(Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love
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Gender, Social Media, and Aspirational Work
Brooke Erin Duffy
Profound transformations in our digital society have brought many enterprising women to social media platforms—from blogs to YouTube to Instagram—in hopes of channeling their talents into fulfilling careers. In this eye-opening book, Brooke Erin Duffy draws much-needed attention to the gap between the handful who find lucrative careers and the rest, whose “passion projects” amount to free work for corporate brands.
Drawing on interviews and fieldwork, Duffy offers fascinating insights into the work and lives of fashion bloggers, beauty vloggers, and designers. She connects the activities of these women to larger shifts in unpaid and gendered labor, offering a lens through which to understand, anticipate, and critique broader transformations in the creative economy. At a moment when social media offer the rousing assurance that anyone can “make it”—and stand out among freelancers, temps, and gig workers—Duffy asks us all to consider the stakes of not getting paid to do what you love.
“A fascinating, meticulously researched study that shows how these creative women exemplify modern workers. Her lessons are essential for all those interested in fashion studies, gender studies, and the creative economy.”—Angela McRobbie, author of Be Creative: Making a Living in the New Culture Industries
“Duffy's critically astute study reveals the intersection of pleasure and power in contemporary capitalism and clearly articulates an essential new perspective on digital labor.”— Kylie Jarrett, author of The Digital Housewife
“Duffy’s book skilfully casts light on what drives people to push themselves so hard to make it in online worlds of ‘content creation’ – and she provides a convincing feminist analysis of how this ‘aspirational labor’ is deeply gendered.” — David Hesmondhalgh, co-author of Creative Labour: Media Work in Three Cultural Industries
Publication Date: June 27, 2017
8 b/w illus.