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How to be a social media influencer: the work process of the entrepreneurial labor force
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i
HOW TO BE A SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCER:
THE WORK PROCESS OF THE ENTREPRENEURIAL LABOR FORCE
by
Matthew Paul Ripley
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfilment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
SOCIOLOGY
December 2021
Copyright 2021 Matthew Paul Ripley
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abstract...........................................................................................................................................iv
Chapter 1: Introduction....................................................................................................................1
Work at the start of the twenty-first century.......................................................................6
Online freelance labor markets..........................................................................................16
The U.S Advertising Industry............................................................................................19
Findings.............................................................................................................................26
Social media influencers....................................................................................................26
Data and methodology.......................................................................................................31
Characteristics of participants............................................................................................33
Chapter breakdown............................................................................................................36
Chapter 2: Hustling........................................................................................................................41
What types of influencers practice the hustling work strategy?........................................41
The hustling work strategy.................................................................................................42
The culture of work............................................................................................................61
Challenges of the hustling work strategy...........................................................................68
Summary............................................................................................................................74
Chapter 3: Monopoly Maintenance...............................................................................................77
What types of influencers practice the monopoly maintenance work strategy?................78
The monopoly maintenance work strategy........................................................................79
Relationships with Instagram users...................................................................................82
Routinizing relationships with Instagram users.................................................................86
iii
Relationship with temporary employers............................................................................86
Routinizing relationships with temporary employers......................................................101
Challenges of the monopoly maintenance work strategy................................................106
Summary..........................................................................................................................112
Chapter 4: Curating Exclusivity...................................................................................................114
The types of influencers that practice curating exclusivity.............................................114
The curating exclusivity work strategy ...........................................................................115
Producing exclusivity.......................................................................................................117
Challenges of the curating exclusivity work strategy......................................................131
Summary..........................................................................................................................140
Chapter 5: Conclusions................................................................................................................142
Bibliography................................................................................................................................147
iv
ABSTRACT
How does the presence of social media influencers further our understanding of the contemporary
U.S. labor market? This dissertation answers this question through 50 in-depth semi-structured
interviews with those working in Los Angele’s burgeoning social media influencing industry. My
findings lead me to identify three distinct work processes that influencers perform in their attempts
to generate personal income within this freelance labor market. I term these work processes
Hustling – a highly strategic work process that is performed by those with limited personal
resources. It is also the most commonly identified work process, but simultaneously the most
precarious and least successful; Monopoly Maintenance – a work process performed by the most
successful influencers in the industry who focus their labor efforts on maintaining an already
privileged position; and Curating Exclusivity – a work process practiced by members of elite
families who use their extensive economic wealth to fast-track their way to further employment
opportunities, with varying degrees of success. These findings add to research in the sociology of
labor in three ways: First, they highlight the new and various types of work processes emerging in
the contemporary economy; Second, my findings add to the growing body of scholarship
highlighting the extensive precarity experienced by those working in America’s freelance online
labor markets; and Thirdly, I illustrate how these highly precarious employment conditions are
made possible by a culture of work that promotes sentiments of individualism, entrepreneurialism,
and creativity.
1
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
“Their iced lattes are to die for!” Katy informs me while pointing to a drinks menu hanging high
on the wall in front of us. Trying my best to ignore the $4.25 price tag, I order a couple from a
fashionable-looking barista peering at us through a pair of over-oversized spectacles, before
following Katy outside into the bright Los Angeles sunshine. Perching ourselves upon a couple of
metal latticed chairs, and waiting patiently for our coffees to arrive, Katy announces, “This is why
I came to LA. The sun makes everything better!”
It’s hard to argue with this statement as Katy had relocated from the more seasonal climate
of Vancouver nine years prior in pursuit of warmer weather, and perhaps more importantly to her,
a career in Los Angeles’ extensive fashion industry. Almost a decade on, she continues to enjoy
the city’s desert climate, and is happy to report that she regularly works in her chosen field;
however, the latter of which includes a format she could not previously have envisioned. As she
tells me:
I’ve been a social media influencer for about five years now. That makes me a
bit of a veteran in the industry… I was one of those people that were in the right
place at the right time.
As you may have deduced, my meeting with Katy is not spontaneous, but rather she has agreed to
hold the first of what would become 50 interviews I will conduct with individuals working in Los
Angeles’ social media influencing industry. The purpose of which is my attempt to help us
understand a little more about this new type of person in society, a group of individuals that have
2
seemingly emerged out of nowhere, yet rapidly found their way into our collective
consciousnesses.
My interest in doing so is partly driven by personal intrigue as influencers have rapidly
risen to become the celebrities of the modern era, with entrepreneurial youth taking the power of
the internet and seemingly achieving vast fame and fortune – who wouldn’t want to know more
about them! From a more academic perspective, however, my interest lies in understanding the
types of work that people actually do, and what these labor practices can tell us about the broader
experience of work and workers in the modern economy.
I am somewhat, grateful to be meeting with Katy today as she appears to match the
stereotypical form of a social media influencer – dressed head-to-toe in athleisure wear, cell phone
clutched tightly in her in right hand, and having greeted me with a beaming smile and “hello” that
is reminiscent of watching the introduction to a YouTube Vlog (video diary) – I am grateful to be
getting the “real” experience.
Katy does not just mimic this identity however, as she has also been highly successful in
creating a lucrative social media influencing career that includes her having developed an online
audience of over 460,000 followers upon the photo and video sharing application, Instagram. From
this, Katy is also successful in routinely soliciting forms of temporary employment from consumer
companies who pay her to promote their goods and services to her captive online audience.
Importantly, Katy is not alone in this career choice, with social media influencing having
become a mainstay work opportunity around the world (Khamis, Ang and Welling 2017; Zhang,
Zhang and Kalwani 2021). This includes the U.S social media influencing market having become
a $13.8bn industry in 2021, doubling in size since only 2019 (Statista 2021). These career paths
are also becoming increasingly culturally legitimate, especially amongst youth, with Awin (2019)
3
finding that American children aged 11-16 years-old position social media influencing as the
second most desirable career opportunity available to them, behind only that of being a doctor.
My time with Katy therefore feels a bit like meeting a celebrity as I find myself intimidated
by the cultural esteem she exudes. She is a lady in high demand, with fashion houses, restaurants,
hotels, nightclubs, and an array of beauty companies vying for her attention and to be associated
with her style and online popularity. Hoping she doesn’t inquire into my less-than-impressive 523
Instagram followers, we will spend the next couple of hours drinking expensive coffees and
discussing the growth of an industry that has radically altered both her own life, and the broader
system of consumer capitalism over the past decade.
Before too long we are interrupted by an alarm from Katy’s iPhone. Reaching for it, she
tells me, “I have to post [upload a photograph to Instagram] for a skincare company I’m working
with. Do you mind if I do this quickly?” Eager to see the process in action I happily agree and ask
if she can talk me through her work. She begins by telling me, “I have to post right now as it’s
5pm on the East Coast and I’m trying to increase my following in New York. Its prime viewing
time over there as people are leaving work and checking their socials [social media applications]”.
After 5 minutes of tapping away, and offering generous commentary on her actions, Katy
places her phone on the table before stating, “Job done…it’s as quick and easy at that!” Tentatively
inquiring into how much she was compensated for working with this company I almost choke on
what must have been $3 worth of iced coffee upon hearing her response. Regaining my composure,
I see that her demeanor is relaxed, if not verging on nonchalant, for someone who has just
completed a business deal that earnt her $2,800 in seemingly minutes.
In witnessing Katy at work, I start to wonder if this kind of compensation is normal
amongst social media influencers. Do they really earn this much money simply tapping away on
4
their phones in coffee shops? Is Katy just an outlier, or more indicative of an “average” worker in
this industry? Surely not… else we’d all be doing it, right? Can anyone be successful here? What
kind of resources and tool might you need to successful? Or is simply a cell phone and a social
media account enough? It is fair to say that my mind is already racing with potential lines of inquiry
after only the first half an hour of my first interview; academic questions that are then followed by
the inevitable existential ones having learnt about Katy’s income… How can I do this?! Should I
switch careers and become an influencer, rather than just research them? Was completing a PhD a
mistake?! … However, as I would later come to learn, I am quickly being wrapped up in what I
now identify as a “culture of possibility” that saturates this industry – a feeling that anything is
possible, that anyone can make it in becoming a full time professional in this space.
With her photograph posted, Katy’s phone immediately begins to light-up as she receives a barrage
of notifications indicating that her image has been “liked”, viewed, and commented on by hundreds
of eager followers. She continues to inform me of the next stages of her work strategy:
I kind of just let it do its thing for the next 30 minutes. Then I’ll probably write back to a
few of the comments and see who’s sent me any DMs [direct messages] … After like half-
an-hour I expect about 800 likes, so we’ll see how it does.
Katy’s intention to go back to the post, reply to comments, check her messages, and follow the
popularity of the image suggests that it might not be quite “job done” in the way she had previously
implied. In fact, during our two-hour interview she is interrupted by three phone calls from her
talent manager, two from her personal assistant, and a stream of text messages from a photographer
5
confirming a “golden hour” photoshoot for later that evening. Inquiring if she considers this to be
part of the job, Katy tells me, “Of course it is. It’s all work. Basically, my life is work [laughs]. I’ll
be putting the next round of coffees on the company expenses”.
As someone seeking to learn more about this newly emerged occupation, I am immediately
intrigued by Katy’s somewhat contradictory statements that describe her job as both “quick and
easy” but also “a never-ending process”. Initially I view these seemingly juxtaposed comments
with a level of suspicion – presuming that she is at times exaggerating the ease of her work as to
align with a wider cultural narrative that posits we are living in a new era of highly compensated,
flexible, and low stress online jobs (Ferriss 2017); while in other moments she is perhaps
exaggerating the difficulty of her job so to align with the U.S. cultural values around extensive
work practices (Burke and Cooper 2008). This is not to criticize Katy, as cultural sociologists
evidence that we routinely create contradictory explanations and narratives of our lives relative to
wider cultural belief systems; many of which appear in contrasting, but ultimately help us make
sense of our environment and create a shared sense of community (Alexander 2006; Inglis and
Almila 2016).
What makes Katy’s comments so interesting in particular, however, is that they reflect a
microcosm of one of the prominent findings of this research: namely that the social media
influencing industry consists of a work structure that demands forms of continuous, hyper-
competitive labor, while operating in conjunction with a work culture that frames this labor as the
epitome of self-actualization, workplace freedom, entrepreneurialism, and creativity. Rather than
being opposed to one another, these two systems are found to compliment and enable the other to
flourish.
6
This finding offers a backdrop to the broader aims of this research as I seek to understand
how these workers navigate this particular work environment. In doing so, I come to ask: What
types of labor practices and processes do social media influencers perform? What types of
resources are necessary to achieve success through in this profession, and how are they actualized?
What types of social media influencers are produced through completing this work strategy? How
do social media influencers make sense of their labor and the outcomes of it offers them? And
what kind of challenges do social media influencers experience through performing this type of
work?
To help answer these questions, I draw from three prominent lines of scholarship that
include: 1) research evidencing the broader conditions of the current U.S. economy and labor
market; 2) labor scholarship focused on online freelance labor markets; and 3) the research
investigating the labor conditions of both the advertising and creative industries.
Work at the Start of the Twenty-First Century
The U.S. economy has undergone foundational transformations over the four decades as new
technologies, cultures, political processes, and globalization have reshaped American society and
its economic markets (Castells 2010; Harvey 1989; Piketty 2013, 2020). Labor scholars have been
successful in identifying how this shift has, in turn, also come to radically alter the U.S. labor force.
Research has identified three common themes around which these changes amalgamate: 1)
employment precarity, 2) hyper individualism, and 3) entrepreneurial work cultures.
7
Employment Precarity
A prominent marker of the broader U.S. labor market is one of increased worker precarity. This
includes scholars bringing to light how: 1) The average job tenure has significantly declined, with
workers now moving career and occupations as a much higher rate starting in the 1980s (Harvey
1989; Hollister and Smith 2014; Hyatt and Spletzer 2016); 2) Working hours are now more
sporadic, with the rise of zero hour contracts giving greater power to employers to set workers
hours (Lopes and Dewan 2014; Standing 2011, 2014); 3) The threat of outsourcing and
technological developments place workers’ jobs at greater risk than in previous decades (Castells
2010; Choonara 2019); and 4) The average U.S. worker now faces less unemployment protections
that at any point since the New Deal era (Kalleberg 2011). The result of these changes has been
both material and psychological with American workers reporting high levels of anxiety related to
this precarity (Neilson 2015; Rachwał, Rolf Hepp and Kergel 2020), while needing to continuously
retrain in order to remain relevant in this labor market (Giddens 1991).
Influential in the precarity research has been that of Kalleberg (2011, 2017) who evidenced
the demise U.S. middle class (see also Piketty 2013) and the bifurcation of the U.S. jobs into two
distinct segments that he terms “good jobs” and ‘bad jobs”. In the latter he refers to the majority
of workers that perform low-income, de-skilled, and insecure jobs that offer limited employment
protections, regularity of working hours, and opportunities for career advancement. Meanwhile by
the “good jobs”, he refers to professional, white color occupations that offer significant wages.
Importantly, he recognizes that both types of work produce distinct type of precarity for workers,
with those in bad jobs experiencing inconsistent hours and significant threat of unemployment due
to technological shifts or outsourcing; while goods jobs are inherently precarious as they require
8
forms of continuous retraining in order to remain valued by employers, and the statistically
significant chance that if an individual leaves a good job they will fall into one of the bad jobs and
not be able to return up the ladder; ultimately making decisions such as raising families, or taking
time away from work, a more precarious decision.
Building upon this, Standing (2011, 2014) suggests that the contemporary economy has
also produced a new type of working class that he terms the precariates – a neologism that
combines the concept of precarity with that of proletariat. Unlike the classic Marxian
understanding of the proletariat, precariates do not simply sell their labor as a result of being devoid
of the means of production, but are characterized by their need to perform extensive labor in the
process of seeking work. This includes types of formal education, internships, training courses,
and apprenticeships; it includes the practice of producing a version of the self that is presentable
to potential employers such as refining a curriculum vitae or designing a LinkedIn page (see also
Harvey 1989; Van De Berg and Arts 2019); and it includes continuously having to search for work
in a labor market that predominantly offers forms of temporary employment arrangements. For
Standing (2011, 2014), this creates a new form of psychological pressure in the contemporary
economy as workers routinely fluctuate between intermittent moments of employment,
underemployment, and unemployment.
Furthering this discussion, scholars come to identify a limited amount of class solidarity
felt by precarious workers, something that Manolchev, Saundary, and Lewis (2021) attribute to a
wide array of experiences, cultural identities, and challenges faced by individuals. This is also
evidenced by Mrozowicki and Trappmann (2021) who, in interview with 123 young workers, finds
that personal resources, and beliefs around the labor market, also come to radically shape the
experience of precarity and desire for collective actions. This includes those with sufficient
9
resources attempting to endure their precarious conditions in the belief that said jobs will lead to a
brighter work future, while ultimately choosing not to participate in any forms of collective action
in solidarity with those with less resources. Such findings overlap with another key aspect of the
contemporary labor market, namely that of hyper-individualism
Hyper Individualism
One of the most profound shifts for American workers over the past four decades has been the re-
organization of labor away from mass, long-term, salaried workforces, to ones of highly
individualized workers that complete types of on-demand piecemeal compensated jobs for a range
of temporary employers. Important in this line of research has been the finding that jobs are
becoming increasingly specialized. Evidencing this, Piore and Sabel (1984) highlight the transition
from standardized, highly routinized, and regulated jobs, to increasingly diverse, and often highly
skilled, occupations. This includes workers within companies being organized into teams, with
team members providing individual expertise towards a collective goal of producing a diverse
array of products and services; or, specialized workers are found to offer their services in a growing
freelance labor market in which they compete for temporary work opportunities and contribute to
a wide array of projects. This move to work specialization is also reflected in the types of courses
offered by higher-education institutions, with student taking increasingly diverse majors in order
to transition into these highly varied occupations (Ehrenberg 2012; Zeleza 2016).
This is not the only way in which the contemporary U.S. labor force has become
increasingly individualized, however, with a wide array of scholarship illustrating how many
traditionally stable American jobs have been transformed from long-term, salaried occupations,
10
into freelance, temporary labor markets. Important in this line of research has been that of Davis
(2009) who documents how a legal restructuring of corporate America during the 1980s radically
altered the relationships between employers and employees to the contemporary moment. Offering
historical context to this, Davis illustrates how between WWII and the late 1970s the United States
had developed a form of Welfare Capitalism in which the goals of corporate America were closely
aligned with improving the social conditions of the wider society. This relationship was built upon
both structural and moral foundations, and helped create a context in which many Americans
prospered from the outputs of capitalism
1
. Offering commentary from this period, Kaysen (1957)
notes:
No longer the agent of proprietorship seeking to maximize return on investment,
management sees itself as responsible to stockholders, employees, customers, the
general public, and, perhaps most important, the firm itself as an institution (quoted
in Davis 2009, pg. 74).
However, the 1980s witnessed a significant shift in the social, political and economic conditions
of American life. This included the development of a new economic system in which shareholders
became the sole legal and moral responsibility of corporate America. Such a transition was made
politically possible by developments in the geopolitical context in which countries such as
Germany and Japan began to challenge U.S. economic dominance. This coincided with an
intellectual movement arguing that the efficiency of a corporation is reflected in its underlying
stock price, and therefore any action preventing a corporation from increasing its share price –
1
It is important to note that the distribution of such social development were unequally distributed and resulted in a
negative cumulative effect that continues to divide American society today.
11
such as those promoting social welfare – are a hindrance to American corporations competing on
the global stage. As such, a number of corporate and government policies were introduced seeking
to motivate corporate actors towards the sole aim of increasing shareholder value. This included
reshaping the relationship that employers maintain with their employees from one of legal and
moral responsibility, to one that defines corporations as simply a “nexus of contracts” that have no
obligations to their workers beyond that of those stipulated in said contracts. Meanwhile, these
movements were afforded moral justification in mainstream society following a concerted effort
by beneficiaries to frame this as a move towards greater corporate efficiency that will inevitably
benefit all Americans through increased tax incomes and a greater return on investment for the
growing number of individuals owning corporate stocks during this period
2
.
Importantly, therefore, the work of Davis (2009) helps us understand an important
sequence of historical events that reframed workers as individual contracts, rather than collective
communities to which corporate America held a legal and moral responsibility. This became a
catalyst for the reorganization of corporate workforces from long-term salaried employment to
temporary labor contracts – something that is widely evidenced in the emergence of an extensive
“gig-economy” (Kessler 2018).
Offering an empirical example of this in action, Viscelli’s (2016) book The Big Rig:
Trucking and the Decline of the American Dream highlights how America’s 3.5 million truck
drivers have experienced a rapid shift from long-term, salary-based employment models to new
forms of freelance, temporary gig-work. This includes truck drivers no longer working for a
singular company with guaranteed hours of employment and compensation, but rather being
required to own and maintain their own trucks and to compete with one another for temporary jobs
2
An example of which arguably comes through the widespread cultural popularity of the character Gordon Gekko in
the 1987 hit film Wall Street.
12
from a range of temporary employers. From this, Viscelli evidences the new challenges this brings
as workers are denied access to many of the key labor rights and protections they were previously
afforded such as paid time off, sick pay, medical expenses, and pension contributions.
