“Digital Labour and the Social Media Influencer” Video Transcript & References Below:
Once upon a time before the internet, there was only one common pathway to becoming famous in the entertainment industry, whether it be as a model, musician, or actor, and it was rarely a solo undertaking. Most talented individuals would acquire managers and agents, and when they were working, they would be provided with a team of people from stylists, writers, directors, photographers, videographers to support them. This traditional route to celebrity and fame still exists today, but with the internet and social media era, we have seen the rise of a new form of self-made, social media celebrity, the influencer – and while they often glamourize their lifestyle online – a tremendous amount of labour (often unpaid) is occurring behind the scenes for those who chase internet fame.
The “influencers” or content creators, as they often prefer to be labeled, are largely found on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube where they typically entertain and educate to collect a following while marketing both themselves to brands and/or the brands and products to their followers. This is often done from their own aesthetically pleasing home or a glamorous locale. Dr. Crystal Abidin (2018) describes that most successful influencers appeal to brands and followers due to one or more of the following reasons: exclusivity, everydayness, exceptionalism, or exoticism. However, a tremendous amount of invisible digital labour goes into building and maintaining a successful social media account that often blurs the lines between labour and leisure, and while our focus is often directed primarily at those who achieve success, it’s important to examine and consider who might be exploited by this arrangement (Duffy, 2017).
Creating content is time consuming and in order to achieve success, most creators feel that they need to post regularly and engage with their followers through direct messages (DMs) and comments (Connected Learning Alliance, 2021). As mentioned previously, many of the jobs undertaken by an influencer (from writing/creating content, marketing, and even photography) would have been completed by a team in the typical entertainment or marketing world. But in the influencer world, it is often just one person. Both small and large companies benefit from using influencers to promote their products, as they save on all the additional labour expenses that would have traditionally been involved in advertising (Duffy, 2017).
In the book Atlas of AI, Crawford (2021) describes how as more things are automated, humans are increasingly treated like robots. While it may be easy to dismiss the signs that influencers are often exploited through the large volume of unpaid digital labour as trivial due to it being their choice, it does potentially reflect a growing problem largely stemming from the tech industry where humans are held to the same efficiency levels as computers (Duffy, 2017). In a quest for efficiency, algorithms will often create barriers and exploit peoples labour (Duffy, 2017). An example would be that anyone who follows influencers on social media will likely be familiar with the term “shadowbanned”. This is a term influencers use to describe when a platform is seemingly limiting the numbers of viewers that can see their content, whether it be the platform itself or the algorithm. Influencers are often closely monitoring their social media analytics to determine the people that are viewing and interacting with their accounts, and while users like it when algorithms tailor their views based on their individual likes, for an influencer being shadowbanned can be devastating when they rely upon likes, follows, and comments to be paid for their work by either creator funds and/or to score partnerships with brands.
Finally, when it comes to questions about digital labor and social media, it is important to talk about one of the most concerning areas of exploitation – and that is with children. While adult influencers are choosing the digital labour and a lifestyle that may blur the lines between work and leisure and have the freedom to walk away at any time, many children are not afforded this same choice. Cordeiro (2021) raises the alarm that the rise in “kidfluencers” should be a huge concern for society as they are “at a grave risk of exploitation because they lack the legal right to the earnings they generate, or safe working conditions and protections via labour laws.” This becomes especially worrisome once one becomes aware of how much invisible, digital labour actually goes into creating online content.
References
Abidin, C. (2018). Internet celebrity: Understanding fame online. Emerald Publishing Limited.
Duffy, B.E. (2017). (Not) just for the fun of it: The labor of social media production. In (Not) getting paid to do what you love: Gender, social media, and aspirational work. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Connected Learning Alliance. (2021, August 3). Crystal Abidin’s CLS2021 keynote – “Tiktok, youth cultures and the East Asian influencer industry” [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0DI8kRCEVU
Corderio, V.C. (2021, February 23). “Kidfluencers” and social media: The evolution of child exploitation in the digital age. Humanium. https://www.humanium.org/en/kidfluencers-and-social-media-the-evolution-of-child-exploitation-in-the-digital-age/
Crawford, K. (2021). Labor. In Atlas of AI: Power, politics, and the planetary costs of artificial intelligence (pp. 53-88). New Haven: Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300252392-003