldest son, an unrepentant NEET who shows no shame in begging his father for money and asking when his mother will finish with dinner. As Ryuuichi states and how the audience thinks, the role suits Usaida a little ''too'' perfectly.
• Near the end of Girl Friends (2006), Kuno-chin mentions that she may not be able to see her boyfriend often now that he's graduated from university because he said that he's become the Housing Security Officer of his own home... which is just a really fancy way of calling himself a NEET, so Taguchi assures her that she'll be able to see him every day.
• Onizuka from Great Teacher Onizuka, until deciding he wanted to be a teacher, was a Yankee and a NEET.
• Nagi from Hayate the Combat Butler aspires to be a NEET. Not that it would matter, since her family's fortune is so vast as to be literally almost uncountable.
• Main character Rin Rindo from HIGHSPEED Étoile became a NEET who lived with her grandmother after her ballet Career-Ending Injury before getting into NEX Racing.
• Subverted for most of I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying. Hajime spends all day at home playing video games while his wife works, but he does have an income via his blog, and he later works as a web designer and earns more than his wife. It's briefly played straight after he demonetizes his blog and proclaims that he's now a NEET, but he doesn't stay one for long before he gets his web designer job.
• I Found A NEET Girl is a Yuri Genre one-shot about a female office worker who finds a female NEET passed out drunk in the street. Since the NEET in question was evicted from her apartment, the office worker takes her in.
• The protagonist of It's Tough Being Neeko is a NEET, and much of the comedy centers around her ill-fated efforts to find a job. Amusingly enough, one of her old friends also mentions not being in school or having a job... but it turns out she's a housewife. Yet another old friend of Neeko's, Uri, had to quit her job because her boss sexually harassed her.
• Yuuya in the two-shot manga Itsuka No Himitsu by Naono Bohra, is a NEET who is fired from his job and evicted, and has to move back in with his parents. Of course, this is written by Naono Bohra, so this sets up a romance with his male neighbor he's known since childhood.
• In K-On!, when asked about what she wants to become, Yui says she wants to become one of these. This falls right in line with her eccentric nature.
• Another BL example is the main character of Konbini-kun, Endou Hiroshi, by JUNKO. He takes up a job as a convenience store worker but breaks down when helping customers. He does get better after interacting with his co-worker and eventual love interest, Yamai Kouhei.
• Love Lab has Eno's good-for-nothing older brother, who even wears a shirt that says "NEET" on it.
• The Mobile Suit Gundam prequel manga Garma Of The Space Island reveals that Big Bad Gihren Zabi used to be one before he got involved in political activism with Zeon Zum Deikun.
• All six of the Matsuno brothers have become this in Osomatsu-san. They're all unemployed twenty-somethings still living with their parents, and whenever they do manage to get jobs they can't keep them for more than one episode. Their mother goes so far as to address them as NEETs to their faces.
• Jiji, Banba, Mayaya, Chieko, and Tsukimi from Princess Jellyfish are NEETs, though they vigorously deny it when Kuranosuke asks them about it. While it's true that several of them do have what technically qualifies as employment it's still painfully obvious that this is what they are.
• In Recovery of an MMO Junkie, main character Moriko Morioka is a 30-year-old single woman who has dropped out of the business world to play MMOs all day. She considers herself an "elite NEET" because she chose the lifestyle rather than having it thrust upon her (it's heavily implied that she quit due to the pressures of her work environment being too much for her), but at the same time, she's still embarrassed and tries to keep people from finding out.
• In several instances, Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei has depicted a NEET as a middle-aged guy being taken care of by his mother while he plays video games all day. They also discussed the difference between a NEET and a Hikikomori (according to the hikikomori character, it's that she "would like to get a job"). Incidentally, after a while, the English translation of the manga just uses the term Slacker whenever NEET would be used in the original.
• ST☆R: Strike it Rich: After being fired from the underground org she was in, Nozomi finds herself without a job and doesn't have any plan to get a new one. Ichika makes a few jokes at her expanse about it.
• In The World God Only Knows, Keima Katsuragi heads into this direction at relativistic speeds. Does nothing all day but playing dating sims. At home? Dating sims. In school during period? Dating sims on the roof. In school during class? Dating sims at his desk. In school during PE? Dating sims. Take away his handheld game console and he pulls out another. And another. And another. His mother doesn't really see a reason to change this and he offered the faculty to ace all tests and exams if they let him play during class as they can't technically punish him for seemingly not paying attention in class if said tests and exams prove the contrary. He does exactly that.
• The protagonist of Yuureitou is a NEET with some hikikomori mixed in. After being nearly killed, Taichi is rescued by a man named Tetsuo. He becomes his partner in solving a mystery involving a "ghost tower", where a woman was killed 2 years ago in a similar manner to the way Taichi was to be. Noticeably the story takes place in The '50s so he lacks stereotypical qualities liking constantly being glued to the internet or being anime/game obsessed (he does like mysteries and sci-fi, which is presented as niche and weird, though).
• Cells NOT at Work!: The Erythroblasts are completely mature but refuse to enucleate into Red Blood Cells for different reasons, putting them into the cell equivalent of this. The only exception is 031, who refuses to enucleate because he thinks he isn't learned enough - but Macrophage disagrees.
• I Can't Believe I Slept with You is about an unemployed woman who makes a deal with her landlady to fulfill various requests in order to pay off her overdue rent. The tenant had worked for a gaming company, but left after being reassigned to General Affairs after a "loss," and is trying to find another job.
• Hatarakanai Futari: is a slice of life manga about the day to day of the Isshi siblings: a pair of NEET (with Haruko being a hikikomori) in their early 20s who for yet-to-be-revealed reasons simply refuse to study or to get a job, also featuring their socially awkward friends. Despite the simple premise, it features lots of character development and hidden depths for the main characters while also questioning people's value in society, with 700+ chapters is one of the longest-running manga using this concept.
• The main protagonist of The Dungeon of Black Company Kinji Ninomiya is one. He starts the series bragging about his status as one but his free ride through life ends when he is unceremoniously yanked out of modern-day Japan to a fantasy world and put the work in the mines. He spends the rest of the story determined to find a way to return to said lifestyle.
• Subverted with Miyako from WATATEN!: an Angel Flew Down to Me; while her younger sister Hinata assumes she's a NEET since she's rather shy and doesn't go out much, it's eventually pointed out that Miyako is in fact a college student, so it's not like she stays home all the time since she has to attend classes.