This is also an area that the work of Harvey (1989) has been particularly influential as he
identifies how this these employment structures have shaped the work practices and culture of
American workers. Within this he argues that in the modern economy workers are increasingly
made to compete with one another for types of short-term, temporary labor contracts. To achieve
this, workers must therefore make a concerted effort to continuously retrain and brand themselves
as ideal workers in order to gain access to this labor market. This creates a culture of individualism
that has replaced the formerly collective identity of the U.S. workforce.
Entrepreneurial Work Cultures
The emergence of an increasingly individualized labor market has coincided with the development
of an entrepreneurial work culture in the United States. By this we refer to the increasing
propensity of workers to view themselves, their careers, and labor practices through a framework
traditionally reserved for entrepreneurs. This includes understanding themselves as project of
continuous development as they turn the self into a product that can then be sold on a temporary
labor market (Giddens 1991; Rose 1990). It also includes a mind-frame that values creativity,
innovation, risk-taking, and applies market logics to all aspects of life. Furthermore, however, it
also features a valuing of individualism and a belief that challenges in the labor market are a result
of individual failures, rather than systemic structural and cultural challenges.
13
The antecedents of this entrepreneurial worker mindset can be traced to the late 1970s when
the U.S. government actively sought ways to reduce the populations dependence upon State
institutions that had developed since the 1930s and accelerated in the post-WWII era. To achieve
this they instigated a cultural shift that promoted self-reliance and viewing the self as the solution
to one’s economic and social challenges, rather than that of the State. Foundational to this was the
idea that citizens should come to view themselves as continuous projects of entrepreneurial self-
development. Giddens (1991) terms as reflexive projects while arguing that one cannot simply be
in contemporary Western Society but must be continuously becoming. This is something
previously highlighted by Foucault (1978 [2010]) in his lecture series at the Collège de Paris in
which he argued that the political system of the new economy was turning citizens into
“entrepreneurial men” who must continuously seek to build themselves using market logics and to
define their self-worth through achievements in the economic sphere. This is a theme later picked
up by Bauman (2013) who suggest that acts of self-development are most prominently performed
via forms of endless consumption as new products offer us the opportunity to seemingly become
better versions of ourselves.
Importantly, through this process the State not only sought to produce a self-reliant
populace, but also an entrepreneurial minded citizenry and labor force. Discussing this, Ponratz
and Voß (2003) highlight how Western governments actively promoted a philosophy of “Me Inc.”
amongst workers so that they come to view themselves as businesses that can be branded and
produced for the labor market. This shift has been further perpetuated by progressive office
managers over the past four decades who have sought to tackle worker alienation by offering
greater workplace freedoms and developing cultures that frame employees as entrepreneurs, free
to dictate their own work schedule and routines. In doing so, however, they have also used this
14
new cultural frame as an opportunity to strip away worker protections, benefits, and ultimately
harmed their material reality (Boltanski and Chiapello 1999). Building upon this critique, others
argue that the rise of the contemporary gig-based labor force is simply an extension of this, with
workers coming to see themselves as individual entrepreneurs, free to dictate their own work lives,
while corporations simultaneously strip away their rights, compensation, and employment stability
(Gray and Suri 2019; Kessler 2018; Ravenelle 2019).
Complementing this research, others have sought to understand exactly how the state has been able
to regulate the temporary workforce into this new entrepreneurial mindset, with the majority of
this research focused on the role of local-level government institutions – or what Foucault (1978
[2010]) terms technologies of power
3
. Exemplifying this, Hays (2004) highlights how single
mothers in the U.S. are offered government welfare on the condition they evidence an
entrepreneurial mindset and continuously attempt to develop new economic skills (See also work
of Radhakrishnan 2018 for examples of this in the Indian context). Meanwhile, Muehlbach (2012)
highlights this in the Italian context by showing how government unemployment assistance has
become dependent upon a citizen’s willingness to exhibit values of personal responsibility and
perform voluntarily practices of self-development through the market.
Others meanwhile point to the recent reconstitution of the education system as evidence of
the State’s desire to produce entrepreneurially minded workers. In particular, these scholars
evidence the rapid rise of entrepreneurship education throughout all levels of the education system
over the past four decades, while suggesting that such learnings have been less about producing
3
“Technologies of power” refers the instruments those in power develop in order to enact their power. During
periods of neoliberalism, Foucault argues that this comes largely comes in the form of local-level government
agencies that directly interact with people (schools, health care facilities, the police, unemployment offices, etc).
15
the next generation of entrepreneurs, and more about creating an entrepreneurial mindset amongst
America’s future labor force (Jones, Maas, & Pittaway 2017). This is highlighted in the number
of entrepreneurship courses offered on American college campuses having risen from 250 in 1985
to over 5,000 by 2008, while over 400,000 college students now take entrepreneurship courses
taught by almost 9,000 faculty members (Mitra 2008; Volkmann & Audretsch 2017; The
Kauffman Foundation 2013). This development should not be considered simply a reflection of
the broader shift towards more specialized majors but rather highlight the mindset of American
youth who have come to value and demand such forms of education in a way that previous
generations have not (Katz 2003; Kuratco 2005). Such findings contrast with the widely
appreciated research of Willis (1977) who illustrated how the education system during the period
of industrial capitalism sought to develop a particular type of worker that aligned with the demands
of the economy during that time. Instead, the education system of contemporary capitalism appears
to be more focused on the creation of an entrepreneurial workforce that value market risk and
continuously seek to develop the self through market logics and practices (Berglund 2013;
McCafferty 2010; Korhonen, Komulainen, Räty 2011; Dahlstedt and Hertzberg 2012).
This body of work therefore highlights the development of an aspirational and
entrepreneurially minded labor force that values different (?) forms of self-directed labor such as
that offered by the array of new temporary contractual occupations. Simultaneously, expansion of
this entrepreneurial mindset has enabled those with the means of production to reshape the
organisation and outcomes of employment further in their favour (i.e., Weber 1905) – with the
contemporary version of this being the expansion of a gig-based temporary and highly contingent
labor force. This is something that Duffy (2017) takes up in particular reference to social media
influencers as she suggests that a new generation of young workers are entering this labor force
16
intent on performing what she terms “aspirational entrepreneurship”. Jobs such as those offered
by social media influencing enable these youth to enact these cultural ideals, despite their offering
of highly precarious working conditions.
Online Freelance Labor Markets
Another foundational shift in the U.S. economy has been the arrival of new forms of online work
following the Digital Revolution circa 1980-present (Castells 2010). A number of such online jobs
are organized into temporary freelance labor markets through the digital technologies developed
by companies such as Uber, Lyft, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Airbnb, Fiverr, Freelancer, Upwork,
and Crew. Within these labor markets workers create profiles
4
on applications and websites that
enable them to showcase their work skills and apply for temporary jobs. Such organizations of
labor have been widely celebrated in popular culture for seemingly offering workers access to new
labor markets and for affording them greater flexibility over their work hours and the jobs they
complete (Oppon 2018; Sinicki 2019).
However, labor scholars have come to question these common assumptions and begun to
investigate the working conditions and outcomes of these new types of online occupations. The
scholarship in this area is loosely referred to as those studying the “gig-economy”; a name that
reflects the temporality of these professions as workers are not guaranteed long-term employment,
but rather compete with one another following each specific job or “gig” they perform. Important
in this line of work has been Kessler’s (2018) monograph, Gigged: The Gig Economy, the End of
4
Websites and mobile application profiles often consist of information regarding the workers demographics, the
types of services and skills they offer, and often a rating system that features quantitative and written reviews of the
employee. Those looking to hire them for temporary jobs can search through these profiles to identify relevant
candidates for employment.
17
the Job and the Future of Work which evidences the rapid growth in such temporary online labor
markets. She builds upon this to offer qualitative evidence of the types of economic precarity these
job forms are creating for Americans as workers are denied consistent employment hours, as well
as access to the types of benefits experienced in full-time positions.
Offering an equally important ethnographic study of this labor context, Rosenblat (2018)
examined the experience of Uber drivers in the United States; One of the most culturally
emblematic examples of these new work arrangements as Uber and Lyft have radically
transformed the taxicab industry into a gig-based model of temporary employment. Rosenblat’s
findings highlight extensive employment precarity, worker isolation, and feelings of alienation
amongst Uber drivers as their sole interactions with employers comes through the buttons they
press on the application. Equally, the authors illustrates how Uber drivers’ pay, hours, and
employment opportunities are systematically aligned with the short-term interests of the
corporation as they react to shifts in market sentiment, rather than they are to the needs of workers.
This is a finding supported by Vallas and Schor (2020) who, in a recent review of the gig-work
literature, argue that corporate America has become the primary beneficiaries of these contingent
labor markets, while workers, regulators, and labor organizers are forced to face new and unique
challenges.
These studies feature as some of the first insights into the working conditions of such online
freelance labor markets, with the scholarship bringing to light the problematic outcomes and
experiences they appear to create. However, in evidencing these challenging conditions they also
raise the questions as to how workers themselves feel about these changes, and why we have not
seen widespread labor movements contesting the development of these labor markets. Rather,
opinion surveys routinely highlight popular support for these work arrangements (see Dubal 2019
18
for a comprehensive review), while the recent passing of California State Proposition 22 saw
Americans overwhelmingly vote against a move to classify Uber drivers as paid employees rather
than as temporary contractual workers – despite this denying them the opportunity to gain much
needed employment benefits.
In answer to this, scholars have provided both cultural and structural explanations.
Regarding the former, this includes gig-jobs enabling workers to enact the culturally valued
subjectivity of entrepreneurs as they such jobs often advertised as enabling workers to design their
own working conditions and to develop creative strategies through which to stand out in these
labor markets. Meanwhile, in a study of the website Fiverr, an online marketplace for the sale of
freelance labor, Stefano (2015) came to argue that:
The terms “work” or “workers” are very scarcely used in this context, and the very
same catchphrase “gig-economy” epitomizes this, as the term is often used to
indicate a sort of parallel dimension in which labor protection and employment
regulation are summed not to apply by default. As already said, the practical
consequences of concealing the “work” nature of these activities and their human
components are also potentially detrimental. (p. 8)
This is something further iterated in the work of Schor (2020) and Vallas and Schor (2020) who
suggest that through using the catchphrase “digital disruption” companies are able to gain
widespread support for these transformations, despite them also being shown to negatively impact
workers employment outcomes. Cementing the cultural attitude of gig-jobs being outside the
realms of traditional labor laws, Gray and Siddharth’s (2019) book Ghost Work: How to Stop
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Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass highlights how many online freelance jobs
are performed in isolation away from other workers, an employment structure that makes it
difficult to directly share grievances and build class solidarity. Further labor market divisions are
evidenced by Sutherland and Jarrahi (2017) who highlight, how workers often perform jobs across
multiple different applications during a working week as they search for work opportunities and
attempt to piece together enough working hours and income to sustain themselves.
In this dissertation I build upon these important insights by examining the types of work
cultures that develop in these new online freelance professions, as well as the strategies that
workers develop and perform in order to navigate these work contexts.
The U.S. Advertising Industry
U.S. consumer capitalism can be traced back to the 1850s when the country experienced a
significant increase in the number of retail outlets opening their doors during this period. These
economic markets gained further credibility following the birth of department stores in the 1920s
that offered a one-stop-shop for a wide range of products and helped to turn shopping into a
leisurely pursuit. It was during this period that the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was initiated
in New York City in 1924 and came to symbolize a growing democratization of consumption as
the middle and working classes gained access to a wider array of products than ever previously
experienced (Scott 2017).
The development of this U.S. consumer culture was made possible by continued
developments in production processes, alongside the emergence of a potent advertising industry
that attempts to determine our purchasing decisions. A wide array of scholarship has sought to
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examine the various methods by which advertising professional attempt to generate such
widespread conspicuous consumption. Important in this line of research has been Ardorno and
Horheimer’s (1944) and their investigation into the process by which cultural products such as
television programs, newspaper columns, and radio shows are produced. Within this they find that
during the first half of the twentieth century such forms of media began to be created in a similar
standardized and mass-produced process as material products that were being created on factory
floors. In turn, these cultural immaterial products worked to expose us to a new value system based
upon mass-consumption that distracts us from the capitalist system of exploitation.
Scholars building on this thinking have sought to understand how advertising companies
use similar production process as a way of creating mass consumption of products and helping to
maintain wider economic inequalities. For example, Baudrillard (2001) suggests that the
advertising industry enables the capitalist elite to generate endless streams of profits by playing on
our emotions and forcing us to purchase goods in order to impress friends, family, and colleagues.
He continues by suggesting that this form of production and advertising does not attempt to meet
our basic needs, but rather manipulates us into consuming products that serve no other purpose
than that of enhancing our social standing. Meanwhile, the constant changing of cultural values
around products captures us in a spiral of unnecessary consumption that only serves to benefit the
elite.
This Marxist analysis of advertising has since been challenged by scholars highlighting the
important role that consumption plays in the rituals of social life, and that many of the seemingly
banal products we consume are required to help us communicate our collective values and norms
(Douglas and Isherwood 2021). While it could be said that these ritual practices are constructed
through advertising, and that the materialism of events such as birthdays, religious holidays, and
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more recently ‘gender reveal parties’, are forced upon us by capitalism, such a perspective frames
the consumer as helpless in this relationship (Miller 1987; Slater 1997).
More recently, scholars examining consumerism in the United States have shifted away
from a solely Marxist and top-down analysis of consumption to begin to understand how
purchasing has become a compulsory component of subjectivity, with a person’s sense of worth
and place in society dictated by their ability to consume. This is argued by Bauman (2007) who
states that “Consumer’s ‘subjectivity’ is made out of shopping choices - choices made by the
subject and the subject’s prospective purchasers; its description takes the form of a shopping list”
(p.15). It is no wonder that René Descartes philosophical thinking of “I think, therefore I am” has
been widely translated in pop-culture to “I buy, therefore I am” as people come to understand the
close link people assign between consumption and one’s existence. Furtermore, De Certeau
(1984) argues that regardless of the material goods that are offered to a society, individuals
interpret the meanings and value of these goods as a cultural process. In this sense, consumers
are not simply ‘dupes’ but rather active players in the forms and meanings that consumerism
takes.
This process of creating culture through consumption is something advertising companies
began to appreciate during the 1990s. This included a move away from previous eras in which
marketers attempted to convince us of the cultural merits of the product, targeted specific groups
in society (e.g., mothers, the elderly, children), or focused on hitting specific emotions, tastes,
and desires. Instead, advertising during the 90s sought to align brands with abstract phrases and
images to which consumers can plug in their own cultural values. For example, Nike’s “Just Do
It” and Apple’s “Think Different” gave no information on the actual product, but instead offered
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an amorphous ideal to which consumers could ascribe their own cultural beliefs (McKevitt
2018).
Advertising Labor
More recently, scholarship has moved away from examining how the advertising industry at large
seeks to guide our purchasing decisions, to instead focus on the labor practices and experiences of
those working within the advertising industry. A large share of this research has come to evidence
the processes by which employees in the service sector are turned into advertising regimes by the
companies they work for. Exemplifying this, Pettinger (2004) discusses how frontline service
workers are turned into components of a store’s advertising regime as they are taught how to act,
talk, and embody the brand as part of their labor. As such, employers no longer focus solely on
technical and social skills during the hiring process, but increasingly select employees that align
with the wider aesthetic of the brand. Supporting this finding, Warhurst and Nickson (2007) find
that employees are increasingly required to perform aesthetic labor to reflect the ideals of the
brands they work for. This is a form of labor in which employees work upon their own bodies in
an act that attempts to beautify themselves and align their aesthetic with the demands and needs of
their employers. Karlson (2012) critiques these practices by arguing that:
The most important part here is that aesthetic labour means corporeal dispositions
in people that employers can commodify and exploit to their advantage when
competing with other firms, and that these dispositions can be further trained and
developed once the employee has been hired (54).
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Such acts have been identified in wider areas of the advertising industry, with Mears (2011)
showing the various forms of aesthetic labor that go into the creation and packaging of models for
the purpose of advertising clothes. This includes an array of hidden labor practices and beauty
politics that lurk behind the scenes of the modeling industry. Both Wissinger (2012) and Carah
(2014) note that the aim of such aestheticism is to create an affective impact upon consumers that
leads them to develop an emotional tie to the products they promote. This link between aesthetics
and emotions was something heavily emphasized in the work of by Hochschild (1983) as she
depicted the actions of airline service workers who go beyond their usual physical and mental
roles, to also express certain prescribed emotional states. This includes customer-facing
occupations requiring the practice of ‘service with a smile’ that necessitates employees to hide
their real emotions and to present a continuously upbeat emotional state. Aesthetic labor and
emotional labor are therefore deeply intertwined as workers focus their labor efforts upon shaping
the self in order to become part of the advertising wants of the wider company and the products
and services they provide. The vast expansion of aesthetic labor in the current economy have led
some to describe it as an ‘aesthetic economy’ in which appearance and feel are the dominant
commodities being produced (Postrel 2003).
Importantly, however, workers are not simply turned into aesthetic commodities by their
employers, but are increasingly active in this process as they perform acts of aesthetic work upon
the self in order to gain access to such professions. Wissinger (2012) highlights how models
achieve this through the performance of a type of entrepreneurial labor in which they must
continuously redevelop their image in order to appear valuable to potential employers in the highly
precarious fashion industry. This is supported by Parmentier and Fischer (2011) who find that
workers in the fashion industry must continuously recreate their identity in order to maintain
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cultural relevance. Those who are unable to produce such symbolic capital are unlikely to make it
in this field, thereby forcing models into a process of constant entrepreneurial self-building.
This form of self-focused entrepreneurial labor is indicative of the ways in which social
media influencers enact forms of aesthetic labor in an attempt to turn themselves into immaterial
products that can be consumed by mass audiences and advertisers. Unique to this group, however,
is that is that their labor practices navigate both online and offline worlds, and therefore represent
a new space in which this type of work is being performed. Additionally, their performance of
emotional labor goes beyond the ‘service with a smile’ that we have come to expect in the wider
service industry. Rather, social influencers open-up large portions of their lives and personalities
to their audiences, and develop long-term, personal relationships with these users. This includes
many social influencers continuously updating their followers with their daily activities – a
practice that is rewarded by the underlying algorithms of the social media platforms that offer
greater exposure for constantly updating one’s online profile. However, how and what social
influencers share about their lives is in constant negotiation as they attempt to present a version of
their lives that is valued by different types of online audiences, potential employers, their friends
and family who also consume such media, as well as their own personal understandings of
themselves.
While such forms of online work have become driving forces of the contemporary
consumer economy, there remains limited research examining the experiences and labor
practices of those working as social media influencers. The scholarship that has been conducted
primarily focuses on the psychological impacts that influencers create has upon their audiences
(e.g. Chae 2018), such as social influencers being found to promote certain ideal conceptions of
ideal genders and body types (Baker and Walsh 2018). Meanwhile, like the wider field of online
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work, there remains a dearth of quantitative research illuminating the number and types of
people entering this profession, resulting in us having little understanding as the true scale of the
social influencer industry.
Despite this, social media influencers are gaining increasing interest in the academic
sphere, and the work of Brooke Erin Duffy and Elizabeth Wissinger has offered us a great starting
point through which to consider the labor practices of those within this sector. For example they
(Duffy and Wissinger 2017) highlight how social media personalities, such as bloggers and social
influencers, perpetuate the idea of their work being glamorous through the promotion of certain
mythologies around the online creative gig-work. This includes developing digital media articles
that frame their labor as fun, free, entrepreneurial, and authentic, while simultaneously concealing
the more demanding components of their work such as emotional, aesthetic, and affective labor.
