Goldberg - Antisocial media: anxious labor in the digital economy

Postmillennial Pop

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Antisocial Media: Anxious Labor in the Digital Economy

Greg Goldberg

Greg Goldberg

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

www.nyupress.org

2018 by New York University

All rights reserved

References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Goldberg, Greg, author.

Title: Antisocial media : anxious labor in the digital economy / Greg Goldberg.

Description: New York : New York University Press, [2017] | Series: Postmillennial pop | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN | ISBN 9781479829989 (cl : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781479821907 (pb : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Information technologyEconomic aspects. | Digital mediaEconomic aspects. | Labor.

Classification: LCC HC79.I55 G64 2017 | DDC 306.3/6dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017013006

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For my parents,

Isabel and Mark Goldberg

A number of people have supported me through the process of writing, and have inspired me with their honesty, courage, compassion, and humor. Given the argument of this book, Im not sure I should say that I am grateful to them, but I can easily say that their companionship has meant a lot to me.

Patricia Clough was a formative influence. Like many of her students, I have tried to emulate her anti-disciplinarity, political savvy, facility with social theory, and, perhaps most of all, her ability to read a text. It was a pleasure to share Patricia with her other studentsmy partners-in-crimeat the City University of New York Graduate Center. Craig Willse and Rachel Schiff were particularly patient, generous and, most importantly, so much fun.

I wrote this book while an assistant professor in the sociology department at Wesleyan University. I feel lucky to have found a welcoming home, with colleagues and students who keep me on my toes and are game for whatever I throw their way. I am also lucky to have worked with New York University Press on this book: thanks to Lisha Nadkarni and the Postmillennial Pop series editors, Karen Tongson and Henry Jenkins, for their support, and to the manuscript reviewers for their feedback. In particular, Lucas Hilderbrands thoughtful questions and comments were instrumental in making this a much better book.

While at Wesleyan, I was fortunate to join Wesleyans Center for the Humanities as a faculty fellow and Yale Universitys Information Society Project as a visiting fellow, and to participate in a symposium on innovation and the creative economy at the University of Texas at Austin. The feedback I gained from these experiences was invaluable. I thank the other participants for their willingness to entertain and nurture my nascent iconoclasm, and Ethan Kleinberg, Valerie Belair-Gagnon, and S. Craig Watkins for their organizational work and support. The foundations for this book were laid during my semester at the Center for the Humanities. The article that grew out of this fellowship contains an earlier iteration of this books argument; thanks to New Media & Society for publishing it. While at the symposium on innovation and the creative economy, I refined the argument presented in chapter 3. The paper I presented there contains an earlier iteration of that argument; thanks to S. Craig Watkins for editing the volume that emerged from the symposium, and to Routledge for publishing it.

Robyn Autry has been my constant companion at Wesleyan and throughout the writing process. She kept me on track, made finishing feel possible, and made me smile. She emboldened me to not tolerate bullshit, and has been a model for how to navigate a sometimes-hostile world fearlessly. I have learned more from being with her than from any text. Jonathan Cutler, too, has taught me more than he knows. He introduced me to the antisocial thesis and shook up my politics, and listened patiently as I tried to make sense of the texts examined in this book (and helped me to do just that when I struggled). His encouragement and confidence in me allowed me to stay true to my insight in the face of critical opposition. I couldnt ask for better colleagues or friends.

Despite my antisocial proclivities, no doubt exacerbated in the depths of writing, I somehow managed to hold on to my non-academic friends and queer family: Daniel Barrow, Katie Halper, Kate Levin, Cayden Lovejoy, Rebecca Ross, James Rubin, Kora Wilson, Avery Wolf Green, and August Wolf Lovejoy. I thank them for putting up with me, and for their kindness, brilliance, and humor. Also in the mix, Liz Montegary and Roy Prez were excellent housemates.

Last but not least, I owe much of my political sensibility to my parents Isabel and Mark Goldbergless from their well-versed socialism than simply from living life with them. They loved me and let me be, with a limp wrist and my head in the clouds. My sisters, Rita Strauss and Denise Ficker, were unrivaled models of rebellion, albeit unintentionally; I was a late bloomer in that department. My boyfriend, Ted Baab, has also been a model for me: of determination, humility, and grace, not to mention a devastating wit. It takes guts to be gentle and kind, and he is both, supporting me in ways both mundane and extraordinary, though I havent always made it easy. Thinking by his side has been a privilege and a pleasure. With any luck hell let me stay there a while longer.

According to scholars, journalists, and pundits, the institution of work is now undergoing three significant transformations at the hands of digital technology, all of which are essentially bad news for workers. First, the boundary between work and leisure is being eroded by the migration of leisure to online venues like Facebook and Instagram, rendering activities formerly outside the institution of work increasingly subject to economic exploitation. Second, jobs previously immune to automation are increasingly subject to automation, threatening not only these jobs but, insofar as these jobs represent the last vestige of human labor that cannot be automated, all jobs. Third, the so-called sharing economy preys on the unemployed and underemployed, offering low wages, few if any benefits, and no job security in exchange for renting underutilized assets like a spare room in ones home (Airbnb), or for doing odd jobs or chauffeuring in ones spare time (TaskRabbit, Uber, Lyft), the coordination of which is facilitated through Internet and mobile applications. Considered together, these transformations would seem to suggest that it is not only workers that are now under attack, but the very institution of work itself.