Comic Books

• Scott Pilgrim: Scott Pilgrim freeloads off his friend Wallace for most of the comic, doesn't have a job, isn't in school, and is frequently told to get a life. This eventually changes, starting with him getting a job dishwashing at Stephen Stills' restaurant.
• The Unbelievable Gwenpool. Her backstory is revealed in issue 16: she dropped out of high school and has no job, and has very little connection to the outside world. This takes a toll on her home life, as her parents grow more and more openly fed up with her, and this helps push her towards the main Marvel universe.

Fan Works

• In Danganronpa: Last Hurrah, Nao Hisoka has the dubious honor of being the Ultimate NEET. For those who aren't familiar with Danganronpa, an "Ultimate"(or "Super High School Level" in the original Japanese), is a high school student who is the best at what they do, thereby gaining an invitation to the exclusive Hope's Peak Academy. That being said, he does occasionally come to school for tests and other events, so he isn't completely a NEET. In the final trial, Nao acknowledges that he shouldn't count as a NEET, but someone who "slack(s) off." He was invited because one of the officials saw potential in him, and given the title because it was "believable enough."

Films — Live-Action

• Big Daddy: Adam Sandler's character starts as a law school graduate who hasn't taken the bar exam and lives off a settlement he received from a lawsuit and operating a toll booth one day a week. By the end, he decides to get his act together and becomes a practicing lawyer.
• Down in the Delta: Rosa wants her drug-addicted adult daughter Loretta to find gainful employment, but no one on the Wrong Side of the Tracks is hiring. Early in the movie, she tries to get a job as a cashier, but she is rejected for her lack of mathematical ability, which would be a problem if the machines broke down.
• Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle: Kumar starts out this way. In his medical school interview, he admits that he isn't actually interested in going to medical school and is there just so his father will keep paying for his apartment, despite his interviewer pointing out that he has perfect MCAT scores. However, after his experiences by the end of the movie, including saving a patient while disguised as a doctor, he decides to take medical school seriously, telling Harold that the real reason he was so reluctant to consider medical school was that he was scared of being seen as a stereotypical Indian nerd.