Such research offers an interesting case as the cultural perception of labor is produced by the
workers themselves, and acts as a means to entice others into this space. This raises the question
as to why workers are creating and promoting a culture of freedom and creativity, when they are
the same people widely reported to experience precarious economic conditions because of this
very work (Duffy 2017). Additionally, this finding challenges the wide-spread top-down Marxist
perspective of cultural hegemony as created by the elite and used to shape workers in the
advertising industry, and instead allows us to begin to examine how cultures of labor amongst such
workers are developed from the ground-up. Duffy (2017) furthers our understanding in this area
through an excellent qualitative study examining the motivations, challenges, and labor practices
of social media influencers. Through this she finds that a culture of aspiration is leading large
swathes of predominantly younger generation to enter the field, but that structural conditions
prevent many from achieving success. Her work therefore offers an important starting point
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through which we can further unpack social media influencing as an exciting, but slightly daunting,
form of contemporary labor.
In this dissertation I seek to uncover many of these currently unknown labor practices that
social media influencers come to perform as part of this new type of advertising work in the Digital
Age. In particular, rather than focusing on simply identifying the types of work these people
perform however, I am interested in how these labor practices combine to form a process, or
multiple processes, of work. Furthermore, I seek to understand what determines the form these
processes take, the types of people that are produced through enacting these processes, the
outcomes they create for influencers, and what they can tell us about the broader online freelance
labor markets.
Findings
My findings come to reveal three distinct ways of being a social media influencer that are
determined by the individual’s access to resources deemed critical for this type of work. Terming
these processes hustling, monopoly maintenance, and curating exclusivity, I highlight how they
are defined by the unique work practices they require, the relationships and networks they
facilitate, the challenges they create, and the levels of success achieved by the participants.
Hustling
The third and final strategy employed by social media influencers was that of Hustling. This
strategy was found to be the most numerically prominent strategy and was characterized by those
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who hold minimal personal resources, yet are highly motivated for success and view influencing
as a pathway to prosperity. This lack of resources leads them to create work practices and routines
that enabled them to compete with those that do, such as: 1) a routine practice of purchasing
expensive products, using them as props in photo and video shoots, before returning said items to
get their money back; 2) soliciting the free labor of friends and family to help in the content
production process; and 3) educating themselves on the underlying algorithms of the Instagram
platform, before then collaborating with other “hustling” influencers to manipulate these
algorithms to their own advantage. Although the hustling strategy was found to be the most
prominent type of strategy adopted by those in the industry, it also resulted in the least success in
terms of employment opportunities.
Monopoly Maintenance
The first work strategy identified was that of monopoly maintenance. The types of people that
employ this strategy are a select group of influencers that hold certain privileges afforded to them
as a result of having been early entrants to this labor market during its inception around the period
of 2012. This includes them having gained the important resource of a “large online social media
audience” that enable them to solicit and capture the majority of the short-term advertising
employment contracts available in this industry – despite them being a numerically smaller group.
These individuals were also found see view their position as being under threat from newer
entrants to the field. As such, they were motivated to develop and perform a highly organized and
routinized labor process that staved off this competition. This predominantly included 1) actively
attempting to solidify relationships with key industry employers; 2) actively attempting to retain
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their large social media audience by performing a routinized labor practice that enables them to
interact with hundreds of individual followers on a daily basis.
Curating exclusivity
A second strategy employed by social media influencers is that of Curating exclusivity. I afford it
this name to reflect the privileged of those performing it as they actively use their extensive
personal wealth as a means of gaining large online audiences. An interesting aspect of this work
strategy is that it is often guided by a desire to build forms of cultural capital that can come from
gaining a large social media following, rather than necessarily seeking employment opportunities.
In order to achieve this, the curating exclusivity strategy includes practices of 1) “documenting”
everyday privileges; 2) curating expensive photo and video shoots; and 3) taking photos with other
members of these elite communities, all of which collectively help to produce a form of “curated
exclusivity” around which Instagram users congregate.
Social Media Influencers
Before we shift into the findings of this dissertation, it is perhaps beneficial to offer more
information around who social media influencers are, where they came from, the overarching work
they perform, and the organization of the industry. As such, we can understand social media
influencers as a newly emerged body of online workers that have built an entirely new industry in
the contemporary economy based on a practice of soliciting large online audiences on social media
applications (e.g., Snap, Instagram, Clash, and more recently TikTok), before selling advertising
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opportunities to consumer companies that seek access to these online populations. To achieve this,
influencers first curate and produce digital videos, photographs, and text that seeks to capture the
attention of social media users. This often includes creating digital content related to a particular
hobby or interest (e.g., cooking, athletics, beauty, etc.) while simultaneously presenting a curated
online presentations-of-self around which large groups of people congregate. This practice is not
unique to influencers, as a growing body of research highlights how “online attention” is becoming
a critical resource in the digital age, and that more broadly online content creators are becoming a
staple component of the American labor force (Bachmann and Siegert 2021; Forest 2020).
Having garnered this online attention, influencers then attempt to monetize this resource
by soliciting relationships with consumer companies and brands who pay them a piece meal rate
to advertise their goods and services through their social media accounts. As such social media
influencers hold the key to large consumer audiences for this those seeking to build brand
awareness and sales in the Digital Age and can often demand extensive renumeration for their
ability to do so (Akar and Topçu 2011; Jun, Muqaddam and Ryu 2019; Evans et al. 2017).
Relatively speaking, this level of targeted advertising has historically cost consumer brands
significantly more when conducted through traditional forms of marketing such as television,
billboards, and newspaper advertisements (Casaló, Flavián, and Ibáñez-Sánchezb 2020). Equally,
it is not simply targeted exposure that social influencers offer, but rather they are perceived as
holding a more intimate and personable relationship with consumers that enables them to promote
products in a way deemed more authentic than through other mediums (Audrezet, de Kerviler and
Moulard 2020; Djafarova and Rushworth 2017). It is this “influence” over their online followers
that makes their work so highly valuable and enables, at least some, to demand such extensive
compensation. Meanwhile, the extent of this practice should not be downplayed as the U.S. social
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media influencing industry is set to become a $15bn market by 2022 (Business Insider 2020),
while influencers are routinely found to perform a critical role in driving consumer behaviors and
consumption practices in the new economy (Delbaere, Michael and Phillips 2021).
Our current understanding of social media influencers remains in its infancy, while the
research that has been produced does not focus on the aims of this dissertation (see Duffy 2017 for
a notable exception). This includes scholarship evidencing the role that influencers perform in
producing idealized standards of beauty and athleticism (Tran, Rosales and Copes 2020), for
reproducing gendered and racialized stereotypes (Chae 2018; Quick and Byrd-Bredbenner 2014;
Stevens 2021), and for their ability to drive consumer capitalism in an era in which digital sales
outpace in-store purchases (Hermanda, Sumarwan and Tinaprillia 2019; Kumar and Mirchandani
2012).
A notable exception this this is the work of Duffy (2017), who help to initiate a more
focused analysis on the labor practices and routines of influencers. Within her qualitative study of
influencers in New York, she identifies how many of them work for free, while seeing their labor
as part of a process of accumulating other forms of capital necessary to be successful. This creates
great insecurity. However, she also notes that people routinely state their enjoyment of this labor
process, ultimately leading her to title her research monograph “(Not) getting paid to do what you
love”.
Social media influencers are not only beginning to capture the interests of social scientists,
but have also become a much talked about profession in the media and amongst the lay public.
Unfortunately, these accounts are often hostile attacks that frame influencers as entitled, lazy,
spoilt, and a general representation of the “problems with millennials”. As such, social media
influencing is often positioned as an illegitimate form of work – a perspective that I seek to
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understand in more depth as I examine the work strategies that this intriguing group of people
perform.
Data and Methodology
Data collection includes 50 in-depth semi-structured interviews with social media influencers
living and working in Los Angeles, California. I chose this location as it operates as a hub for
influencers from around the world due to its historical position as a center of cultural production,
and for its networks of skilled professionals integral to influencers’ labor process (e.g.
photographers, talent agents, beauty professionals). The city therefore offered me the ideal space
through which to solicit participants and understand how this profession operates in a larger eco-
system of the broadly defined “cultural industries”.
I further focused on influencers that primarily operate on the social media application,
Instagram, as this platform (alongside YouTube) has become the culturally and numerically
dominant application used by social media influencers and brands, alike (MediaKix 2020). This is
due to Instagram’s digital infrastructure enabling influencers to build vast online audiences and
expose users to endless streams of digital media content, including that of consumer
advertisements. While a comparative study of influencers operating on alternative applications
could have been a fruitful endeavor, it was perceived that Instagram’s 550,000 social media
influencers (Statista 2020) offered enough internal variability through which to examine how
people negotiate this particular digital structure in alternative ways.
I further limited data collection to those who self-identify as social media influencers so as
to distinguish them from other popular groups on the platform (e.g., musicians, athletes, actors).
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Although these boundaries are often blurry, what distinguishes social media influencers from these
latter groups is their concerted effort to produce social media content, and curate online
presentations of self, for the predominant purpose of monetizing their online attention through the
sale of advertising opportunities.
Having established these parameters, my recruited participants were found to be aged 18-
40 years of age; a demographic outcome that reflects the wider influencing industry that is
predominantly populated by millennials and those of Generation Z. Participants were also
predominantly female (30), a trend found amongst other qualitative studies of social media
influencers (Duffy and Pruchniewska 2017) and historical studies of gendered labor in the
advertising industries (Alvesson 1998; Artz and Venkatesh 1991).
Participants were solicited by contacting them via publicly available email addresses
published upon their individual Instagram accounts. To locate social media influencers based in
Los Angeles I made use of Instagram’s location services that enabled me to search for photos that
were posted specifically in this city. From here I was able to make a database of 500 influencers
that either stated directly in their Instagram profiles that they lived in Los Angeles, or appeared to
live and work there having taken a number of photos and videos in this location. Upon emailing
the potential participants I received replies from approximately 200, with the remainder not
replying to first contacts or follow up emails. Of the 200 that signaled interest I was able to
organize interviews with 50, each of which took place in a location of the participants choosing,
which most frequently included coffee shops across L.A.’s eclectic neighborhoods. A prominent
challenge in the data collection process included organizing interview slots around the influencers
busy work schedules. As such a number of interviews were cancelled at the last minute or
rescheduled for a later date. This made the interview process two months longer than previously
33
anticipated, but also gave me insight into the collective experience of busy work schedules
amongst my participants.
My data was collected during the Spring and Summer of 2019, with interviews lasting an
average of 90-minutes, and covering a range of topics related to my research questions. The
majority of interviews were conducted in person (41), however, due to the often-nomadic lifestyles
of influencers, nine interviews were conducted via video calls. I considered this a viable format as
influencers use videoconferencing technologies on a near daily basis and are therefore arguably
more comfortable with this interview format than most. Both formats were recorded on a
Dictaphone and later transcribed into Word documents ready for coding and developing themes
related to my guiding research questions (Taylor, Sinha and Ghoshal 2006).
Data was collected under the guidance of my host university's institutional review board and the
ethical research guidelines offered by the American Sociological Association. This includes
maintaining the participants’ right to anonymity, to withdraw from the study at any point without
penalty, and their data being stored on a password-protected private laptop kept in a secure location
at my home university. Written consent was obtained from all participants, while pseudonyms are
used throughout the writing process, with ages, locations, names, and any other potential signifiers
of participant identities altered for reasons of anonymity.
Characteristics of Participants
The social media influencing industry is a diverse place with many different types of people
creating and sharing various form of social media content, and advertising a wide range of products
and services. Despite this, however, there were certain characteristics of my participant pool that
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all appeared to reflect. This included a certain level of bodily capital, which is an academic way
of suggesting that they were attractive people that appeared to perform extensive aesthetic labor
upon themselves. As such the participants were often well groomed, had athletic physiques, and a
propensity for brightened and perfectly aligned teeth. This supports the wider literature on the
advertising industry as discussed above, with these particular advertising workers understanding
the necessity of developing an aesthetic self as being highly important to finding work in this
industry.
A second characteristic that all participants shared was a level of sociability, with each
influencer able to hold a good conversation and to portray themselves in a way that was difficult
to dislike. While some were clearly outgoing extroverts, the majority were ambiverts that were
able to flow between conversations that engendered more energy (such as an initial introduction)
to moments of deeper cove ration that were arguably more subdued. Importantly though, there was
a clear sign of social intelligence amongst this group that made them highly adept at creating
connections and interacting with other people.
If aesthetics and sociability was a common denominator amongst the participants, there
remained distinct separations between these influencers, however. These characteristics mapped
onto the specific types of social processes mentioned above, therefore highlighting how certain
types of people perform certain work processes.
Hustlers
Total: 23
Place of birth: LA = 12; Out of state = 10; International = 1.
35
Age: 18-24 = 15; 25-30 = 6; 30+ = 2.
Race: East Asian = 6; African American = 2; Latino/a = 3; Middle Eastern = 2; Indian American
= 1; Jewish = 2; White = 7.
Assigned sex at birth: Male = 9; Female = 14.
Job status: Full-time = 0; Part-time = 23.
Average salary per job: $0 - $200 = 10; $201 - $400 = 11; $401 - $600 = 1; $601 - $1,000 = 1;
$1,001 - $1,500 = 0; $1,501 – $2,500 = 0; $2,501 + = 0.
Years in industry: 0 – 2 = 19; 2 – 4 = 2; 4 – 6 = 1; 6+ = 0.
Instagram followers: 0 – 20,000 = 3; 20,001 – 50,000 = 17; 50,001 – 100, 000 = 3; 100,001 –
150,000 = 0; 150,001 – 300,000 = 0; 300,001 + = 0.
Monopoly Maintenance
Total: 12
Place of birth: LA = 9; Out of state = 2; International = 1.
Age: 18-24 = 0; 25-30 = 6; 30+ = 6.
Race: East Asian = 2; African American = 0; Latino/a = 1; Middle Eastern = 0; Indian American
= 0; Jewish = 1; White = 2.
Assigned sex at birth: Male = 4; Female = 8.
Job status: Full-time = 12; Part-time = 0.
Average salary per job: $0 - $200 = ; $201 - $400; $401 - $600 = ; $601 - $1,000 = 1; $1,001 -
$1,500 = 2; $1,501 – $2,500 = 3; $2,501 + = 6.
Years in industry: 0 -2 = 0; 2 – 4 = 0; 4 – 6 = 0; 6+ = 12.
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Instagram followers: 0 – 20,000 = 0; 20,001 – 50,000 = 0; 50,001 – 100, 000 = 0; 100,001 –
150,000 = 0; 150,001 – 300,000 = 8; 300,001 + = 4.
Curating Exclusivity
Total: 15
Place of birth: LA = 5; Out of state = 6; International = 4.
Age: 18-24 = 6; 25-30 = 6; 30+ = 3.
Race: East Asian = 3; African American = 1; Latino/a = 2; Middle Eastern = 4; Indian American
= 1; Jewish = 0; White = 4.
Assigned sex at birth: Male = 7; Female = 8.
Job status: Full-time = 3; Part-time = 12.
Average salary per job: $0 - $200 = 0; $201 - $400 = 10; $401 - $600 = 2; $601 - $1,000 = 3;
$1,001 - $1,500 = 0; $1,501 – $2,500 = 0; $2,501 + = 0.
Years in industry: 0 -2 = 6; 2 – 4 = 6; 4 – 6 = 3; 6+ = 0.
Instagram followers: 0 – 20,000 = 0; 20,001 – 50,000 = 0; 50,001 – 100, 000 = 0; 100,001 –
150,000 = 6; 150,001 – 300,000 = 9; 300,001 + = 0.
Chapter Breakdown
Chapter Two
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In chapter two I outline the hustling strategy, the numerically dominant work strategy found
amongst my participants. The types of influencers that enact this strategy do so as they lack many
of the key resources necessary for success in this industry, namely a large online audience (as seen
amongst those performing the monopoly maintenance strategy) or extensive personal wealth that
can be transformed into a large online audience (as seen amongst those performing the curating
exclusivity strategy). The hustling work strategy consists of attempting to build this audience and
in turn compete in this labor market through the routinized labor practices of: 1) purchasing and
returning consumer goods for use in content creation; 2) soliciting the free labor of friends and
family to help in the content production process; and 3) educating themselves on the underlying
algorithms of the Instagram platform, before collaborating with other “hustling” influencers to
manipulate these algorithms to their own advantage.
While these practices enable the influencers to slowly grow their Instagram audience, the
strategies are only somewhere successful, as these efforts only enabled these participants to solicit
and average of one paid advertising job per month. This lack of income led them to get secondary
part-time and full-time jobs, a pressure that created widespread feelings of burnout and were
reports to place additional strains of their relationships with close friends and family. Equally,
however, the influencers maintained their desire to enact this work strategy due to a world view
that framed these efforts as “inevitably” leading to success and economic prosperity.
Chapter Three
In chapter three I introduce the types of social media influencers that enact the work strategy of
monopoly maintenance. This is a population that benefited from being early entrants to this
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industry in the form of having rapidly accumulated large online audiences necessary for
employment. My data helps to illustrate the unique labor routines these influencers perform as they
attempt to maintain this position as the dominant employees in this industry. This includes their
attempts to solidify their relationships with key members of the industry, their enactment of mass,
routinized social interactions with their followers, and efforts to produce high quality and
consistent social media content that is often hard. The chapter then examines the unique challenges
the monopoly maintenance work strategy creates for these individuals as they report pressures of
continues work and potential cultural stigma associated with being an influencer.
Chapter Four
In chapter four I introduce the work strategy of Curating exclusivity as I document how an elite
group of social media influencers attempt to turn their personal economic wealth into a large online
audience. This is something they look to achieve through a routinized practice of “documenting”
their privilege through the continuous creation of photos and short videos that show off their wealth
to their Instagram followers. I will also show how they design, pay for, and complete highly
professional photo and video shoots that resemble those used for design fashion magazines; as
well as strategically taking photos with other elites to help further signal to their online audience
their privileged lifestyle. Collectively these practices help develop a form of curated exclusivity
and help these influencers develop extensive Instagram audiences; however, I also identify how
this self-curated work strategy is not solely motivated by a desire to gain forms of temporary
employment, but also a means of building a type of cultural capital that is highly valued amongst
their elite peers – namely online popularity.
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Again, I end by offering a discussion around the types of challenges the curating exclusivity
work strategy bring to these influencers which includes a form of stigma they feel from other social
media influencers and consumer companies who do not consider them to be “legitimate”
influencers or workers. This is met with pressures to continue to present an elite lifestyle online,
with many of these influencers reporting how this can result in them making purchases solely for
the purpose of creating content and building an online audience. Although this is something they
can financially afford, it is arguably a form of labor that becomes repetitive and burdensome.
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CHAPTER TWO: HUSTLING
I meet David, a 28-year-old social media influencer born and raised in Los Angeles, on another
typically sunny day in the city. We are sitting outside a coffee shop located in Los Feliz, a relaxed
but upscale hillside enclave just a stone’s throw from the symbolic capital of the entertainment
industry itself, Hollywood. During our conversations David open’s up to me about the challenges
he faces as a social media influencer, “The work never stops. It’s impossible to keep up with
everyone else when I’m working full-time”. His comments reflect the situation of the majority of
participants I came to interview for this research, namely that influencing is not their full-time
profession, but rather they supplement this work with other part- and full-time occupations.
Furthermore, this inability to solely focus on creating social media content results in them finding
it challenging to develop the types of large online audiences critical for employment in this field.
Despite this, David, and another 22 participants I identified as being in this same context,
remained highly motivated, with all espousing a perspective that the industry would inevitably
offer them greater employment opportunities in the future, and that success is “just around the
corner”. This motivation, alongside their limited time and personal resources, led these influencers
to perform a work strategy that I term Hustling; a type of routinized labor process through which
they creatively employ the resources they do have in an attempt to compete in this labor market.
