<div dir="ltr"><div>I would like to comment on the thread started by Karen Gregory today: </div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Riffing off of Karen Gregory’s thoughtful post from earlier
in this thread, this statement brought to mind another type of worker not often
designated as an ‘employee.’ Gregory writes: </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Palatino">What I am curious about, however, is the use of
the term “hyperemployment.” As Trebor suggested, the term is contradictory for
workers who are refused the designation of “employee.”<span class=""> </span></span><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Times"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A group that comes immediately to mind are fashion models,
who have traditionally been denied employees’ rights because they were argued
to be free agents by the companies that managed them. Perhaps crowdsourcing
participants treated as independent contractors could take a page from their
book.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Long denied the rights of employees, the line was that
models were managed free agents, not employees. After years of talking about
it, trying and failing at it, and then, ultimately, succeeding at organizing
and gaining some traction, activists in the industry were able to convince a
court of law that models were indeed workers and in fact, deserved legal
protection (specifically child labor laws) [<a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/176141/fashion-models-are-workers-too">http://www.thenation.com/article/176141/fashion-models-are-workers-too</a>]: It was an uphill battle, especially
since existing attitudes assumed this was ‘fun’ or ‘cool’ work [<a href="http://www.com.washington.edu/faculty/assets/neff_entreprenuriallabor.pdf">http://www.com.washington.edu/faculty/assets/neff_entreprenuriallabor.pdf</a>],
work that seemed ludicrous to view as precarious or employing people in need of
any assistance [lhttp://<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/opinion/its-fashion-week-poor-models.html?_r=0">www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/opinion/its-fashion-week-poor-models.html?_r=0</a>]
Yet models are the prime glamorizors of working all the time [<a href="http://joc.sagepub.com/content/9/2/273.full.pdf">http://joc.sagepub.com/content/9/2/273.full.pdf</a>],
making over exposure and constant availability to work look desirable, fun, and
something we should all want to do.
They have been giving it away for free, laboring on ‘spec’ for years,
and making the whole process look cool. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Additionally, what do we make of the desire to step into the
klieg light of overexposure? FOMO is not just a youth based malaise. A sample
of the conversation overheard in the coffee shop I am in right now, populated
by a smattering of 40-something moms doing their kaffe klatching/work: </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I have all of these emails and I don’t even know who they
are; I’ve got 800 contacts and I can’t even find the dry cleaner.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“If we can work the information architecture properly, we
can take something super complex and make it simple, accessible, and useful to
our constituency, our online base, to get parents more involved.” </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As Mimi Nguyen has observed: </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:0.5in"><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51)">“the quantification of the self is solidified as a
distributed quality of commodity capitalism. If evidence of being a person is
becoming a brand, evidence of becoming a <em><span style="border:0in none windowtext;padding:0in">good</span></em> brand is your willingness to sell your labor
for free, and to more consumers. <em><span style="border:0in none windowtext;padding:0in">How many units of yourself can you move?”</span></em></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em><span style="font-size:9.5pt;font-family:Palatino;color:rgb(51,51,51);border:0in none windowtext;padding:0in"> </span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);border:0in none windowtext;padding:0in;font-style:normal">Nguyen has a point here with
regard to self-branding via the web, but as I have written elsewhere, the
quanitified self works on a deeper level as well. As the fitbit wearing, heart
rate and brain wave trackers employ their melons and self monitoring t-shirts
to gain control over themselves and their energetic outputs in pursuit of the
body beautiful and the most efficiently focused mind, they either miss or
choose to ignore the quantities of information and energy they are giving away
for free. So, when talking about digital labor, over exposure, and
hyperemployment, we also need to think not only about social analytics, but bio
analytics as well. </span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);border:0in none windowtext;padding:0in;font-style:normal"> </span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);border:0in none windowtext;padding:0in;font-style:normal"> </span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);border:0in none windowtext;padding:0in;font-style:normal"> </span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
</div>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><div><font color="#999999">Elizabeth Wissinger PhD </font></div><div><font color="#999999">Associate Professor of Sociology </font></div><div><span style="color:rgb(153,153,153)">BMCC/City University of New York </span></div>
<div><br></div><div><font color="#999999"><br></font></div><div><font color="#999999">what I have been up to: </font></div><div><font color="#999999">(WSQ Fashion Issue is OUT!!! </font></div><div><font color="#999999"><a href="http://www.feministpress.org/books/fashion-0" target="_blank">http://www.feministpress.org/books/fashion-0</a></font></div>
<div><font color="#999999">(my book</font></div><div><font color="#999999">Fashioning Models:</font></div><div><font color="#999999"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fashioning-Models-Image-Text-Industry/dp/1847881548" target="_blank">http://www.amazon.com/Fashioning-Models-Image-Text-Industry/dp/1847881548</a></font></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(153,153,153)">(Editorial Board: </span><br></div><div><span style="color:rgb(153,153,153)"><a href="http://www.feministpress.org/wsq" target="_blank">http://www.feministpress.org/wsq</a></span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(153,153,153)">(paneling on fashion and politics:</span><br></div><div><a href="http://videostreaming.gc.cuny.edu/videos/video/471/" target="_blank">http://videostreaming.gc.cuny.edu/videos/video/471/</a></div>
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