Literature

• Indira's ex-boyfriend Aleksei Callahan in Alien in a Small Town. Oddly, he's a genetically engineered superman, but one with no ambition whatsoever.
• Lucifer in The Devil is a Part-Timer! after his failed betrayal has fallen to being a NEET that resides in his master's (the titular Maou) tiny residence. And is mercilessly mocked as such by various characters.
• When Harry Potter's parents were alive, they financially supported their friend Remus who couldn’t find steady work because he was a werewolf.
• Most of the characters from Heaven's Memo Pad.
• Kazuma Satou from KonoSuba was one back in the real world, before being Trapped in Another World. Aqua constantly uses this as an insult to him.
• Princess Raynesia of Log Horizon desires nothing more than to sleep the majority of the day in her comfortable flannel pajamas, rather than playing the part of a Princess Classic for stuffy nobles. Krusty is able to handle her easily due to his experience with his NEET sister.
• Nemu from Magical Girl Raising Project is a 24-year old who plans on both quitting her job and quitting being a Magical Girl so that she can be a NEET. Before she can do this, she dies of a heart attack as a Plot-Triggering Death which reveals that magical girls die upon quitting.
• Sora and Shiro from No Game No Life, are NEET siblings. At the start of the series, their entire world consists of a small room where they play video games all day. They are quite proud of this fact (for some reason) and declare that ""『　　』" will never do work!" They are vulnerable to panic attacks if they go outside. Most of the time their tendencies are simply Played for Laughs, but every so often they get portrayed sympathetically, with implications that Sora and Shiro are not just Brilliant, but Lazy, and that Parental Neglect, a Friendless Background and possibly outright bullying, and a plethora of unfortunate psychological conditions all contributed to making them turn out the way they did. The lyrics of "Oracion", the ending theme of the anime, all but confirm that Sora and Shiro were deeply broken individuals until they met each other. After all, there must be a reason why Sora holds the firm opinion that Humans (except for a select few worth fighting for) Are Bastards.
• Cuuko (Cthuguha) from Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!, whom Nyarko calls a NEET and a Hikikomori as insults. She refers to herself as a "home security guard" (自宅警備員, jitaku keibiin), which is a term coined by 2ch with pretty much the same meaning^note technically, it refers to someone who spends all day on their computer, "monitoring" their home. Cuuko actually does have a job (Space Cop) and attends a local high school as part of her cover (she's already graduated from Space College), but still chooses to spend all day playing video games and needling Mahiro into cooking for her. She even goes off to play video games during the Beach Episode!
• Subaru Natsuki from Re:Zero is shown to be one, as he's introduced as unemployed and frequently references all of the light novels he read and the games he played before being transported to another world. He eventually, however, becomes what is considered to be the ultimate deconstruction of how such a person would actually work in real life, culminating into one hell of a tearjerking Self-inflicted "The Reason You Suck" Speech in Episode 18. All the suffering he goes through up till then has been, to his self-loathing and realization, to be the result of his rotten character, a person who has done absolutely nothing productive his whole life, in spite of having all the time in the world, foolishly thinking that all the knowledge he gained from doing nothing but gaming and bingeing on anime, manga and light novels, that it could get him a better life in another world simply by being teleported there, only to find this to be not at all what happens. He states multiple times at that point that he hates himself for it. Case in point:
  Subaru: Before I got into the situation that led me to all of you, do you have any idea what I did? I did nothing. I've never done a single thing. I had all that time, all that freedom... I could have done anything, but I never did a thing! And this is the result! What I am now is the result! All of my powerlessness, all of my incompetence, is the product of my rotten character. That's right. I have no character. Even when I thought I could live here, nothing changed. At heart, I'm just a small, cowardly, filthy piece of trash, who's always worried about how others see me. And nothing... Nothing about me has changed! ...I absolutely hate myself...
• Ragle Gumm, The Protagonist of Time Out of Joint is an unemployed, unmarried man in his fifties, living with his sister and earning money by winning - every week - a newspaper puzzle. This gives him time to dig around the seemingly wholesome little American town and discover things.