As I will come to show, however, this rarely leads to success, with these efforts of influencers like
David rarely leading to the types of success and full-time careers they aspire to achieve.
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What Types of Influencers Practice the Hustling Work Strategy?
From my data I identify a total of 23 social media influencers that perform a Hustling work
strategy. Certain characteristics map across these influencers, including their having a relatively
smaller online following compared to other types of influencers interviewed – ranging from 20,000
to 45,000, and an average of 31,000. They were also found to receive less employment
opportunities, with the average person soliciting only one paid advertising job per month. These
jobs were also found to pay less than those performed by other types of influencers, with this group
reportedly earning between $200 - $800 per job, an average of $350. Meanwhile, 5 of the 23
suggested that they had not received paid work in the past four weeks, but did state they had been
offered free products and services by consumer companies as an alternative form of compensation.
We can, therefore, understand those performing this work strategy as being the least successful in
this field, despite being the most populous group.
This raises the question as to why they practiced this work strategy, something that can be
explained by the types of resource these people held. For example, these influencers were similar
to those enacting the Curating exclusivity work strategy in that they did not enter the market during
its inception, but rather became social media influencers between the years of 2016 to 2019. This
is a period in which audience growth rates had slowed on Instagram and therefore obtaining a
large-scale audience had become a more challenging process. They, equally, did not have the
advantage of extensive personal wealth as identified amongst those in the chapter prior. Instead,
this group predominantly work secondary jobs in order to supplement their social media work,
while accepting this extensive work strategy following their shared belief that they shall someday
transition to becoming full-time influencers.
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The Hustling Work Strategy
The Hustling Work Strategy can be said to include four main labor routines: 1) Purchasing
clothing, photography/video equipment, and other goods in order to create high quality social
media content, before then returning these items to receive the money back; 2) Actively soliciting
and trading their labor with friends, family members, and even strangers to help them in the
production of their social media content; 3) Collaborating with other influencers in a similar
position as them in a shared attempt to utilize Instagram’s underlying algorithms for their
collective benefits; and 4) Conceptualizing and practicing types of routinized work through which
they attempt to solicit forms of temporary work from consumer companies.
Through these four practices, this population were able to achieve an average of one paid
job per month; however, they were also found to hold a share world view of the industry that this
work strategy would inevitably lead to greater success in the labor market in the future.
In the meantime, however, the strategy was found to create unique challenges for them,
that included: having to perform secondary jobs, and therefore working extensive hours, in order
to supplement their influencing labor; having to mediate a work/life balance around this, with most
discussing the psychological toll of practicing a continuous work strategy; and relatedly,
negotiating the impact this work strategy has on their relationships with close friends and family.
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Shop Returns
A key aspect of being a social media influencer is the process through which you are able to exhibit
consumer goods to large online audiences. For those looking to break into this industry it is
therefore critical that you showcase your ability to do so – therefore offering potential employers
an example of the type and quality of work you could provide them. One’s Instagram account
therefore become a portfolio of one’s skills in this area, produced through unpaid work. This
practice was found to be very common amongst these participants as they regularly created photo
and video content exhibiting products to their Instagram audiences, despite not being paid for
doing so.
However, whereas other types of influencers interviewed for this research were gifted
consumer goods, or had the financial ability to purchase them, the group of required alternative
means of accessing these often-expensive products on a regular basis. The key to which was the
commonly found practice of purchasing goods, using them to create content, before later retuning
them to get the money back. This was turned into a routinized labor practice and was openly
discussed by 19 of the 23 people I talked with. Perhaps offering the most detail on this practice
was that of Sharon, a 31-year-old influencer who aspires to be a full-time fashion influencer:
I’ll often get inspiration from influencers. I see the types of things they do with the
clothes and how they model them. Then I’ll try to put my own take on it. I need
clothes to do this, but no matter how much I buy I always seem to be lacking on
cool things to wear for shoots. So, what I do, and I know a lot of other influencers
do this too, is I’ll go to the store to buy something I like, use it for the vids [video
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content] and then return it. Sometimes just a few hours later, telling them [store
clerk] that it doesn’t fit or something… It gives me time to get the shot and content
I want whereas I really wouldn’t be able to afford it otherwise.
I ask Sharon how often she does this and when she started this process:
At this point it’s quite frequent, maybe once a week. I know how it all works and
what the return policies are on so many stores now… I’d have to say that I’ve been
doing it for about four years, ever since I started taking influencing seriously. At
first I was super hesitant because I kept feeling guilty for using these companies
like a personal wardrobe, but then it occurred to me that I’m actually giving them
free promotional content, so it’s really a win, win.
Another influencer called Sherry told me about the joy this work strategy gives her:
I feel like I’m gaming the system… You have to go to multiple stores because after
a while they start to work out what you’re doing and they may stop you returning
things. The big department stores don’t really seem to care though, so I’ll just keep
consistently using them all the time… It’s even easier to do it all online because
then you can return things without the embarrassment of doing it in person… I’ve
never been caught which gives me a bit of a rush. I like the feeling that I’m
confident enough to do something like that.
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Meanwhile, Trey, a 26-year-old influencer and master of business administration student at a
nearby college told me:
I have a friend who helps me out with it. He works at a camera rental store on
Melrose and whenever I need like the proper filming equipment he’ll hook me up.
He doesn’t really charge me for the rental, I just slip him a few dollars to help him
out. Obviously if anything ever happened to the equipment I’d pay for the damage
and to replace it. But he’s known me since we were kids so he doesn’t mind helping
me out. Without his help I wouldn’t be able to create this type of content [he
proceeds to show me a piece of video content he has shot on a hired video drone].
While purchasing and returning consumer goods and camera equipment appears a risky practice,
they were clear to state that the end result was worth this risk. This is illustrated in an interview
with Steven, a part time influencer who also works as a music talent manager:
It’s a risk because you might get caught and end up having to keep the item you
bought. Like imaging you went to Macy’s and bought a $800 Burberry coat. That’s
a lot of money to me, and to a lot of people, especially when you only haven’t got
full time [work]. Then you take it back to the store after using it and they refuse to
take it back, or they only give you store credit. Suddenly you’re down $800 and
there’re nothing you can really do about it. It’s going to take a long time to earn
that back either through your regular job or the small [brand] deals you might get.
So yeah, it’s a risk. But also, what are you supposed to do. I can’t just buy it myself,
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and I need hang with the other influencers who get this stuff for free… It’s more of
a risk that I have to take. It’s something I’ve come to live with.
Steven’s comments were further brought to life in conversations I had with two more participants
who revealed how they have gained extensive debts through their attempts to keep up with the
demands of the industry. Firstly, Jennica told me how she found it very difficult to return the
clothes she had purchased and ended up buying many things that she would not have done
otherwise: “It’s so hard to take it back to the store when you’ve got so many likes and comments
on a photo of you wearing it. It’s like validation that you look good in it, and I find it difficult to
want to then give up that piece of clothing”. Meanwhile, Cathy told me how this process had
become an addiction for her as department stores offered her store credit, enabling her to purchase
expensive items of clothing and furniture that she could not really afford on her salary as an
elementary school assistant teacher:
I hid it from my husband for a while because I believed in myself and that the items
would start to pay for themselves once I got more influencing work… I just thought
that I had to wrap myself in this world of luxury to be an actual influencer and if I
didn’t then I’d fall away. I’ve done both now, buying and not buying, and it seems
like my following doesn’t grow quicker either way… I’m glad I have it under
control now, but a part of me really wants to go back to spending like that again.
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Instagram Husbands
A second key aspect of this work strategy was a concerted effort to solicit and manage unpaid
labor from friends, family, and in some cases strangers. Such labor largely consists of taking
photographs and recording videos on behalf of the influencer as they pose or act in front of the
camera. This is a critical aspect of the production process and requires more skill than simply
acting a human tripod; with influencers teaching me of the importance of angles, lighting, and
timing in how their content is shot and recorded: “Content is king, remember. It all comes down
to this as the right angle can turn a basic shot into a masterpiece” Trey tells me while holding out
his cell phone and illustrating how to take a selfie photograph.
While the other types of influencers had the budget to regularly hire professionals to
support them in this work strategy, these influencers had developed a specific term for those who
help them free of change, namely Instagram Husbands. This name refers to the common practice
of training their partners in the art of photography for the purpose of helping them create content.
The concept of an Instagram Husband was understood and discussed by all participants
researched for this study. Malik explained this to me:
An Instagram Husband is what you call a partner who helps you create video and
photographs. You’ll see them about on the street in LA. I’m sure you’d noticed it
before, guys taking photos of their girlfriends to help them get pictures for
Instagram. But for influencers it’s like another level because you have to do this so
regularly. Like you go on a date and the partner is going to be expected to take
photos for the other person. They probably don’t know what they signed up for.
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Tina furthered this area of discussion by emphasizing how she even considers this when
considering her dating partners:
It’s important for them to be taking good shots. Could you imagine having a
boyfriend who didn’t know how to take good shots for you. You need to know that
these days, it’s like common decency. I wouldn’t go out with you if we didn’t know
how to take good photos of one another.
She continued to tell me:
I mean I could train them. Either way you’re gonna want to train them actually,
because everyone has their own style and the types of shots you like to get. They
need to learn that.
While Tina’s comments may appear dramatized, the importance of this unpaid labor in the hustling
work strategy it should not be underestimated, with these participants often suggesting that it
would be challenging to complete this job as a single person. “I honestly don’t know how you can
be an influencer without having a girlfriend of boyfriend” Ross tells me, before continuing:
It would be impossible. I mean I guess you could take a tripod with your
everywhere, but it would be such an annoyance. And you’d miss out on those
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spontaneous moments if you had to keep setting it. Plus you couldn’t record video
from anything but a static angle. It would be a nightmare!
Ten of the participants reported that they were single and did not currently have romantic partner
to perform this supportive labor. However, while the term alludes to strictly a romantic partner, I
found it to refer to a broader system of unpaid labor as performed by those close to the influencers,
whether that be partners, friends, or family. A number of influencers therefore discussed their
closest friends or family members as Instagram Husbands. This was noted in my conversation with
Freya, a 22-year-old influencer from Miami who moved to Los Angeles to, in her words, “Pursue
an alternative aesthetic for my ‘gram [Instagram content]”:
I would describe my best friend Kerry as my Instagram Husband. We spend all our
time together, so she’s always there to take photos for me. She says she doesn’t
mind it because I take some for her too. Whenever we got to a place we know that
it’s just routine to help one another get a few photos. She’s good at it too, she
doesn’t just take a couple of photos and say she’s done, she’ll keep shooting until
she knows I’m happy with it.
These influencers were found to employ a number of a tactics to be able to successfully recruit
this unpaid labor. More prominently this included exchanging the work of Instagram Husbands
for other forms of promised labor in return. This was perhaps most explicitly illustrated in my
discussion with Leon:
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My wife and I have a deal in that she helps me take photos throughout the year and
then I help her to file her taxes when it comes to tax season. She’s a self-employed
hairdresser so she has a lot to go through and it ends up being a lot of work. But I
don’t mind because fair’s fair. If it wasn’t for her help I don’t think my career would
get off the ground, so it’s the least I can do.
Others, like Adam, mentioned less openly acknowledged exchanges of labor, but similarly
understood that they were indebted for this supportive work:
I try to do an overweighted amount of housework just to make up for the support
that Isabella gives me. She works 9 to 6 so she’s always tired in the evenings, but
she still gives me the time to record or take photos if I need them after work or on
the weekends. It’s like the least I can do to make sure the dishes are done and I’ve
got most of our chores out of the way. We’re pretty good at sharing the workload
in our relationship.
While the practice of taking photos for these influencers was therefore predominantly exchanged
for other household tasks and favors, another prominent type of labor exchange emerged from the
data. Unlike other type of influencers identified in this study, these participants were found to
create relationships based upon exchanges of labor that often include helping one another with
content creation work. This was explained to me in conversation with Mila:
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It’s very common for influencers that are still working it out, like still trying to
grow their following and stuff, to try to help each other out in any way we can…
Me and this girl called Alia work on shoots all the time. We’ll arrange to meet on
the weekend or something and just go through a range of outfits until we have
enough content to post throughout the week. It’s a bit of you scratch my back I’ll
scratch yours. It definitely takes more time than if I was just doing it by myself, but
it’s also quite fun and I don’t really have any other way of doing it [creating
content] right now.
This culture of labor exchange within the hustling work strategy was found not to be limited to
content creation, however, but also extended helping one another get exposure on Instagram for
this content.
Playing the Algorithms
A recurring finding amongst participants in chapter two was their unwritten but widely practiced
routine of developing relationships with other influencers in order to gain exposure on Instagram.
This took the form of making friends and attempting to have photos taken with them as a means
of being seen by wider audiences on the social media platform. This was also found to be true
amongst the group, however, it took a much more explicit and openly discussed form. The practice
of sharing one’s Instagram networks and helping each other gain exposure was seen as a mutually
beneficial practice and something that could enable both parties to compete in this labor market.
Explaining this to me, Tina said:
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I’m in a group of six influencers who work together to try and grow all of our
accounts. We comment on each other’s photos, we like and share their content, you
know, just being supportive and helping to work the algorithms in our favor… We
have a set group chat in the direct messages of Instagram where we discuss how to
support one another and let each other know when we need something.
I ask Tina what form this support takes:
Well, there are a number of ways. The most common is simply liking each other’s
photos as soon as we post them. For example, one girl will post in the message chat
that she’s going to post a photo or video at a certain time, and then rest of us will
make sure to be there to like and comment on it right there and then. It helps the
algorithms if you do that. When you post on Instagram it shows your picture to 10
people who follow you. Depending on how many of those accounts like and interact
with it determines if the algorithm will then show it to another 100 people, or not.
So your exposure becomes really influenced by those first 10 viewers. By having
chat like this set up, we can guarantee that you’ll get at least 5 likes and comments
on the picture as soon as its posted. It helps us all out if we play our part.
Of the 23 influencers I identify practicing a hustling work strategy, 18 openly discussed being a
part of such reciprocal groups. As with Instagram Husbands, this common practice had developed
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a specific terminology in the industry and was widely referred to as “comment circles”. Helping
to further highlight how these operate was Milly:
Comment circles became super popular in about 2016 when influencers started to
try to game the system and work out how you can use the algorithms to your
advantage. I’ve had a lot of success from them because they help me gain types of
impressions [views] that wouldn’t naturally happen… One way we do this is by
commenting on one another photos. It doesn’t have to be much, just a quick phrase
or some emojis. It just helps with the algorithms by making the application think
that your content is good quality, funny, or whatever. Then it will be more likely to
share it with other people than if you don’t have. Obviously, that can then lead to
more potential followers.
Interestingly, unlike those performing the curating exclusivity work strategy who developed in-
person relationships with other influencers in order to have direct photos taken with them, this
body of influencers largely commonly never met these supportive networks in person. As Trey
tells me:
I linked with my comment circle through a friend of mine. His circle had someone
who wanted to join them, but they didn’t have any more spaces. So he linked us
together and said we should create our own. So me and this guy Jamie reached out
to another few people with similar followings and who create the same type of
content and we brought our own together… We’ve been doing it for about two
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years now and I’ve only ever met Jamie in person because we have a mutual friend.
We met at a party once. But the rest of them are just online friends who we haven’t
actually met in person.
Comment circles therefore acted as routinized and organized form of labor with the intended
outcome of helping members to develop their social media presence necessary for soliciting
temporary advertising work. Rather than this being seen as a competitive field, therefore, these
influencers maintained a culture of supportive and collaborative attitudes. As Sharon told me:
There is always going to be some kind of competition and jealousy in this industry
because we’re all trying to out-do one another in creating engaging content. But for
the most part everyone just wants to support each other’s art and see success from
each other. There’s no reason for me to hate what someone else is doing because I
should see it as inspiration to progress my own work too.
Meanwhile Kara told me:
I think there’s a supportive culture because we’re the only ones who really know
what this industry is like. We know how hard it can be to put yourself out there
online everyday and know that you’re going to get some criticism from time to
time. As we all know that feeling then I think we choose to go the other way and
actually support and cheer one another on. It’s a good thing and I like that we have
developed that as a bit of a community of creators.
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If these influencers were seen to be predominantly supportive of one another’s creative process,
and viewed the outcomes of comment circles as mutually beneficial, they were also found to
maintain boundaries around the expected level of work to be performed by group members. This
included those who were not reciprocating labor being reprimanded or asked to leave the group
altogether. Malik explained this to me:
There’s a level of expectation that you’ll help one another out in these groups. I
mean if you’re not going to be willing to even just like someone else’s photo, let
alone leave a comment or share it on your stories then what’s the point of being in
the group anyway. It’s just wasting yours and everyone else’s time… We did have
a situation like that in an old group I was a part of. There was just a couple of people
in there who were on for the ride and didn’t give back. Like they would be happy
to ask you to like their photos to get the exposure, but then would be too lazy to
help you back when it came to it. I think part of the problem was that there were
too many people in the group, like 12 of us. So it was hard to keep track of who
was doing what and you could just get lost in the mix. But to be fair it was also a
lot of work to keep up with it because you’re doing all your own work, and then
having to cater for like 11 us people. Anyway, we had a cut down and asked four
people to leave the group so it was more manageable and we were able to get rid
of those who weren’t contributing enough. It was a good move.
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Throughout these examples we can see the Hustling culture of these influencers as they work
tirelessly to create and distribute their social media content through first soliciting and then
exchanging their labor with additional actors. Doing so is a necessary aspect of their labor process
as they attempt to compete in a labor market consisting of influencers that hold far greater
resources than they do personally. As previously noted, this group were still found to be less
successful both in terms of generating online attention in the form of Instagram followers and in
gaining temporary employment contracts.
Seeking Work
A dominant finding from this research concerns the extensive employment precarity that the vast
majority of social media influencers experience. This was identified amongst both those practicing
the curating exclusivity and hustling work strategy who reported temporary, sporadic, and
inconsistently compensated employment opportunities. As previously highlighted, amongst the
former, this lack of work was a result of their reputation as discredited workers; however, for the
latter it came as a result of them lacking the critical resource necessary for employment, namely,
online attention. The majority of their work strategy therefore focused on developing their
Instagram audience in the hopes that this would then, in turn, lead them to be more successful in
seeking out employment opportunities. As such, paid work became something that these
influencers aspire to achieve, rather than something that was a regular aspect of their everyday
work. Speaking to this, Evra told me:
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Work comes and goes, but mainly goes, and rarely comes. It’s tough trying to get
any kind of work in this [industry] because there are so many influencers. I’d like
to be able to do this full-time and really enjoy the creative process without having
to worry about where the next paycheck is going to come from, but that’s not the
reality. At least not yet.
Similarly, Sherry told me:
I spent weeks approaching companies to work with many companies. I’d DM
[direct message] them, I’d email, send copies of my statistics, everything. But I
didn’t get one job in three weeks of trying. It’s like they don’t want to work with
you until you’re hitting over 100,000 [followers], but it’s just so hard to grow to
those kinds of numbers, and I don’t know if I’m going to get there for many years.
Meanwhile Mila said, “There’s this fetishization of micro influencers in the industry. But we don’t
get paid”. In “micro influencers” Mila is referring to social media influencers that are considered
to have a small following by the industries standards (approx. 5,000 - 40,000). Often-times these
influencers are highly valued as they are perceived as having a close connection with a smaller
audience; however, equally because it is not large, their labor is not considered highly valuable.
