(Not) Getting Paid To Do What You Love: Gender, Social Media, and Aspirational Work

This timely study considers fashion blogging and vlogging as one form of "aspirational labor," uncompensated creative work independently provided by those hoping to make a living doing what they love. Communications scholar Duffy (Cornell Univ; Remake, Remodel) compares the experience of social media participants, mostly women, who participate in the fashion industry yet remain independent, mostly unpaid workers. Through ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews, Duffy highlights tension between the entrepreneurial drive of aspirational labor and the daily realities of working for free. As this study documents, only a handful of aspirants ever monetize their work to the extent that it becomes their full-time job. Across seven thematic chapters, Duffy considers the cultural and economic conditions that give rise to such labor, explores behind the scenes of social media production, the pleasures and perils of self-branding, the ethical dilemmas of sponsorship, and the way aspirational labor often contributes to narratives that render such contributions invisible and depoliticized. A lengthy bibliography provides avenues for further reading.