Live-Action TV

• Seinfeld: Kramer is a NEET, but no one cares because he finds a way to "fall ass-backwards into money". George occasionally fits the bill, when he doesn't have a job and lives with his parents, and he definitely fits the "pathetic" mold:
  Kramer: Do you have a job?
  George: No.
  Kramer: You got money?
  George: No.
  Kramer: You got a woman?
  George: No.
  Kramer: Do you have any prospects?
  George: Uh...no.
  Kramer: Do you have any action at all?
  George: ...No.
  Kramer: Do you have any conceivable reason for even getting up in the morning?!
  George: ...I like to get the Daily News.
• The Broad City episode "St. Marks" has a 34-year-old man who lives with his mother after dropping out of graduate school and kills time by pretending to be homeless and robbing people as a "joke."
• The Barrier: Álex downplays this. He's technically jobless, but he's frequently seen helping out in the store run by his brother's mother-in-law and ends up becoming a general errand boy for the rest of his family. Early in the series, Álex points out that his lack of job gives him time to do the legwork necessary to help his brother with a bureaucratic process that the government seems to be intentionally making difficult and time-consuming. Later, when a policeman expecting him to be part of some sort of organization asks him who he's working for, he's technically being truthful by claiming he's working for nobody.
• My Name Is Earl:
  • Both Earl and Randy dropped out of high school and were unemployed for most of their adulthood aside from working the occasional odd job. Prior to the list, Earl and Randy sustained themselves through petty theft, but after turning their lives around, Earl won $100,000 on a lottery ticket. Earl eventually realized that he couldn't just rely on the lottery winnings, so he and Randy got their GEDs and jobs at an appliance store, with both losing their jobs after Earl went to prison for a crime that his ex-wife Joy committed (Earl took the blame in order to save Joy from getting her third strike and serving life in prison). Randy got a job as a prison guard so that he could still be with Earl, but after Earl got out of prison, he struggled to find work due to being a felon and he had spent all of his lottery money by that point. After a brief return to crime and a horrible marriage to a friend's former girlfriend, he is given a $75,000 insurance settlement and is back to where he was before.
  • A later episode saw Earl attempting to make amends with his former babysitter, who was impregnated by her boyfriend as a result of Earl poking holes in the condom. The babysitter married her boyfriend and they are seemingly living a good life. Except that their now 22-year-old son is still living with them, unemployed and not in school, just lounging around in his underwear all day. Earl decides to make up to them by forcing the son to get a job and move out.

Tabletop Games

• Slacker Magician from Yu-Gi-Oh!. In fact, they call her Shyneet Magician in the OCG. Her roommate Alchemic Magician harasses her to get some work done in Xyz Tribalrivals. She eventually turns her life around as Downerd Magician.

Theatre

• Lizard Boy: Trevor spends most of his days shut in his tiny apartment, playing his cello, talking to the drawings on his wall, and getting complaints from his neighbors to stop writing such sad songs all the time. He hasn't even been outside in a year, scared of being judged for his green lizard scales.