Compensation in the industry therefore tends to be judged upon size of audience, rather than any
qualitative measure of actual influence that these workers produce. The reasons for which were
theorized to me by Joe:
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They all want to show their bosses big numbers. Even though they espouse the
value of real connections with online communities, we all know that brand reps just
want to tell their managers how many people saw the commercial… They always
talk like they want to work with micro influencers, but when it comes down to it
the money goes to the same old people with the big followings. So, we don’t get
paid, even though I can guarantee we do a better job at engaging fans with their
products.
For the work that they were offered their compensation was often in the form of free products or
experiences, rather than money. Sean tells me, “They’ll give you a free nights stay in their hotel,
rather than pay you anything. It’s fun of course, but it doesn’t pay the bills”. Meanwhile Trey told
me, “I have to sell the free stuff they send me because else I don’t get paid”.
This lack of monetary compensation resulted in their having to perform additional jobs, with
influencing being reduced to a supplementary income despite the extensive hours and effort they
put into this profession. For many this included completing what they called “dead end jobs” that
don’t pay well, but offer a flexible employment schedule that allows them to create content at a
time that works best for them. “I’m just making ends meet by working for Uber. I need a job that
gives me time to shoot during golden hour and when I need to attend events” Kara tells me.
Meanwhile, Joe later told me:
I’m up at 5am to drive down to Long Beach where I work in a small factory. I drive
all the way down there to pack boxes for an Amazon dealer. It’s about an hour’s
drive just to get there and then more get home after because there’s usually traffic
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on the way back. But the job is only five hours a day and it gives me enough money
to live on and find time to take photos which is my real passion… My job at the
factory is just something that props me up and allows me to do what I want. I don’t
think that’s a bad thing because they get employees and I get to go home by 2pm
and work on what I love. It’s ideal right now, even if I don’t particularly like it
when I’m there.
This was iterated by Mari,
I turn up, I serve coffee, I go home. There’s no major stress, no thinking about work
after work. When I’m out of their I’m all about influencing. I love that about this
job [in the café], I can just switch off and focus on what I really love when I’m not
there. Other types of more office and career type jobs don’t give you that.
Many, however, viewed their employment situation in less positive terms. This included Adam, a
participant who you may remember had previously talked to me about how he attempts to complete
a lot of housework as a way of reciprocating the photo and video taking labor his partner completes
to help supplement his influencing career:
The work is never ending. I have Instagram [influencing], I have the store, and I
have the housework. It’s a cycle of going from one to the other, but only one of
them pays me, and really badly… Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for what I have
as the job sorts me out [financially], but I need to start making more money else
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it’s going to put strain on my relationship, and I have college loans to pay. It’s not
a joke…
I ask Adam if he has any plans to alleviate this situation, to which he replied that he sees
influencing as the way out, rather than cutting back on this type of non-paid labor:
It will start paying out at some point. I’ve been doing this for over four years now
and I have a really good strong following growing. I know that once it starts to get
over the 60,000 bracket I’ll get some real work and be able to start paying off some
of this debt. Right now I’m having a hard time because I’m living paycheck to
paycheck. I can’t even take my girlfriend out for a nice dinner or anything like that.
But it won’t always be like this.
I inquire into what Adam means by “real work”, to which he replied, “The real money contracts.
Like the types of deals that give you $1,000 - $3,000 to promote their products. Sometimes it’s
just over a few photos and you can hit it out in a few days. Once I get there I’ll be smiling”.
Adam’s optimism, despite his dissatisfaction at his current employment situation were a
recurring theme amongst these influencers; something that was met with another prominent
cultural perspective, namely that these people were relatively young and could spend their time
chasing ambitious goals of being an influencer as there was always time to financially recover if
it does not work out.
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The Culture of Work
Youthful Optimism
Those performing the hustling work strategy were the numerically dominant type of influencer
uncovered in this research, with almost 50 percent of participants matching their characteristics of
small online audiences, sporadic employment opportunities, limited personal resources necessary
for this profession, and performing the types of hustling labor as described above such as soliciting
unpaid labor from friends and family and purchasing/returning items of clothing.
Instead of seeking more stable career opportunities, however, these participants were
routinely found to highly value this form of work and continuously reminded me that they
themselves had self-selected into this profession, despite its uncertainty. This raises the question
as to why are so many people in the contemporary economy attempting to become social media
influencers? The answer to which is at least partly explained by the type of work cultures that have
developed around this industry. Amongst these influencers there remains a culture that I described
as one of “youthful optimism” as this population express high levels of ambition as they believe
this type of work is a pathway to individual prosperity, as well as a story they tell themselves that
if this profession does not work out, then they are young enough to financially recover from it.
This was first iterated to me by Joe, who told me:
We all [influencers] work in coffee shops to get by. That’s why it’s a young
person’s game, because we rarely have families who rely on us. We’re no different
from the actors or musicians in this city, just another type of struggling artist… I
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wouldn’t be doing this is I had any kind of commitments, it’s just because I’m
young and always have the coffee shop job to support me, so why not go for what
I want.
Similar sentiments were iterated by Jody, a social influencer with 25,000 followers, and creates
content related to her passion of arts and crafts. Unlike the majority of influencers, Jody did not
rely solely on part-time advertising labor, as she also sells her personally made pottery through
her Instagram account. However, she informed me that this income remained sporadic, and that
her real passion lies in helping to promote other artists, while being paid to do so:
My dream situation would be to offer small craft makers an audience. So if I build
up a following I’ll be able to share their art with the world and help them grow.
That will go along with selling my own things, but I don’t want it to be all about
me, I want to be able to grow the overall community… Right now that’s not that
possible because I haven’t got the type of following to justify charging artists
anything more than a small fee of about $50 per post. That’s not enough to live on,
but it’s part of the way there. I’m sure I’ll expand and be able to do this full time.
While Jody painted a picture of a natural progression to this aspired work context, she later told
me about the challenges she has faced in achieving this:
I’ve been going in circles for about 18-months, just not as much progress as I was
getting at the start. In the beginning it was quite rapid, I gained the first 10,000
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follower slowly over two years, but then the next 10,000 was over the space of
several months. I think the momentum just grew and acted in my favor. But like I
said, it’s been stagnant for a while… I’m close to being able to make a full-time
living from this, but not quite there. I need to work out what will help me.
Jody’s comments reflect a common finding amongst these influencers, namely that they perceived
themselves as being close to making a full-time living from this profession, and secondly that they
will inevitably get there. This optimism was iterated in my discussion with Sharon when she told
me, “I can feel that I’m going to make it, that this will be my career”. Similarly, Tony said, “It’s
just time that’s stopping now, it won’t be long until I’m on the bigger contracts and working the
brands I want to”. Meanwhile Kerry said, “When I’m able to pay my rent through influencing I
think that’s when I will consider myself and influencer. I think that will be about April next year”.
Interestingly, Kerry’s comments come shortly after she shared with me that she has not had paid
employment as an influencer in over two months, and is finding it challenging to avoid being
compensated with free goods and services rather than monetary income.
Whether or not we consider this optimism as a sense of false expectations, what is
important is that this shared cultural belief in the inevitable prosperity that will emerge from their
labor. This enabled them to view their current precarious employment context as psychologically
manageable as it was framed as a necessary steppingstone towards a better financial situation. This
is something also found in this person’s research which she called “aspirational entrepreneurship”.
Not getting paid to do what you love. I add to this by noting how this is supported by two further
mental models.
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Related to, and further supporting, this belief, were two further mental models: 1) That the
achievement of prosperity can be numerically measured, with developing a larger social media
audience the determinant of success; and 2) That failure to “make it” should not be a concern, as
they are young enough to recover and still live stable, secure lives in the future.
Measuring Success
For many of these influencers, it was believed that the main barrier to employment stability was a
lack of Instagram followers. As Milly told me:
It’s all about the numbers, that’s all the companies want to see. If you have a big
enough following then they come to you, not the other way around. I’d say you
need at least 100,000 followers to be in that position, so I’m a bit of a way off. But
I’ll get there for certain. It just takes hard work and consistency. 100,00 is what I’m
going for.
This conceptualization employment being dependent upon follow count was also shared by
Sharon:
I can understand why brands aren’t falling over themselves to work with me right
now, I really can. They want proof that you can reach a big audience and make an
impact on their sales. What the easiest way to do that, go for the people have the
biggest following… I think that to be taken seriously I want to be at about 80 to
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100,000. When you get to that point then it’s hard to say that you won’t drive sales.
And that’s when you’ll get work.
Joe also expressed such views, while also criticizing a broader system for creating this context in
which he focuses on numbers as a marker of employment success:
The brands say they want depth, but they can’t sell depth to their boss. It’s hard to
prove that an influencer and actually influences people to buy things. So even
though micro-influencers could have a better relationship with their followers, none
of that really counts. All that matters is how many people you have following you
because the brand managers can use that data to show to their boss that people are
seeing the product. So for us, and the people who work at these companies, depth
doesn’t matter, it’s about numbers… I’m not there at this point in my career. Yes,
38,000 followers is good, but there’s a lot of people around that number. I want to
get to at least 150,000 so I can start demanding real wages.
It is hard to argue with Joe’s comments, as a relative lack of followers amongst this group did
appear to impact their ability to regularly gain employment contracts. However, as can be seen
with those practicing the curating exclusivity work strategy, numbers are not the only determinant
of employment opportunities, as this population had large followings but sporadic employment.
Rather, for this group, numbers act more as symbolic measure of their progress as they attempt to
make it in this industry, regardless of whether or not this would bring them success. This included
their follower count being something that is easy to consume, compare, and enabled feelings of
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optimism as it appears to be something they can have control over in a broader labor context filled
with uncertainty.
Young Enough to Make Mistakes
A second mental model that helped develop the types of optimism found amongst this population
was a belief that they are young enough to make mistakes and still have time to recover from them.
This perceived support blanket minimized their perceived risk in entering this labor market and
helped further establish a belief that their current precarity is not forever. In explaining this to me,
Tina informed me:
Worst comes to worst I’ll just get a corporate job and suck it up for a few years to
make some money. If it doesn’t work out with influencing, which of course it may
not, then I’ll do a job I don’t really like and stick it out. But at least I can tell myself
that I tried and had fun trying.
Similar statements came from Jody:
So many people never try to do what they want to do. This is what I want to do and
I’m not scared to try and make it work. I put everything into this job and I believe
I’ll start finding more work soon. The only way is up really as I don’t have a lot of
work right now. So how can things not get better?
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She later continued:
I can’t imagine myself not doing this job, but if I need money then I’ll just go get
a regular job and then try something else. I just don’t want to be doing something
basic like everyone else. You know, stuck in that 9-5 routine. So if influencing
doesn’t become my thing, then I’ll go onto something else creative next.
Ivan, meanwhile, framed his ambitions of being a full-time social media influencer with that of
the American dream:
My parents came here from Russia with the stereotypical American dream mindset.
They have the belief that you can do anything you set your mind to. I always find
it funny that they call it an American thing to think like that because its people from
other countries that think that way, and bring that mindset with them… It’s
something that’s come down to me and I don’t have much fear of failing. As long
as I work hard enough at it then I’ll make a success of myself… I remember my
mom telling me when I was a kid to dream big while you are young because then
you’ll have time to dust yourself off and go again. I feel responsible to her to live
that out because they did it themselves and it worked out. They came with very
little and now they are comfortable, they have friends, and they have a house here.
Throughout this research it became clear that the precarious experiences of this group was
supported by a particular culture of work that allowed this population to rationalize their
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participation in a labor market that does not reward them. While this was found to create an
acceptance of precarious economic conditions, it would also be wrong to characterize these
workers as unhappy and mindlessly accepting a system in which they largely work for free. This
includes them describing their work as creative, fulfilling, what they want to do, and a form of
labor in which they feel as if they are at the forefront of highly valued forms of popular culture. If
they did not position precarity as their primary concern in performing this type of work, it raises
the question as to what other types of challenges do these people face?
Challenges of the Hustling Work Strategy
Maintaining a Work/life Balance
A major challenge that presented itself while completing the hustling work strategy was the ability
to maintain a healthy balance between their work and life commitments. This included 19 of the
23 influencers stating that they feel continuously overworked and that the profession negatively
impacts the relationships they maintain with friends and family. Most common amongst these
complaints was that the suggesting that maintaining a full or part-time profession alongside their
influencing labor resulted in little time for socializing; and, when they were able to spend time
with friends and family, there remained a mental pressure to take photos and record content to
share with their followers – in essence there was no true escape from their work. This was perhaps
best described to me by Mo, a 27-year-old influencer originally from Chicago who makes content
related to make up and beauty tips:
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It was my cousin’s 18
th
birthday about two weeks ago and I remember spending
the whole time thinking about either how I could ask people to take photos of me
in my outfit, or how I was wasting time away from spending the day recording reels
[short videos] and growing my audience on Instagram and TikTok. I’d taken the
day off my normal job [Mo is a restaurant hostess] especially to be at the party that
day. It was a big day for him, you don’t turn 18 every day. But all I could think
about was [influencing] work. I know that’s not healthy, but it’s something I
constantly struggle with. Being able to say no to work.
While Mo’s comments are perhaps indicative of many other types of workers who find it difficult
to separate work from family time (Land and Taylor 2010; Lewis, Gambles and Rapoport 2007;
Zivcicová, Bulková and Masárová 2017), what is interesting about this group is that they are not
guaranteed income for this labor, and that they actively attempt to recruit supportive labor practices
from friends and family to be able to perform influencing during a time that is socially bounded
as one of leisure. For example, Mo’s comments mention how she is continuously looking for
people to help her complete her work while at a family celebration. This was also discussed by
Christopher who told me: “When I’m out with my girlfriend it always photo time. She helps me
out a lot, and sometimes her friends will take photos of us together too. It’s always part of how we
spend time together”. Meanwhile Sharon told me:
Later tonight I’m going out with my friends. We’re just going to a hotdog bar in
the Arts District and then to a few of the brewery bards around there. Nothing too
big. When I’m there though I’ll be documenting our night out and telling my
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followers what we are up to. You have to be careful to post only after you’ve left
because you don’t want some creep coming along to where you are because they’ve
seen you posting it online. But, yeah, I’ll be making content tonight. My phone is
always in my hands and I kind of expect my girlfriends to help me with it at this
point, and they’re happy to do so because we’re very supportive of one another.
While Sharon reports that this request for labor from friends does not negatively impact their
relationships, the majority expressed how this created many relational tensions. This was shared
to me by Evra who said:
Every morning the first thing I do when I wake up is check my phone to see how
my content did overnight. There’s often a different audience that follows you in
Asia, so they see my posts at different times and that mean I get a lot of contacts
during the night. But if I’m honest the next thing I’m thinking about is the content
I’m going to make that day and how I’m going to fit in a golden hour shoot or
something around my work [Evra works part-time in a discount shoe store] and
also who is going to take those photos. I can do it myself with a tripod, but it just
takes so much longer. So I find myself strategizing when I can ask my girlfriend to
take them for me. I have to ask her nicely because it’s a hassle for her and she
doesn’t love doing it after work, so I have to make sure I ask her at the right time.
I ask Evra if this ever causes challenges in the relationship, to which he replied:
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Yes, I would say so. It’s really bad when I think about it because she’s so good at
making time for us and organizing cute date nights for us, but I’m always thinking
about what I should wear so I can take a good photo when we’re out together. And
she is always the one to take those photos… it’s not really something we talk about,
but I know that it upsets her that I think this way. Probably because she is more
worried for me that I’m not living my best version of myself and being in the
moment, but maybe also because it makes her feel detached from the moment too.
I’m not sure.
Similar findings came during my conversation with Joe:
I put a lot of pressure on my sister to help me with editing my photos. She does as
a career so she’s so good at it. She doesn’t want to charge me for her help, but at
the same time I have a lot of editing that needs doing. So we are in this constant
middle ground of her wanting to help me because she knows I can’t actually afford
to pay her, but I also need to ask her to do so much. It’s not good so I’m trying to
learn to edit like her, but for now [the relational tensions] it’s not great.
These relational challenges often created a mental toll on these influencers as they faced the
pressure to maintain the level of content production in order to stay relevant in this labor market,
but also desired to respect the boundaries of their relationships with friends and families. As Mikey
told me:
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If I’m not making stuff to push out then I know I’m falling behind. There is 500
hours of video content uploaded to YouTube every minute and over 1,100 photos
to Instagram every second. Literally an endless supply of people doing things on
the internet, so you have to churn out that content to be noticed… I realize though
that it comes with a costs because I never truly see my friends anymore. I’m either
working [as a freelance copy editor on Fiverr.com], or I’m creating content, or I’m
at industry events, so I don’t find myself making time for my actual friends. You
know, like the one’s I grew up with. That’s so bad because I feel some of them
drifting away.
Some influencers reported taking steps to alleviate these work-life challenges, many in
collaboration with those who’s relationships became strained from their work strategy. Most
commonly this involved setting clear temporal boundaries around social time, and taking steps to
avoid one’s phone use. Milly described the form this took for her:
When I’m with my parents I’m with my parents. I leave my phone in the car and I
don’t look at it until I get back ready to drive home… They were getting really
upset at my inability to focus when I’m spending time with them, so we sat down
together and made a choice to put in this rule. I think it’s been great so far.
In a similar vein, Cara told me:
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My boyfriend and I have what we call “phone free Fridays” in which we just switch
off for the whole day. Last week we drove to Malibu and spent time hiking, no
phones and no work for either of us… It’s only been a few weeks of this, but him
and I really need that time together to just be a couple.
For the majority of these participants, however, relationships with friends and family became
strained as a result of their influencing work strategy. All of which reported that this caused them
personal mental and emotional tolls, but equally only two suggested that they would consider
ending their career as an influencer as a means of alleviating this pressure. Rather, as with their
beliefs in a bright future in terms of their employment, these participants held onto a perception
that once they become successful in this industry then these challenges would alleviate themselves;
and that this imagined future was within touching distance.
Summary
Those practicing the hustling work strategy came to represent the majority of participants
interviewed for this dissertation. They are distinguishable by their unique work strategy that
features concerted efforts to create social media content in a cheap and efficient way. Their need
to do so is a result of their lack of resources necessary for this profession, such as a large social
media audience (by industry standards) and personal wealth to both purchase product or props for
their photos, and to hire wider industry professionals (e.g., photographers and stylists) to help them
create this content. As such, the work strategy was found to consist of actions to compensate for
this dearth of resources such as the widely found and discussed practice of purchasing consumer
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goods, using them for content creation, and then returning them. Such a practice had become a
routinized work form for the majority of the influencers as they enacted this labor on a weekly
basis. A second practice included soliciting friends and family to help them in the creation of this
content. More-often-than-not this materialized in the form of assisting with photoshoots and video
recordings.
The aims of these work practices were to create social media content for Instagram and to,
in turn, develop a larger social media following on this platform. As such, unlike the other types
of influencers, the work strategy of this group included very little actual paid work with consumer
companies. Instead, paid employment was found to be sporadic, with them reporting that they
perform on average only one job per month that was paid in the form of monetary compensation.
Those that did report having more consistent work stated that they were instead paid in the form
of consumer goods and services that, although they appreciated, were not considered “real work”
as this type of compensation could not help pay their monthly outgoings.
This resulted in a highly precarious employment condition as these influencers were found
the spend extensive amounts of time dedicated to their influencing work, but were not readily
compensated for their efforts. To compensate for this, these participants were found to complete
other types of part- and full-time jobs that helped pay their bills and enabled them to work towards
becoming full time influencers. Said jobs usually took the form of minimum wage positions in the
catering industry such as working in coffee shops or as servers in restaurants, but also included
forms of temporary work in the burgeoning online gig-economy such as working for Uber, Fiverr,
and Postmates.
