A replacement term for the Coronavirus of 2019-2020 used by YouTubers to avoid their videos being demonetised.
Steve Corino is an (assumed) retired professional wrestler who as of 2020 hasn't wrestled since 2016 and works for WWE as a Road Agent on the NXT brand. He rose to fame during the glory days of ECW in the late 90s-early 2000s.
All WWE shows have been held without a live crowd during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic in the US, due to risk posed by the Steve Corino virus.
The grindset is a contemporary ideology of self-exploitation disguised as strength, deeply tied to the aesthetics of the “sigma male” and to new digital forms of patriarchy. It promotes the idea that human worth depends on productivity, economic success, absolute emotional control, and the ability to work endlessly, turning vulnerability, rest, community, and tenderness into signs of weakness. Beneath its rhetoric of discipline and power often lies a profound inability to relate healthily to pain, fragility, and human interdependence.
“That’s the grindset, brother. While weak men sleep and complain, sigma males stay disciplined, work in silence, suppress emotions, and build power while everyone else wastes time chasing comfort.”