Video Games

• Akiba's Beat: The main character, Asahi, came to Tokyo to enter college, but failed. Now he lives off his family's money while lying to them that he's actually studying. In fact, it becomes a minor plot point, as after months of NEET lifestyle he became used to sleeping until well after noon, and his friends have to wake him up on every iteration of the "Groundhog Day" Loop they've been stuck in.
• Mae Borowski, the protagonist of Night in the Woods. She drops out of college due to having such severe disassociative episodes that she can't even function at school anymore, which may or may not have been caused by an Eldritch Abomination known as the Black Goat. Mae spends most of the game running around town, talking to her friends, committing crimes, and doing Womanchild things, while her parents encourage her to have some ambition.
• Jason Brody, protagonist of Far Cry 3: the in-game description says that he has only worked odd jobs since leaving college. We are not told how he has financed a long string of extreme sports trips and a holiday in South East Asia, but it is possible that he is sponging off his "extremely rich friend" Oliver, who, in turn, is probably sponging off his father.
  Oliver: [proposing a toast] Here's to my black card, and to my daddy's black card!
  • Jason actually comes from a wealthy background. It's possible he funds most of his hobbies via a trust fund. That or he simply asks his mother and/or older brother for money (his father died several years prior to the game's storyline).
• Speaking of fanon, there's a widespread joke/meme in Japanese Raidou Kuzunoha fandom that Narumi is a NEET (in canon he runs a detective agency, but it doesn't seem to be very successful).
• Touhou Project:
  • Kaguya is often depicted as a NEET in fanon. In Canon... it depends on whether you consider being technically in charge of a household to be a job. As a princess, it's arguably her job to not have a job.
  • Fanon does the same to Patchouli Knowledge, tying in with the canonical facts that she lives in her friend Remilia's house, spends all day in the library, and has very poor health (including asthma and anemia). Fan works that depict both Patchy and Kaguya as NEETs will usually have them being friends as well.
• Arngrim's crippled brother Roland from Valkyrie Profile gets labelled as this when his brother gets tired of his naive attitude of drawing arts for pleasure while it's him who sustains their living. Roland has a sounding excuse for him doing what he wants, causing Arngrim to reflect that everybody, even himself, has something they want to do in their life outside gaining money. Unfortunately, things don't go well for Roland. Arngrim commits suicide and becomes an einherjar while Roland continues to suffer. Then he suddenly disappears from the game.
• In Persona 5, one Mementos Target is a cheater who's unemployed. After being defeated, his Shadow laments that his boss laid him, a 40-year-old, off, due to wanting to make the organization younger.
• In The New Order: Last Days of Europe, the German economy in 1962, nearly twenty years after the Nazis won World War II, is dominated by slavery in menial professions while Aryan citizens live lives of luxury. Many younger Germans raised on the spoils of slavery have nothing to do except go to school, and when combined with both economic malaise and easy access to American pop culture and Marxist literature through the black market, many have grown radicalized and started supporting Albert Speer's reform movement.
• inFAMOUS: Second Son: Delsin Rowe is implied to be this. When Fetch asks him how he puts up with Reggie, Delsin replies "he pays the bills". Later on in the game while investigating the missing Conduits, Reggie suggests deputizing Delsin so that he'll have a a job for a change.

Visual Novels

• Lily from Daughter for Dessert qualifies, at least before she comes to the diner looking for a job. Her life consists of a giant scavenger hunt/RPG conducted through an app, and spouting sayings that Amanda terms “the wisdom of someone with no responsibilities.”
• Defied with the protagonist of Double Homework. Even in his depressed, traumatized state, summer school is a more palatable option than a lifetime on disability insurance.
• The protagonist from ClockUp's ESEX Shikorsky: INTERNEET Security Cloud 2017 is this; it's right in the title!
• Z., the protagonist of Psycholonials, is an unemployed 23-year-old college graduate who spends all her time on social media and never leaves the house. While this situation is largely due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, it's also due to her deep depression.

Webcomics

• Blaster Nation has Rinnie during its first chapters, as she would rather freeload from her friend Kimmy, lives in her living room and does nothing but eat junk food and write Yaoi Fanfiction, with Dan (Kimmy's boyfriend) constantly telling her to get a job or move out. She eventually realizes that she had reached bottom and tries to be a better person (with very slow steps, anyway).
• Elliot Torres, the protagonist of Blood Stain, is a more serious approach to how a NEET would exist in a realistic setting. She never decided to work due to her older sister Clara taking care of financial responsibilities, so she instead slacks off, gets kicked out from any job applied, and plays games after college until the age of 27. When their mother lands in the hospital, the Torres' expenses shoot up to the point where they need to cut corners. Once Clara points out that she'll have to cancel internet service for Elliot's games, Elliot makes a genuine effort to hold onto a job. However, due to her employers' own financial struggle, Elliot is let go, so she desperately reapplies to a shady job opening, which sets up the main story of the webcomic.
• A strip of Homo Sexience featured a King whose method of deterring assassins was to build a tower with him at the top, and 4 of the most beautiful women from history on the floors below him, trusting that they would tire the assassins out before they could reach him. One finally got to the top, explaining that "They didn't even glance at me when I told them I was unemployed."
• For a while after quitting his job as a journalist, Matt from Mac Hall is unemployed and hanging around their house just playing video games, until he is randomly called on the phone and offered a job managing a comic book store.
• Riff in Sluggy Freelance gets described as a "freelance bum" by Torg when the latter notices he's not actually doing anything besides being a Mad Scientist Gadgeteer Genius. Subverted later when it turns out he's being secretly employed to do just that by a dodgy corporation that funds such people to get the occasional brilliant invention they make. Later, after Torg's freelance web design career goes under and Riff leaves his job with guns blazing and stuff, several characters all find themselves in this position. Chapter 41 is even called "Freelance Bums". At one point, Zoë's roommates are all living on her pay and playing videogames all day until she forces them to come up with ways to make money for the "'avoid having your console sledgehammered' tax." Luckily, they get to live in a big house for free after their landlord is eaten by a giant monster in a hellish alternative dimension.