While this level of economic precarity and extensive unpaid labor would not be welcomed
by many, for the hustling social media influencers they reported being happy with this position as
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they believed it to be temporary and enabled them to perform their passion in life, namely
influencing. Further longitudinal research following these influencers over time would be
beneficial to understanding if these expectations come to fruition, and if and why they did not for
certain people.
Despite, these influencers positive outlook, they also reported that their current work
strategy created unique challenges in their relationships with friends and family members. This
included being unable to separate themselves from the work strategy while with said people as
they were continuously looking to create content and request help in creating it. While some had
developed boundaries within these relationships to alleviate these issues, for the majority they
considered this their biggest challenge and were unhappy at the current situation.
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CHAPTER THREE: MONOPOLY MAINTENANCE
I meet Callie at an art event that a friend of hers is hosting in Venice Beach, California. This is an
area of the city known for its alternative cultures, yet increasingly expensive property prices, and
has become a hub for young creatives from throughout State. Following the show, Callie and I are
able to sit down and spend an hour-or-so discussing her experiences working as a social media
influencer since the industry’s inception in approximately 2012. During our conversations Callie
describes herself as a “Veteran of the industry” as she considers herself to have been a part of the
first wave of people to have both entered and created this new profession. She also comes to tell
me how her early entrance to the field offered her two types of occupational privilege that continue
to reward her to this day: a large online audience, and connections with consumer companies. As
I could come to learn, these resources have allowed Callie, and other early entrants to the industry
like her, to create and maintain a form of monopoly over this labor market as they attempt to
control both where Instagram users attention, and solidify the long-term relationships they hold
with consumer brands. “I know where my strengths lay, and that’s in knowing the right people”
Calie tells me, before later informing me that:
You can’t just walk into this industry and expect work, you need to build up
those relationships with your followers and brands, and that takes time and
dedication… It’s continuous, you don’t work with someone and expect them to
come back to you, you need to fluff them a bit all the time.
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In order to achieve these aims, Callie, and a further 11 participants in the similar situations, had
come to develop a specific work strategy that I come to call Monopoly Maintenance. This chapter
seeks to both illustrate and evidence the types of work routines that constitute this labor process
and the potential challenges it creates for those enacting it.
What Types of Influencers Practice Monopoly Maintenance?
The social media influencing industry can be said to have emerged in approximately 2012. In this
year, Instagram was purchased by Facebook and as a result came to experience a period of rapid
growth and mass adoption in the United States. In my research I was able to speak to 12 people
that entered the profession during this period of growth and have been active participants in
developing the industry over the past decade. These individuals can all be considered part of the
Millennial generation as they are aged between the ages of 25 and 40 – a difference from other
types of influencers I spoke to who were more likely to be of Generation Z (currently 6 – 24 years
of age).
These early entrants to the field were also characterized by the extensive size of their
Instagram audience, with the average influencer having 230,000 followers (ranging between
170,000 to 550,000). This online attention is something these participants attribute to having been
able to piggyback on Instagram’s broader expansion during the previous decade. Such a following
has also helped develop another shared characteristic of this population, namely the amount of
temporary advertising work they are able to solicit. This included these 12 influencers describing
themselves as never being out of work as consumer brands continuously contact them for
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assistance in advertising their products. This dominant position enabled this group to therefore
demand extensive renumeration for their labor – including these particular influencers charging
between $750 to $8,000 for every paid advertisement they post on their social media accounts.
This is a sizeable figure as they also reported completing between one and four paid advertisements
per-week, year-round. Equally, these payments do not include the various additional types of
compensation they receive in the form of free services and products gifted to them on a daily basis.
As one influencer told me, “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t receive five to six packages
in the mail from people [brands] sending me products, hoping that I’ll work with them. They are
like bribes to help loosen a deal”.
The extent of their employment, and its proliferation since 2012, has resulted in this
specific group of influencers also having developed a large network of key actors in the industry.
Most prominent here is the long-term and often highly valued relationships they maintain with
brand managers, public relation organizations, and advertising agents. This distinguishes this them
from other types of influencers who were not found to hold such critical relationships. As I will
now come to show, this position of labor market privilege came to shape the work strategy of these
influencers as they developed tactics and routinized labor routines through which to maintain their
dominance.
The Monopoly Maintenance Work Strategy
The work strategy of Monopoly Maintenance is found to include two prominent aspects:
maintaining relationship with a large online audience, and maintaining relationships with
temporary employers. The first of which is achieved through forms of routinized labor that
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included photo and video content creation, and holding social interactions with hundreds of
followers on a daily basis in the form of direct messages and replying to comments written in
relation to their social media content. Meanwhile, these influencers also actively look to build their
relationships with employers through their attending and socializing at industry events on a weekly
basis.
Through this, these influencers are able to maintain their privileged position in this
temporary labor market and to earn substantial sums of money and other types of compensation
relative to other groups of influencers identified in this research. This is not to say that this work
strategy did not come without challenges, however, as I find that this population struggle with the
extensive amount of labor that is necessary to perform this work strategy, as well as a
psychological burden that comes with maintaining a social identity of being a social media
influencer.
Instagram 2012 – 2014, “It was like a golden ticket”
Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram for $1bn in cash and stock options in 2012 took the photo
sharing application into a new era. The parent company’s expansive digital infrastructure enabled
Instagram to grow at an exponential rate and to further the cultural legitimacy of the platform.
Over the next two years we would also come to see the antecedents of what has now become the
contemporary social media influencing industry, with previously unknown individuals being
thrown into the social media limelight and rapidly accumulating tens and often hundreds of
thousands of online followers. Trey was one of the first to point out the importance of this specific
time period and its influence upon his own social media influencing career:
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It was a special time back then. It was like the Wild West… We were creating this
new world that none of us [fellow influencers of this time] really understood. It’s
like we’d just stumbled upon this historic moment, and we were at the centre of it.
Trey’s comments were mirrored by Sasha, a 28-year-old influencer who specialises in promoting
fashion and lifestyle products to her Instagram following of over half a million users:
It was crazy! I was just a high schooler taking pictures of my daily outfits, then the
next thing you know I’m on the front row of Paris fashion week alongside people
like Naomi Campbell. The whole industry went crazy! We became like celebrities
in the space of a few months. Not that I consider myself a celebrity now, but really
that’s what we are.
Meanwhile, Sue, a 28-year-old former college basketball player who has made a name for herself
in the social media influencing industry as an expert on the Women’s National Basketball
Association, told me:
I’d say it was around that time of 2012 to 2014 or 15, when it started heating up.
The industry just went wild, and I was at the start of it…I’m not sure things work
like that anymore, or at least I don’t see it on Instagram. Maybe TikTok is where
you see it these days.
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These comments point to a collective understanding that this period of Instagram’s growth, and
their concurrent entrance to the field during this time, played an important role in their career
development. As with many industries, early entrants to a new market are able to garner certain
rewards and establish monopolies of resources, regulations, and relationships that are then denied
to later participants (MacDonald 1995). These particular participants reflect this in the context of
the influencing industry as they came to describe how their early entrance offered them access to
two critical resources necessary for success in this industry, namely that of: 1) relationships with
Instagram users, and 2) relationships with representatives of consumer brands and advertising
agencies.
Relationships with Instagram Users
Online attention is increasingly recognized as a highly valuable commodity in the Digital Age as
it becomes a dominant means through which people are able to promote ideas, values, and shape
cultural attitudes towards areas such politics, religion, education, and in respect to social media
influencers, towards consumer companies (Tufekci 2013; Zuili 2018). As Bhargava and Velasquez
(2021) argue, in the Digital Age new markets are emerging around online attention as it remains a
scarce resource with each person only having so much of it. It is within these markets that social
media influencers have come to perform an important role in the contemporary economy as their
work becomes primarily focused on obtaining this limited resource, before then selling it to
consumer companies who seek exposure in an otherwise crowded digital ecosystem. As such,
those influencers holding the most online attention are able to demand the highest forms of
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compensation as they have the ability to influence the purchasing decisions of vast numbers of
consumers.
While walking along the Santa Monica promenade on another sunny Los Angeles day,
Sarah explained to me how early influencers like herself often gained these large online followings
by chance:
I can honestly say I didn’t plan this, it just happened. I also can also say that I don’t
feel a bit guilty about it. So many people work hard to build their following these
days, but for me it just fell into place…For all of us at that time it was like that, a
golden ticket.
Continuing our interview, which she requested take place as she walked her dog, so as to improve
her “personal efficiency”, she told me:
It was just those early years, everything seemed possible if you were an influencer.
Like, growth was easy, being featured on the explore page was easy, getting
[employment] contracts was easy… there was even less competition with content,
like if you just posted a picture of your shoes that wasn’t terrible you get a ton of
followers… Ironically we weren’t even calling ourselves influencers back then, we
were just “Insta-famous”, as people called us.
The relative ease through this population gained their large online followings was later discussed
by Greg, a health and wellness social influencer originating from Boise, Idaho:
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Yeah, things were much easier back then. I mean they were hard in other ways as
we were making it up as we went along, but for the most part we could grow quick
[accumulate followers], and that’s one of the best things that can happen to you in
this kind of work.
All of participants interviewed for this study shared similar stories of how they had (often
unintentionally) grown a large online Instagram following in the early years of the industry and
how these online networks continued to pay them dividends to this day. As Sham, a 30-year-old
influencer who creates hair and makeup tutorials told me about her first year on Instagram in 2013:
I remember being at home and trying to explain to my Mom what was happening
to me [laughs]. You can imagine, right, how you would go about explaining that
you’re now an influencer to a lady who only got her first cell phone in like 2011. I
was trying to tell her that I suddenly gained have a massive IG following [290,000
at the point of interview] and I’m going to have a new job making online content.
To be fair to her, even I didn’t really understand how that happened back then
[laughs].
I ask Sham how she had been able to gain such an extensive online audience during this period:
I don’t know to be honest. I mean there was just so little competition back then,
there weren’t many people to follow if you went on Instagram. So any new user
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would automatically find you and you’d be away [gain followers]. All I know is
that if I hadn’t grown that early audience I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today,
and to be honest I probably wouldn’t have even considered this as a career.
As we can see from these discussions, these participants came to describe their success as being a
result of “luck”. A conventional sociological analysis may understand these comments as a way
of framing and making sense of a series of privileges that individuals may not necessarily be able
to see or conceptualize. This leads us down a path of analyzing said privileges and explaining away
luck as an analytical tool, rather than a real reality. However, the recent work of Saunder (2020)
leads me to push back on this perspective as he theorizes a separation between “chance” and
“luck”, arguing that the latter is an inevitable and real-world force that determines our lives in
conjunction with chance and privilege. As such, I do not dismiss these influencers claims of “being
in the right place at the right time”, as they appear to have made a profound material impact upon
their lives in a way that cannot be simply explained solely by privilege. This is something that I
will be further highlight in chapter three as I interview a group of participants that hold extensive
personal wealth and privilege that has not materialized into the types of employment success this
specific group of influencers have achieved, despite their concerted efforts to do so.
Explaining the outcomes of this luck in more detail, Carrie tells me:
I remember the day I really started to get big. I’d just posted this stupid picture of
me cutting up fruit for my breakfast. and then I went to the Post Office to drop of a
letter. I’d left my phone at home, but then when I came back to it I had about 20,000
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new followers. Somehow my photo went viral and I just kept growing a following
after that… By the end of that year I had over 100,000 followers… That led to me
having all types of companies wanting to do brands deals with me. It’s humbling to
looking back at it, but that’s what happened, I just became popular online and this
became my job… It’s definitely not that easy now, but back then if you even tried
a little you would just grow, grow, grow and the next thing you know you’ve got a
fan base you can attach onto.
As I would now come to understand, these influencers did not take this resource for granted, but
rather performed routinized labor routines through which to retain it.
Routinizing Relationships with Instagram Users
Content Creation
Having amassed an extensive online following, this body of influencers were found to focus their
efforts on maintaining these relationships. Speaking to Sally, a 29-year-old influencer whose social
media content focuses on gardening and horticulture, told me:
My job is just to keep what I already have going. At this point in time I have around
260,000 followers, which is more than enough to monetize and live from. People
tend to stagnate after a while anyway, so the job is just to keep up what you have
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and grow deeper relationships and engagement with your followers… it gets to a
point where quality over quantity matters most when considering your followers.
Furthering this, Shaun, a 31-year-old influencer who was born and raised in Los Angeles and
describes himself as “a stereotypical influencer”, told me of how these relationships are sustained
through a process of continuously creating content for his audience:
I really interact with my followers through the content I put out there [post to
Instagram]. They’re the judge of it and if they like it they keep following me, but if
I slip, then they’ll disappear. That puts a lot of pressure on you to constantly put
out content that you think people want… it’s not as spontaneous as it sometimes
looks, I’m always thinking about how they will interpret it.
I ask Shaun to explain to me what he means by disappear, and also if new people can “appear” as
a result of his content, too:
It means that they no longer follow you, they just lose interest in your content so
they unfollow. I lose followers all the time if I post videos and stories that they
don’t enjoy. Of course, I gain new people from that, and I actually I do. Like last
week I had a little push where I gained about 200 people in a single day. But
honestly, it’s more important to keep the old followers happy because they’re more
engaged with you and those are the types of relationships that you don’t want to
break.
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In order to achieve this, these influencers turned their content production into a routinized practice,
something that Katy informed me of:
It would be fair to say that my relationship with my followers is one hundred
percent based on the content I put out there. But it’s not just what I put out, it’s
about doing it on a consistent, big scale… Those of us in the industry don’t use
Instagram like typical users, we’re putting out like 13 pieces of original content a
day. You have to be organized and truly dedicated to the work if you want to be
able to keep that up long term… I have to in order to be in constant communication
with my followers because they want to know what I’m up to all the time.
Inquiring into how she’s able to create so many pieces of content (videos, photos, written text)
each day, Katy replies:
I’ve been doing it so long, it’s in my blood now. Like eight years or something… I
just know how to do it… I mainly post photos and videos on my stories. That might
include creating photos or videos using the Instagram camera, downloading them,
editing them through Photoshop app, which I already have built in pre-sets for [think
camera filters], and then re-uploading them up to Instagram. It’s a bit of a stress to
do it that way, but IG mess up the photo proportions if you add photos taken on your
actual phone camera. If I have photos that are going on my IG feed then I have a
whole other system in place, literally Excel spread sheets that I input data and follow
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a system. It covers everything from envisioning the photo, to styling, to coordinating
with photographers if I need one, to chatting about it with my manager.
I ask her if it’s always been this way, and how she came to develop this system:
That’s a good question. I’m not sure I can even remember. When we [other early
influencers] started out there weren’t any instructions on how to be an influencer,
so we were making it up as we went along and learning from one another… But
now I think everyone has a plan of how to make content quickly. You have to else
you won’t be able to produce so much and then you’d end up losing followers. You
have to be hyper-efficient to keep interacting with fans like this.
Similar statements were made by Joey, a 28-year-old influencer who has built up an audience of
125,000 followers through his regular positing of sneaker related Instagram content:
My content is super simple these days. I know exactly what to do to create it, so it’s
like a process I can simply do each day. The only thing I change is what I’m
creating. Within those boundaries I might make promotional content for a brand, or
I might tell a bit of story about my life, or discuss the business I’m trying to create.
I can mix it up, but the process stays the same.
I ask Joey why establishing this routine has been important for him:
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Well, because there’s less stress every day, I’m not guessing what to do each time.
I used to be like that, actually. But mainly because you have to be consistently
creating content or you’ll lose your followers… To be at the top of the game in this
industry you have to be pumping out content to maintain that user engagement and
there’s a lot of competition… So having a [formalized] way how to do it has been
really positive for me.
Direct Messages
Another way in which influencers are able to maintain their relationships with their followers is
through directly interacting with them through a direct message feature of Instagram. This feature
enables individual users to communicate in a way similar to that of text message, and therefore
understandably, influencers reported receiving hundreds of direct messages per day. While this
presented a challenge, it also presented an opportunity through which to hold more personalized
interactions with individual followers. In order to achieve this, the influencers have developed a
form of routinized work – something that Lily first informed me of as we sat in a crowded coffee
shop in Los Angeles’ West Hollywood neighbourhood. Having told me that she receives
approximately 80 Direct Messages on Instagram each day, I ask:
Interviewer: Wow, that seems like a lot. At least compared to what the amount that
I know my friends and I receive. How do you look to manage all those
conversations?
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Lily: Well, I’ve got a bit of a system down. I basically wake up in the morning and
the first thing I do is reply to ten messages. It’s not a ton, but it gets me started for
the day. If I do any more at that then my mind gets tired, and I can’t focus for the
rest of the day. Its alike a warmup.
Interviewer: Do you come back to reply to more messages at any point?
Lily: Yeah, every day I will reply to everyone. You have to if you want them to
keep following you and give you the engagement that you need for this work. I
theoretically I could stop, and maybe they wouldn’t care, but it’s not a risk I want
to take… So, what I do is I’ll batch them in groups of 15 after that, maybe like
every 2 hours or so. Obviously the first people I reply to end up replying to me
again, so it just accumulates and doesn’t really ever stop.
Interviewer: Do you ever take a day off where you don’t reply to people in this
way?
Lily: In reality, no [laugh]. It’s one of those things that you need to be on it every
day. It’s social media, taking breaks doesn’t work like that.
All 12 participants I identify as following the monopoly maintenance work process reported that
they reply to direct messages in a methodical process as means of maintaining their relationships
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with followers. Some, like Lily, preferred to batch these interactions, while others like Shaun
described how he replies to all his messages in one sitting:
I have to do it from 10am-12pm, that’s my rule. It’s part of my everyday kind of
thing, you know, like brushing your teeth, you’ve just got to do it. Replying to all
these crazy people is what I do for a couple of hours. And I mean some of them are
crazy, they send you wild things, but I know I have to reply to each of them because
they’re supporting my career… I find that I need to do it all in one go else I get
distracted, it would drive me crazy to know that I still have people to message back.
So, it’s a one-and-done thing, every day, even on weekends. And then I always
have some lunch after [laughs].
The establishment of systemized interactions as a form of work is an interesting finding that
follows wider labor scholarship around emotional labor in the service sector (e.g., Grandey 2003;
Hoschild 1983). For example, in her book Fast Food, Fast Talk: Service Work and the
Routinization of Everyday Life, Leidner (1993) highlights how fast-food employees are trained to
perform highly strategic social interactions with hundreds of customers on a daily basis. In doing
so, micro-level everyday interactions become a form of highly structured labor that is controlled
and disciplined by higher management for the purpose of profit making. Although influencers are
not directly managed per se, they have developed their own means of routinizing social interactions
in order to maintain the types of online relationships that are critical for gaining short term labor
contracts. What is interesting here, however, is that these forms of routinized social interactions
are not prescribed and enforced by a top-down management systems, but rather influencers
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regulate themselves into these practices as a result of the perceived consequences of what will
happen if they do not do so – namely that they will not be as valued on this labor market and could
potentially fall out of it all together. Further research would benefit from understanding how and
where influencers learn these narratives, the specific types of emotional labor they exert in their
interactions with followers, and how the ability of influencers to self-select the form their
emotional labor takes and how it is practiced, comes to shapes their experiences of said labor.
Comments
Another way in which these influencers maintain their large online following is through replying
to comments written underneath the digital media content they upload to Instagram. The process
through which they respond was found to be similar to that of replying to direct messages,
however, they also designed their replies in a way that would solicit follow-up comments from
these followers. As Katy tells me:
You want to be asking a lot of questions because your followers will likely reply
with another comment. That looks good for the algorithms as it makes it seem like
this is a popular piece of content that more people will want to see and talk about.
