Aspirational Labor’s (In)Visibility

This chapter reveals the extent to which social media producers must reconcile the tensions between labor and leisure, between the internal self and external publics, between authenticity and self-promotion, and between creativity and commerce. It is these same patterned contradictions that configure the system of aspirational labor that has been discussed throughout this book. Thus, while blogging/vlogging/Instagramming is framed in the popular imagination as individualized self-expression, social media producers instead tend to approach these activities with the commitment and purpose of full-time, paid employment. In addition to scheduling and producing textual material, staging photos, and promoting content across the vast social media landscape, these aspirational laborers worked vigilantly to build and maintain “relationships” in both online and offline contexts.

Branding the Authentic Self: The Commercial Appeal of “Being Real”

This chapter explores the pervasive narratives of authenticity, self-expression, and realness that structure activity in the social media sphere. After all, many social media producers articulate the importance of expressing themselves “authentically.” Hence, the chapter considers what social media producers mean by “authenticity,” “realness,” and “relatability.” In addition, this chapter examines how these definitions vary within and across intersectional social categories, and to what extent these ideals guide the production and promotion of creative content. Finally, the chapter looks at the ways that aspirational laborers aim to resolve the tension between internal compulsions and external demands, given that the “authenticity” trope is increasingly compliant with the demands of capitalism.

(Not) Just for the Fun of It: The Labor of Social Media Production

This chapter exposes the deep cracks in narratives of social media leisure and amateurism. It looks at how forms of value-generating, gendered self-expression are rife in the social media world through blogs, vlogs, Instagram, and more. Though these activities are superficially framed as amusement and sociality, this chapter contends that many young women do not produce and promote content just for the fun of it. Rather, they approach social media creation with strategy, purpose, and aspirations of career success. Hence, this chapter explores some of the most salient conditions and features of aspirational labor: narratives of creative expression, relationship-building in online and offline contexts, and modes of individualized self-expression that both reveal and conceal normative feminine consumer behavior.

The Aspirational Labor of an Academic

This concluding chapter explains how the ideologies and social practices propelling the social media sphere bear a striking resemblance to contemporary academe. With its staid, ivory tower facade, the academy might seem far removed from the creative industries, a cluster of professions marked by an aura of bohemian cool. But it is much less of a conceptual leap to understand the creation and dissemination of knowledge as a form of cultural work. And many of the same venerated ideals—autonomy, flexibility, the perennial quest to “do what one loves”—seem to animate workers in both arenas. Indeed, academia is unique among professions that fuse the personal identity of their workers so intimately with the work output, which might well be said of the creative industries.

“And Now, a Word from Our Sponsor”: Attracting Advertisers, Building Brands, Leveraging (Free) Labor

This chapter argues that social media economies are unfolding in ways that are highly uneven, favoring particular subjectivities of race, class, and body aesthetics. In particular, the chapter considers activities that might be defined as word-of-mouth marketing or—to use a more voguish term—“brand evangelism”: sharing products and messages within one's networked communities. And it's no small wonder that contemporary marketers seek to incorporate social media producers into their promotional arsenals: their built-in audience furnishes social capital and enables companies to leverage ostensibly “authentic” or “organic” brand communication. However, the picture that emerges is one where existing social hierarchies are exacerbated both inside and outside these branded worlds.

Entrepreneurial Wishes and Career Dreams

This chapter describes the phenomenon of “aspirational labor”—a mode of (mostly) uncompensated, independent work that is propelled by the much-venerated ideal of getting paid to do what you love. As both a practice and a worker ideology, aspirational labor shifts content creators' focus from the present to the future, dangling the prospect of a career where labor and leisure coexist. Indeed, aspirational laborers expect that they will one day be compensated for their productivity—be it through material rewards or social capital. But in the meantime, they remain suspended in the consumption and promotion of branded commodities. Discourses of “paying off” in such instances are central to the motivations of aspirational laborers; they expect that their investments of time, energy, and capital will yield a fulfilling, and perhaps lucrative, career.

The “Instagram Filter”: Dispelling the Myths of Entrepreneurial Glamour

This chapter examines the way by which the fulltime social media producers articulated their work styles: they lauded the flexibility and autonomy of their pieced-together careers while drawing attention to some of the less glossy features of the independent work-style. Indeed, the social media professionals detailed careers marked by a chaotic pace of work, periods of insecurity, and the demand to be ever-present to both audiences and advertisers. These individuals thus engage in aspirational labor, albeit of a different sort: they labor persistently—and at times, invisibly—to maintain their status in the midst of a “political economy of insecurity,” where neoliberal ideologies and practices shift organizational risks and responsibilities onto the individual.

The Aspirational Ethos: Gender, Consumerism, and Labor

This chapter argues that the gendered history of the producer/consumer binary is a multifarious one, structured through evolving norms about women's social positioning within various spheres, most especially the public and private domains. Fortunately, these rudimentary—and overwhelmingly patriarchal—norms have been challenged on a number of fronts, and once-airtight boundaries are being slowly effaced. Yet the specter of traditional, gender-based divisions lingers on. Thus, while female workers have made substantial gains in the labor force since the women's liberation movement, occupational inequalities and social hierarchies persist—though they are much too often brushed aside with narratives about innate “gender differences” or, alternatively, “pipeline problems.”