Web Original

• The lyrics to the famous Astroemeria remix of "Bad Apple!!" are about NEET/hikikomori depression.
• Economy Watch: David was revealed to be unemployed in Episode 32 and has never been seen going to school or developing training. He is said to have a net worth of 30 to 40 grand, but it's unknown how and where he gets this money.
• Noob:
  • Sparadrap has made himself look like one until one of his guildmates found out what his job was. His guildmates either have a job or are students and Sparadrap has frequently been playing for a long time when they come home.
  • Arthéon transited through this between leaving a Boarding School he didn't like and getting a job related to the game everyone is playing.
  • Fantöm is this as of the first Wham Episode. The comic version of the story shows him giving the employment office a try, but his experience as professional gamer, which is the only job he ever had, isn't taken seriously and the person in charge of him has no idea what to offer him.
• Akira Tsuchiya of Danganronpa Re:Birth is outright proclaimed to be the Ultimate NEET. He's lying about it; his true talent is the Ultimate Hacker.
• Black Yoshi from SuperMarioLogan doesn't have a job and spends most of the day playing Call of Duty, his favorite game.

Western Animation

• Master Shake of Aqua Teen Hunger Force spends his days lazing around watching TV and refuses to actually work, or even do the simplest of tasks whenever he’s not tormenting Meatwad. The few occasions he had a job were short-lived because he always quit out of laziness, and on one occasion he tried to rob the register and stole ham on his way out.
• Bojack Horseman: Todd Chavez, Bojack's "roommate", is essentially this. He came to a party Bojack held five years ago and never left, currently sleeping on Bojack's couch. He doesn't have any education past high school and is rarely ever employed anywhere for long.
• Dan in Dan Vs. is this. All he seems to do is watch TV and seek revenge on people.
• The Looney Tunes Show: Daffy Duck has been living in Bugs Bunny's house for five years, has no job, credit, or social skills, and gets all his money from Bugs and Porky Pig, almost always without his consent. There have been a few episodes where Daffy gets a job, but they never last beyond said episode.
• The two main characters in Megas XLR, Coop and his best friend Jamie, pretty much hang out in Coop's parents' basement playing video games all day every day and do not appear to have jobs, at least not for long. Kiva is horrified by their Lazy Bum lifestyles.
• In My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Fluttershy's younger brother Zephyr Breeze is unable to hold a job for anything more than a few days at most and instead spends much of his time at their parents' house, leeching off their resources. He is an egotist: whomever he lives with, he will take over that residence by force, and when concerted efforts are made to get him a job, he considers himself above effort and will immediately look for a way to pass the duties to someone else. He is also crippled by a fear of failure — only by Fluttershy making him commit himself to one thing for a period of time (he chooses styling hair) and swallow his pride by following established guidelines does he become good enough at something to earn his own accomplishments.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: Patrick is usually shown to be unemployed. There are episodes where he does get jobs (usually at the Krusty Krab, where he sometimes helps or fills in for SpongeBob), but they never last.
• Steven Universe: Greg, in the Flashback Episode "Greg the Babysitter". The episode ends with him realizing he needs to grow up and get a job.
• Ben from Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.

---