So you’re kind of doing two things at once, you’re generating those relationships
with followers, while also playing the game of the IG algorithms to gain greater
exposure. It’s super important.
Similar comments came from Sally who told me:
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I have to reply to all the comments as they come in. When I post a picture or video
I’ll set an hour aside to just do that. I want to jump on it straight away so IG thinks
it’s a hot image and will get it out there for me. It’s kind of a way of making sure
that all my followers see what I’ve posted and getting a bit more engagement with
them… At the end of the day being an influencer is all about generating online
engagement… Replying to comments is a must.
I ask Sally how this type of work compares to other jobs she’s held in the past:
It’s funny because everyone thinks that being an influence – I don’t really like that
name by the way, but that’s another story – is just an easy thing to do. Like people
expect we just go to nice coffee shops and floss [show off] on how good our lives
are. But the reality is that it’s doing random boring things like this, you know just
sitting there replying to 15-year-old kids who ask me what my favorite make up
brand is. And doing it over, and over, and over again.
As with the processes of creating social media content and replying to direct messages, these
influencers have created a routinized labor routine through which to respond to the large numbers
of comments they receive. This was performed in order to further solidify the types of relationships
with followers that are critical to maintaining their online attention. While their routines differed,
with some preferring to batch interactions, and others setting specific times to interact with users,
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the important finding here is that a large proportion of these influencers work includes their
performance of highly strategic social interactions.
Meanwhile, the finding that the processes through which they achieve this are self-selected
by the workers themselves highlights the important differentiation between what I call work
strategies, and other types of labor processes as identified in more traditional work settings such
as factory floors, offices, and restaurants (i.e., Braverman 1974; Leidner 1993; Marx1990 [1867];
Steiger and Form 1991). This includes them representing a type of individualized labor process in
which workers strategize and employ work practices that they personally believe are most
beneficial for the task at hand. Following the rise of an extensive freelance gig-economy, it would
be beneficial to identify patterns in the work strategies workers perform (such as they three
identified in this research), the forces that lead to these formations, the types of outcomes they can
produce, and potential points of intervention for encouraging both greater equality and
productivity.
Relationships with Temporary Employers
It’s often assumed that market actors call upon hyper-rational cost/reward calculations in making
purchasing decisions (Caselli and Ventura 2000; McCoy et al. 2012; Moscati 2007). This
theorizing is extended to labor markets where it is suggested that employers hire employees based
upon the single metric of their perceived return on investment relative to other potential hires (e.g.,
Kwok 2012; Kwok, Adams and Price 2011). Those working in the areas of economic sociology
have complicated these arguments however, in showing that economic transactions are the
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enactment of cultural processes that differ both across time and space and fail to follow a single
logic (e.g., Dobbin 1994; Weber 2001 [1905]; Zelizer 1989).
Amongst temporary labor markets, such as that of the social media influencing industry,
we would therefore expect temporary hiring practices to be heavily guided by cultural norms,
values, and the types of relational ties within this space. Speaking to this population confirmed
these expectations as I came to learn about the important role that specific types of relationships
play in the process of who gets hired in this industry. These were relations that the early adopters
were found to hold in abundance and resulted in them having little difficulty finding regular paid
employment. Exemplifying this, Katy told me of the labor market advantages she holds from
having developed long-term relationships with brand representatives as a result of her early
entrance to the field:
I remember meeting this guy call John when I very first started out, like maybe
three or four months after I started gaining traction. He was at this GoPro release
party, I think it was for the third model or something, and we just clicked straight
away. John is high-up in marketing at L’Oréal and at the time they were trying to
expand into social media advertising. I remember back then he knew how important
it would be going forward. I met him at a camera launch event which shows how
he’s always keeping up with trends. Anyway, we got chatting and I told him about
my recent growth and plans of what to do with it, we like became good friends
instantly. He invited me up to SF [San Francisco] to chat with some of his team and
they ended up giving me a six-month contract doing promotional work on a
skincare line they were launching. It was good work and we’ve continued doing
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projects together ever since… I know that if I came into the industry now, even if I
managed to reach the number of followers I have today, I would find it very hard
to get in front of someone like John. You’d have to go through your agent or
something, but for me he’s a real friend.
Katy’s comments reflect a common finding in that these relationships were often described as
being built on trust, mutual benefits, and a desire to support one another’s career progression.
Another example of this network privilege was illustrated by Grant, a men’s fashion influencer
who holds an Instagram following of approximately 475,000 people:
I remember the actual day that this all changed for me. It was back in March 2014
while I was working at a technology company in Downtown. I was relaxing as it
wasn’t a very stressful day, we were just waiting on feedback from a client or
something. But then I got this text from my girlfriend saying that [names brand]
had reached out to me wanting to offer me some money and free clothes to do
advertisements for them. Somehow they’d emailed her instead of me because at
that point I didn’t really promote myself as an influencer. I didn’t really know you
could make money from it, let alone that this kind of company would want to pay
me. So she forwarded me the email and when I read it I already knew it had
potential.
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Grant goes on to tell me about the work he’s been doing with this same company over the years:
I’ve been one of the company’s exclusive social influencers for 5 years now. It’s
like a guaranteed contract as they know I’ll bring them work and they’ll make
money from me. It’s a proven formula that we both gain from. I’ve actually been
super proud of how they’ve grown as a company too, it’s important that we support
each other in that.
I ask Grant if he considers these people as employers, colleagues, friends, or however he might
think of them:
I guess they are technically my employers, but I’ve never really thought about it
that way, or if I did, I’ve forgotten about it by now. Like, me and Liam, one of the
marketing heads, hang out all the time. I went to him and his wifes’ baby shower
about two weeks ago and he’s a real friend. With other people at the company we
aren’t as close, and probably less so with other brands too, but with Liam its
legitimately a lifelong friendship… If he changed company I know he’d take me
with him.
In a similar vein, Jay told me how his early entrance to the field offered him access to key figures
in the fashion world, and how these relationships continue to pay him dividends today:
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You know when we started there weren’t a lot of people doing this kind of thing,
so we were really in demand…I made so many connections back then without even
really trying. They would honestly reach out to me, but I know that isn’t the case
for newer influencers anymore, people have to chase the brands they want to work
with.
He later continued:
It’s like that, you know. I know these guys, we’ve been working on digital
advertising [together] for so long now. Them as the advertisers and me as the
content creator. I’ve even seen these guy grow in their careers, change jobs and we
still just keep working together…It’s dope because I have this group that I know I
will always work with as long as I keep producing the goods for them.
Kerry was similar in her sentiments of these critical relationships:
I was being chased by brands in the early days. We [influencers] were in the news
all the time, people were asking who these influencers were, we were turning up on
TV, so obviously the companies wanted to jump on that excitement. That time gave
me a moment to meet everyone I’d ever want to meet as an influencer… I have
friends in these companies that I can reach out to now and I’ll know we’ll do
something [work] together… Obviously there are new companies all the time, but
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it’s those established ones, the Sketchers, Reeboks, Nike etcetera that were in there
first and have the budget to continue working with me.
Further importance of these long-term relationship in gaining employment came from Greg who
told me how he rarely seeks new advertising work as her current networks provide her guaranteed
employment:
It’s been seven years of working with some of these companies, so by this point I
feel safe that I’m going to have work going forward. If anything, this work has
increased because they’ve grown as companies and now have bigger advertising
budgets and have learnt the return on investment of working with influencers… If
I ever want some extra work I just reach out to Martin in New York [employee of
a large multi-national advertising agency] as he’s always looking for people to work
with. I don’t really need it, but on a few occasions I’ve wanted to mix it up and try
some new brands. It’s more to get different social media content than it is that I
need the work.
Later in the interview Greg reveals to me that Martin is a long-term friend of his that she developed
when he hired her to complete temporary advertising work for his wife’s company. “It’s crazy to
think really because she’s [Martin’s wife] has grown [her company] so much since then. Like six
years ago or whenever she was just in her kitchen doing it, but now she’s really popping”. Greg
later hints to depth of these relationship he has with this advertising agent while discussing a
forthcoming travel plans to the East Coast:
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Yeah, I’ll probably crash with Martin and his family. They put me up whenever I
go over there…I like to help him out with a couple of gigs if I do. I get paid for
them of course, but it’s just more helping him out to meet his clients’ needs and
supporting his career.
These relationships provide forms of continuous employment that are not found amongst other
groups of influencers in this research – and therefore point to a type of network privilege that
produces some forms of security in a seemingly ad hoc labor market. Having gained access to
these critical resources, these influencers were found to have developed a highly repetitive labor
routine that focuses on maintaining these relationships.
Routinizing Relationships with Temporary Employers
Attending Events
A key space in which relationships with consumer brands are maintained is during industry events.
This includes it being common practice for these influencers to attend one to three parties, dinners,
or new business launches every week. Their attendance at these events benefitted them personally
as it allowed them an opportunity to create unique content and highlight their access to exclusive
events to their online followers. While, for those hosting the gatherings, inviting established social
media influencers offered a chance to gain online exposure as influencers promoted the brand and
products to their Instagram audiences. The events were also crucial moments in which temporary
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employers, in the form of in-house marketing professionals and members of advertising agencies,
would interact with influencers in a process that builds and solidifies these relationships. Katy
talked me through a recent dinner event she was invited to at a new store launch in Abott Kinney,
Venice Beach:
It was the usual crowd [names guests], we’re a bit of a community really, you see
the same people at the same events. I can always tell who is going to be there when
I get and invite. We actually have a WhatsApp group chat amongst a few of us
[influencers] who talk about whether or not to go to something, whether it’s worth
it or not… It becomes a bit of a pain when you go to them all the time. Like I know
it’s cool to get free things and food and stuff, but it’s gets a bit boring when you’ve
done it 150 times. After a long day, do I really want to be getting dressed up and
doing that? Not really. But at the same time, it’s my job, so I go to most of them.
I followed by asking why she sees it as important to attend such events:
Well, I know the brands are going be there, so I want to show my face, show support
for what they have going on. If I support them I know they’re gonna throw work
my way later on at some point.
Access to these events therefore acts as a key gatekeeper to building networks of temporary
employers. As these particular influencers had already built these connections they were routinely
invited and able to create a monopoly over access to these spaces and rewards. Meanwhile, their
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regular attendance at such events had become a routinized part of their work strategy and
something they sought to streamline. As Sham told me, “I’ve got it down to quite an art form these
days, I can probably get ready to hit up an event in about 25 minutes”. She then proceeded to
explain the challenges she experiences in that process:
Because I know who’s going to be there, I know that they’ll have seen my outfits
before, so it becomes a bit stressful to constantly be creating new fits [outfits] and
not get photographed in something I was wearing a couple of weeks ago. It’s O.K.
though because sometimes the brands we’re working with send us bits and pieces
to wear. Which, depending on if I like them, or not, I’ll try to incorporate into my
style. But we also have big wardrobes [laughs] so I shouldn’t really complain, I
always manage to make it work.
This was further iterated in my interview with Jamie, a very articulate and larger than life social
media influencer who specialized in men’s makeup:
If I’m going to an event I’ll always make sure I know the dress code and vibe of
the place. The last thing you want is to be too dressed up or down for something
like this. But once I’m there its game time, like I’m in full “influencer mode”.
I ask Jamie if he could explain to me what he means by “influencer mode”:
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Oh, I mean I’m like all smiles and friendly. I’m there networking and socializing
with friends. You know most of these people by now as we’ve been to a million
events together over the years, but I still make an effort and try to be “a person in
the room” [said while making air quotes with his hands].
Further pushing Jamie on this area, I ask him if he could talk to me about what his networking
process looks like:
Yeah, first thing I’ll do it make a lap of the room, just saying hi to everyone, both
influencers and brand reps. I just need people to know I’m there, in the room, like
I said. We just make small talk, but it matters because you’re having that interaction
and there’s a bond that grows when you meet in person regularly… After that I’ll
grab a drink, most of these things have a free bar. It just gives you something to do
with your hands if you have a drink with you. Then I’ll probably focus on whoever
invited me that day, like the brand manager or sometimes it’s the owner of the
company. I’ll keep it short, just enough that they’ll remember me, but short enough
that I seem exclusive and that I don’t need all their time. That’s important to getting
work, don’t seem desperate, let them come to you.
This form of routinized preparation and relationship building at events was discussed by all 12 of
these participants in a way that was not found amongst other types of influencers. Three told me
that they’d never really thought about it, but that our conversation made them realize that they
have a plan of action for attending these events, that it was a routine to them, and that their primary
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goal was to create and maintain relationships with the type of personnel that offer them temporary
advertising work. As Trey tell me, “Every Sunday I’ll sort out three outfits that I know I can wear
to events that week. It’s something I have to do to stay organized… It helps me stay relevant
[amongst employers]”. Meanwhile Lily said:
It’s a big part of my job. Just going there, showing up, and making sure I’m staying
friends with those circles… My husband and I have routine of him dropping me off
at the event and then he goes bowling with his friends. Then he picks me up on the
way back. He doesn’t need to as the hosts always pay for our Ubers for turning up,
but I like to see him straight after because I’m usually so tired of socializing with
industry people… We do this two or three times a week I’d say.
As we can see from this data, a key aspect of the monopoly maintenance work strategy is the
development of repetitive social interactions with key stakeholders in this industry. These are
interactions that are pre-planned by influencers for reasons of creating efficiency of labor efforts,
however the form they take are not tightly controlled by top-down managerial control as evidenced
in other types of service work (Leidner 2003). What we do evidence though, are certain structural
boundaries around these interactions (structure of Instagram, presence of industry events, certain
social networks) that both determine the form these interactions take and their role in determining
who is rewarded in employment contracts. This is something that the influencers are aware of and
have developed individual labor routines that align with these conditions. As such, while I suggest
that work strategies feature greater flexibility and worker enactment, there remain important forces
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that determine the form they take that are beyond the control of the individual. These are not the
only challenges that these particular influencers faced, however.
Challenges of the Monopoly Maintenance Work Strategy
A Never-Ending Work Strategy
One of the most common themes to emerge from my data was the unique form that the monopoly
maintenance work strategy took; most noticeably that it was not constrained to traditional hours
of work. Nine of the 12 influencers interviewed described their job as a “continuous process”. This
was iterated in my conversation with Steven, an influencer who specializes in producing social
media content related to surfing:
My wife hates that I’m always on Instagram. As soon as I wake up in the morning
I’m basically working because I’m checking Instagram and seeing what followers
have left me [messages and comments] and how my pictures are doing [statistical
data on number of views and likes]. It’s funny because my wife also checks her
Instagram as soon as she wakes up, but she sees what I do as something different.
I ask Steven to expand upon this later point:
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Well, when I’m on Instagram I’m focused, like I’m working and doing things that
I need to do. But for her, she’s just mindlessly scrolling and can continue a
conversation with me. She gets annoyed that I’m so intense on it.
Later in the interview Steven continued to describe this continuous work strategy:
It’s like that until I go to bed. Like many people I’m somewhat addicted to my
phone and on Instagram way too much. But it’s different in that I actually have to
look at my phone as my job. Again, my wife hates this because we’ll be in a
restaurant or something and I can’t switch off at all. Mainly, because I’ll probably
be taking too many photos of what we’re eating and stuff, and also because when
I’ve then posted that stuff I find it hard not to be looking at how it’s doing and
who’s liking it.
It was not only Steven who described these extended work hours:
There are always messages to reply to when I wake up. Companies wanting to book
you, emails from managers and photographers. But the industry doesn’t have a set
schedule, like there’s no etiquette or expectation of when you shouldn’t and
shouldn’t send each other messages. None of my followers will think, “oh its late I
bet he’s relaxing at home with his girlfriend now, I better not message him”
[laughs]. And when they do it takes some real discipline to switch off and not reply
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as I should do. Or even thinking about tomorrow’s photo shoot or some new
content. It’s always there.
These comments came from Terry as we sat at a bar in a Soho House in Malibu. Terry had very
kindly offered to show me the venue as he works as a brand ambassador for the company and has
exclusive access to be able to create social media content at the premises at his discretion. During
this moment he emphasized how access to these luxuries can often conceal the amount of labor he
puts into his work:
Soho House is a very exclusive place, we all know that and I know I’m lucky to
have access to it. Even if just to have meetings like this one. But what people don’t
think about is that this is a job, I’m only here because I offer the company
something. When I’m not socializing and being good to the marketing manager
then I’m taking photos and videos and everything. Don’t get me wrong, I love it,
but it’s work… Remember this is only one place too. While I’m here as often as
they are a regular employer, I also have so many other places to visit to make
content for my followers.
At the end of each of my interviews, I asked the influencers if there is anything they wish the wider
world knew about their work and the social media influencing industry. Their answers were
routinely two-fold: 1) They wished that people would recognize influencing as a legitimate work
form; and 2) They wanted to highlight the mental health toll that can come from this profession as
a result of not having set working hours and being able to “switch off”. This particular type of
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influencer were as consistent in these answers as all other participants interviewed as they
expressed that their work strategy was one of continuous labor as due to the potential for ever-
more online interactions. As Terry told me: “Instagram never closes, there’s always people online
around the world. People who want your attention. You can’t just put up a ‘closed’ sign”. While
Joey said: “My life is on Instagram, and my life never stops so I have to continuously post it. It’s
not that anyone is telling me I have to, but I know that followers have such short attention spans
that I have to keep showing them to stay relevant”.
“Being” an Influencer
A second challenge these influencers were found to experience was a psychological burden around
the identity of being a social media influencer. This relates to the two pain points mentioned above,
in that holding the title of influencer often comes with negative connotations as their labor is not
understood as legitimate or “real work”. Perhaps most passionately to speak about this was Nigel
who told me about his experiences of being an influencer when interacting with his family:
I’ve always been the one of my siblings to work from a young age. As soon as I
was able to I was working in this shoe shop near my house just boxing up shoes
and taking sizes, nothing too strenuous, but it was a job. I got paid next to nothing,
but I think my Mum was especially proud of me because I was doing it on my own
and that’s not something my other siblings did. But when I told them I’m going to
try to take my influencing to the next level and do it full time they were really upset.
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I really wasn’t expecting that reaction from them because they’re usually really
supportive whatever I want to do. But when it came to this there were real questions.
I ask Nigel if he could explain this reaction in more depth:
My sister was experiencing a lot of problems at the same time all this was
happening. She’d just got out of this abusive relationship and my parents were
becoming super protective of her. We didn’t know that she was in that position so
as soon as they found out they stepped in and took her out of it. I’m not sure if they
transferred those feelings onto me and were just being overly protective, but either
way they clearly didn’t see my career as solid and something that I should be
jumping into.
While Nigel’s situation suggests his family’s response could have been unique to him, he was not
alone with eight participants stating that their families were apprehensive, and in some cases
outrightly against, their work as influencers. As Sham told me:
My Mum didn’t talk to me for about a week, she was so angry at me. I think she
had this image of me being half naked online all the time and just getting money
because guys would gawp at my photos. I was just as angry at her that she thought
that’s what I wanted my career to be, and that she didn’t even seem interested in
asking me about what I do. Like she never wanted to hear about my brand deals
with Gucci or Louis Vuitton, in her eyes I was just showing my body online.
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Meanwhile Danny told me:
My brother gave me a lot of mixed messages about it when I started influencing. I
think he was just worried because I had this good career going in the interior design
company and he thought I was throwing away something with potential…Now he’s
fully supportive though as he sees the kind of experiences I’ve had from doing this.
It wasn’t solely family members that gave these influencers doubts about their career choices
though, with all suggesting that they have witnessed negative media coverage of their careers, even
some of them being mentioned in press themselves. This is something Kerry told me about:
Honestly, it makes me sick how we’re always put in this bad light. As if we are
looking to steal something for being popular. I hate it most when it’s directed
towards younger kids, like influencers who are only 16 or 17. Why would they want
to waste their energy focusing on bringing down these kids who are just trying to
make a career for themselves.
Much of this negative media coverage has shaped common perceptions and resulted in hostile
interactions from often unknown members of the public. As Jamie told me:
I remember like a long time ago, like maybe five or six years ago now, I was at a
friend’s birthday party at a café in K Town [Korea Town]. It wasn’t anything big,
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just a few friends, a bit of cake provided by the place, and some tea. Anyway, this
young girl who is working there recognized me from Instagram and she starts
telling her older boss who I am. I think she was hoping he’d be excited that there
was an influencer in the café and that I was taking photos that might be shown to
my followers. But the guy running the place came over to the table and asked me
to leave. Like straight up just said I had to go. I was in shock when he said it and
didn’t really know what he meant. I mean have you ever just been asked to leave a
place, it’s not really something you know how to react to. The guy was just saying
all this about us just wanting free food and service from his place. That we wouldn’t
pay at the end and would give his company a bad name. We ended up staying
because the guy whose birthday it was went hard back at him and it turns out his
mom knows the owner. It got weirder by the second. But the point is that this is
what I mean when I say I get reactions from people when I tell them what I do. It’s
not always that bad, of course. And I know it was a while ago, but I honestly
wouldn’t be surprised if that were to happen to me today just with the amount of
bad press that surrounds us.
The participants were resounding in wanting to inform me of the psychological impact of not
having their work efforts legitimized by the wider society; despite the increasingly important role
they play in contemporary consumer capitalism. To protect themselves from this, many stated that
they downplay their career choices and would rather say that they work in marketing, than
identifying as a stand-alone social media influencer. Meanwhile others spoke about their hope for
the future as they see the industry becoming increasingly legitimized as a work form amongst
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younger generations (see Awin 2019 for research confirming these suggestions), although also
anticipated that they would always face some form of negative connotations as a result of the
privileged life that many influencers lead.
Summary
Data from this chapter reveals the emergence of a specific work strategy that I come to term
monopoly maintenance. The types of people who perform it were found to be early entrants and
builders of the social media industry we know today. From this work strategy they have been
successful in gaining secure and consistent work conditions that enabled them to generate
significant forms of personal income and wealth relative to other types of influencers. Their ability
to do so results from their access to two critical resources necessary for success, namely a large
network of Instagram followers, and personal relationships with brand representatives. Access to
these resources in turn came to guide this work strategy, as these workers primarily sought to
maintain these relations as way of cementing the dominant position they experience in this labor
market. They were found to achieve this through highly structured labor practices that enabled
them to mediate relationships with thousands of online users, and to sustain relationships with their
temporary employers. This contrasts the often ad-hoc image of this temporary labor market which
from the outside often appears highly precarious and without defined organization or structure.
New challenges for this type of worker were also identified these participants noted the
psychological toll that can come through: 1) completing what they describe as a never-ending work
strategy caused by the amount of social interactions that are possible on Instagram; and 2) the
feeling that their labor is not seen as a legitimate work form within the wide public.
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CHAPTER FOUR: CURATING EXCLUSIVITY
Ross is a 24-year-old social media influencer that has chosen to create social media content around
his main passion in life, namely health and fitness. His photos and videos, which he posts daily to
his Instagram account, are to a high editorial quality, while the content he posts reflects an
economically privileged background as shares images of himself completing workout training
session at luxury resorts, on exclusive beaches, and in private gyms around the world. The lifestyle
he portrays through this account appears to be one of extreme wealth and opportunity as he also
wraps himself in expensive sportswear, attends high-class restaurants, and appears not to work but
constantly travel and document his life for his 90,000 online followers. In this research I came to
meet a total of 15 social media influencers like Ross, those that hold extensive personal economic
wealth and choose to spend their monetary privilege attempting to grow large social media
audiences. Unlike other types of influencers in this research, however, these concerted efforts to
gain online attention were not solely for the purpose of competing in the temporary market, but
also because it afforded them a highly valued form of cultural capital within their peer group. As
with other types of influencers from my research, the specific motivations and resources of this
particular group led them to perform a distinct work strategy, in this example being that which I
term Curating exclusivity.
The Types of Influencers that Practice Curating exclusivity
My data reveals a specific type of person that comes to perform the curating exclusivity work
strategy. In this research I was able to speak to 15 of such individuals, all of whom came to share
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other distinctive characteristics. Firstly, this population were more diverse in age, ranging from 18
years to 33 which placed them across two generations of the Millennials and Generation Z. They
were also found to hold extensive levels of personal wealth that they had inherited as a result of
their membership within elite families, or in two cases from having amassed a large income at a
young age through forms of entrepreneurship. This privilege was reflected in the types of
neighborhoods and establishments these influencers wished to host our interviews in, with
meetings organized in high class restaurants, expensive coffee shops, or in one instance at a
poolside cabana on the top floor of a luxury hotel.
These individuals also held a shared ambitions of developing large social media audiences
for the dual purpose of finding advertising work and gaining the forms of cultural capital that come
from having a prominent online following. This is something they sought to achieve through
utilizing their personal wealth – a process that includes series of unique labor practices that
collectively constitute the curating exclusivity work strategy.
The Curating exclusivity Work Strategy
The curating exclusivity work strategy is largely based upon a process of “curating exclusivity” in
which the aims of the labor are to present a version of one’s self online that exhibits wealth and
privilege. While this may appear counter intuitive, as influencers are often valued by employers
for the close relationships they maintain with followers (Audrezet, de Kerviler and Moulard 2020;
Djafarova and Rushworth 2017), this exclusivity was found to result in large online audiences as
it offered a voyeuristic view into a lifestyle that is not available to most.
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In this process of producing exclusivity these influencers were found performing specific
types of labor unique to this work strategy, including : 1) Documenting privileged aspects of their
everyday lives (e.g., attending exclusive events, eating at Michelin star restaurants); 2) Planning
and executing highly choregraphed photo and video shoots with paid employees such as fashion
stylists and make-up artists; and 3) Developing relationships with similar social media influencers
in the hopes of being included in their social media content, and in turn having the chance to gain
further online personal exposure and opportunities for audience growth.
Through this work strategy the influencers were found to be successful in developing a
large social media audience, with this population having an average Instagram following of
150,000 users (ranging from 110,000 to 200,000). This growth afforded them extensive cultural
capital amongst their peers; However, this work strategy was less successful in enabling them to
solicit paid advertising work. Rather, in comparison to the types of influencers discussed in chapter
one, these specific influencers experienced far more sporadic and lower compensated employment
opportunities. This included them reporting that they gain paid work once every two to three
weeks, and a level of compensation that varies between $200 to $1,000 per advertisement that they
post to their Instagram accounts. As such, these influencers were found to experience long and
unpredictable periods of underemployment, but this was equally not something they were widely
concerned about, nor did it create economic challenges for this population thanks to their wider
financial privileges.
This is not to say that this group did not face challenges, however, as they reported high
levels of stress as a result of completing this work strategy. This includes widespread feelings of
exclusion from the industry as other types of influencers and potential employers do not view them
as legitimate workers due to their privilege position. They were also found to experience anxiety
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from a need to continuously document their exclusive lifestyle, including many suggesting that
they find themselves purchasing high end goods and attending expensive restaurants and events
solely for the purpose of creating content for their social media accounts. While it may be hard for
some to sympathize with this later challenge, it is important to remember that stress is relative to
one’s normative surroundings and that this was an experience that was genuinely anxiety inducing
for this population.
Producing Exclusivity
If social media influencing is based on a practice of capturing online attention, then this type of
influencer attempts to do so through turning themselves into contemporary celebrities – symbols
of power, wealth, exclusivity, and effortless talents around which people congregate. They achieve
this through a curating exclusivity work strategy that features three highly routinized labor
practices, namely: 1) Documenting everyday privilege, 2) Planning and executing highly
choregraphed photo and video shoots; and 3) Actively developing relationships with similar types
of social media influencers in the hopes of being featured on their Instagram accounts – a type of
online exposure that can lead to more personal followers.
Documenting Everyday Privilege
A primary way through this population highlights their wealth and privilege is through a practice
that they themselves call “documenting”. This labor practice includes taking and posting numerous
short videos and photographs to Instagram throughout the day in order to showcase one’s life to
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one’s followers. This was first brought to my attention by Becca, a 24-year-old influencer who has
amassed an online following of 130,000 people over the past four years:
Document, document, document. You’ll hear that a lot from influencers. It comes
from this guy called Gary Vaynerchuck who’s like the king of digital marketing.
He knows social media inside and out, and his big thing is that creators should
always be documenting what they do…I document every time I go out, even if I’m
just walking my dog or something…People want to know what you’re up to and
those everyday mundane things in life are what people want access to.
Later in the interview Becca appeared to contradict this statement about sharing the “everyday” on
social media, as she came to tell me about how she presents a highly curated online version of
herself upon Instagram:
I’m one of those stereotypical influencers that you see in the street taking photos
of a Starbucks next to my white BMW. Writing a caption like “just picked up my
Frappuccino” so it looks like it’s just in the moment, but in reality I’d have got my
nails done, dressed up, parked the car in the right lighting, and stuff, just to take
that shot.
This is a process she extends to purchasing clothes:
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One of the best things you can do is to document your shopping because it’s
something that all girls love to do and you’ll get a lot of engagement with people
[followers]. I tend to spend a lot of money on clothes, way more than I need to. It’s
just addictive when you’ve got so many people saying you look cute on social
media. At that point it’s not just about the shopping, I’m creating content,
documenting. It becomes part of being an influencer, like me.
Becca’s comments offer an interesting insight into a unique labor practice as she highlights the
standardizing of documenting and sharing one’s everyday life on Instagram; but at the same time
noting how these snippets of life are highly curated in such a way as to emphasize the privileged
life of these influencers. These findings were also captured in my interview with Kelechi, a
Nigerian born influencer who moved to Los Angeles with his family just before his 16
th
birthday
in 2010. Telling me of his familial ties to the U.S and Nigerian governments, and the privileges he
receives from this, he shares how his father instructs him not to work in the U.S. Kelechi, however,
sees social influencing as a passion and something he seeks to turn into a long-term career:
My first glimpse into this world was when I went shopping with my Mum in BV
[Beverly Hills]. I was new to Instagram and wanted to show my friends some
clothes I was buying. So I posted a video on stories of me in the store trying on a
sweater and some jeans. The next thing you know my phone went mad. I started
getting so many new followers. Not crazy amounts, but maybe like 50 new people
that I didn’t even know. Some of them started sending me messages asking where
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I was and questions about the clothes. It was actually really fun knowing that people
liked my style and had reached out to me.
Kelechi continues:
I got a little addicted to it at that point. I’d obviously seen all the influencers out
there and wondered how they gained a following and make such big audiences. For
the first time I felt like I knew. So I started pushing out more videos of what I get
up to. At first it was mainly fashion content. I kept going to the store to buy more
things just to promote my page and grow my following. After a while though I
started going into other areas like travel and my family home. I realized that people
on social media want to follow all about your life. So I continued and that’s how I
got where I am today.
While Kelechi may have somewhere stumbled into his influencing journey, he tells me about how
this process of documenting his life has become much more routinized and organized than before:
I take it a lot more seriously now. I’m under some pressure to show people what
I’m doing and to give them a window into my life… Now I won’t simply turn up
at a shop to buy things, I’ll create some stories [short videos] in about what I’ll buy
next. Like, say I’m going to get some Dior glasses, I’ll give people some
information on them and why I personally like them. It’s a bit like an advertisement,
I guess. I’ll do this maybe two or three days before I go and get them. Then when
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I go to the store I’ll take a friend with me so they can record me and capture the
process of buying them. This will be talking with the staff, even when they open
the door for you, all the way through to trying them on and paying. You have to
really tell a story. You’re doing more than just buying glasses… Some stores still
don’t let you record in the place because they don’t want other customers feeling
exposed. I can understand that, especially as a lot of celebrities shop in these place.
But the more I get to know the people in the stores the more they know it’s good
for their business too, so they’ll let me record and do what I’ve got to do as long as
I’m respectful.
Kelechi was not alone in aligning himself with exclusive consumer brands as a means of capturing
online attention. As Son told me:
People have always been attracted to things they can’t have, it’s human nature. I
try to give my followers a glimpse of the cars and clothes and holidays that they
can’t really afford. It’s like I want them to see it, but not touch it. That creates
demand for my type of content.
Similar sentiments came from Michael, a 22-year-old son of a private wealth manager in Los
Angeles, “I try to show off the Pradas and the Guccis just to show I’m about that life. People react
when you flaunt it… At the end of the day it helps you gain followers”.
A limitation of my data collection is that I was unable to observe this process in person. It
would have been beneficial for me to have observed influencers in these everyday practices as they
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curate an ideal type online persona. However, participants were found to be open about these
practices, and the staging of exclusivity not seen as a confession, but rather something they take
pride in. This was reflected in my conversations with Steven who told me: “It’s actually very
creative. I love the video skills I’ve learnt from it, the tricks of the trade. How to make a Michelin
Star plate of food pop from the plate. Things like that”. Meanwhile Carol shared similar excitement
from the process:
When I’m in my zone I just love it. The vibes you get when you and your friends
are taking photos of each other and then you get home and edit them all up to look
better than they really are. I weirdly love that! It’s addictive.
Sharing an example of the last time she went through this process she told me, “Probably on
Saturday when we were on my friends’ yacht. Honestly we spent most of our time on there just
taking photos for Instagram”.
Photoshoot Exclusivity
While documenting exclusivity was an everyday practice of these influencers, my data also reveals
how they regularly attempt to take this a step further by producing highly curated photo and videos
akin to those produced for high-end fashion magazines. In doing so they complete a task that was
not identified amongst other types of influencers in this study, namely that they hire other creative
professionals such as photographers, make-up artists, and set designers to help them to curate and
produce their content. This speaks to a unique aspect of work strategies, as opposed to traditional
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labor processes, in that workers themselves are found to outsource particular forms of labor that
are necessary for production. As such, they can operate as both workers and temporary employers
in this industry context. This challenges current conceptions of labor processes as being
determined by the top-down power relations between workers and managers, to instead evidence
a much more fluid labor context in which workers perform roles as both employers and employees
dependent upon the task they are trying to complete.
Amongst these particular participants, the hiring of employees was aimed at facilitating the
creation of social media content that presents a level of exclusivity that is not available to most.
Exemplifying this in action, Son told me of an upcoming photoshoot he has organized at a Malibu
beachfront house, a space that he purposely rented for this content production:
There’s no need to get there early because most of the photography will take
place in the evening during golden hour [the hour before sunset when the
lighting is considered best for content creation]. But we’ll probably meet at
around one or two, set up, and maybe take some inside shots. I’ll make sure we
go to the beach during his time to do some story shoots [documenting] so
followers have an idea of what I’m up to. They’re good little teasers of what
I’ll release later… Throughout the day I’ll have a photographer just snapping
away and taking as many photos as they can. It’s good to have too much content
than not enough because if I’m ever having a dry spell, I can just pick out
something from that day and post it. I can even call it a throwback, but it’s still
quality content and means I have something to post.
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I inquire into the content Son plans to create that day:
I’m going for some summer holiday vibes. Like a staycation away from the
city. It will be focused on luxury and self-care. I’m thinking white bath robes,
hot tubs, face masks, maybe I’ll get a masseuse to massage me on the front
balcony overlooking the beach. That’s actually a good idea, I think I’ll do that
now… It will be a mix of photos and video… These will go on my actual profile
page rather than just stories that disappear. I like to put higher quality content
there so if someone finds me they get a vibe of what I do straight away. Its more
reflective of me, I think.
I asked Son how often he conducts such photoshoots, with him telling me that this is a weekly or
bi-weekly occurrence: “I need to generate enough content with Sam [his regular photographer and
videographer] so that I can post throughout the week. So it needs to be at least every week or so”.
This timeframe was found to be common amongst most of the group as they organized
more extensive photo and video shoots a minimum of once every two weeks. Others were more
prolific in this process, with both Kim and Joanna noting that they complete two to three such
shoots a week: “It a little addictive. I feel like I was born to model. Not in a vein way, more that I
love the experience of it. Working with creatives, having to find new scenes and angles each time.
It’s exhilarating” Kim tells me. While Joanna said “I want to take this industry over, so I need to
create as much high-quality content as I can. I like to do three shoots a week, maybe one video,
two photos so I can have fresh stuff to run with at all times”.
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Unlike other types of influencers interviewed for this research, these particular influencers
stood out regarding the amount of time and money they dedicated to producing high-quality photo
and videography. This is not to say that other influencers did not create interesting and creative
content, but that this group focused on producing a type of content that was high cost and reflected
wealth and exclusivity. This is perhaps best illustrated in my conversation with Tara, a 24-year-
old social media influencer with a following of 210,000 Instagram users. While discussing the
process through which she creates her online content – content she describes as “simply lifestyle”
– she discussed the financial aspect of this part of her work:
I’d say that a photographer for the day is anywhere between $350 to $2,000. The
cheaper one’s are those that haven’t got as much experience, and they’ll work for
less so they can build up their portfolio. But their work is hit-and-miss, so if you
know you have an important shoot to do then you won’t to hire someone like that.
As mean as that sounds.
I ask Tara how often she hires professionals like this:
Four to five times a month. I need the content and it’s hard to produce by yourself.
You can, but setting up the camera and lighting and editing just takes too much
time. I’d much rather do it this way than struggle through on my own.
Like most of the influencers interviewed here, Tara was able to purchase help with her influencing
work as a result of familial wealth. Although such data that was difficult to collect, these
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influencers hinted that this is how they are able to sustain this work practice: “I know this isn’t for
everyone… I’m in a privileged position with my family, and I recognize that” Carol tells me.
Joanna, was more open about this: “Let’s just be honest, I get an allowance from my family back
in Korea and this is what I choose to spend my money on… They [her family] don’t want me to
work, so this is what I do”.
Data from this section helps illuminate the unique work strategy through which the children
of elite families buy their way into the social media influencing industry by transforming their
economic capital into social capital in the form of large online social media followings. This
practice includes organizing and running elaborate photo and video shoots in order to create social
media content that reflects an exclusive lifestyle not achievable by most. While this comes at a
high financial and time cost, they desire to make this investment as it offers them a pathway into
the influencing industry, the chance to gain temporary advertising work, and as I will now show,
forms of cultural capital amongst their peers.
Exclusive Social Networks
It was not only exclusive brands and travel destinations that helped portray these particular
influencers as bastions of elite lifestyles, but also the types of people they came to associate with.
Throughout my interviews there was consistent discussion around how having a large online
following can shape one’s social circle, and relatedly, how one’s social circle can be used as a way
of generating a large online following. Navigating and actualizing the potential of these two social
networks became a primary concern for these influencers.
Desiree informed me of this as we met over a couple of expensive coffees in Beverly Hills
– an area of extreme wealth that features mansion laden boulevards and designer stores. In our
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conversation she explained to me how she strategically maintains certain relationships with the
aim of leveraging their Instagram following and, in turn, growing her own online audience: “When
you’re on a night out you know how many followers everyone else in the room has, and you want
to make sure to get photos with those that have a lot”.
She continued:
I can tell you the follower count of all of my closest friends. They do OK, some
have over 50 thousand which is great, but most have around ten to 12 [thousand].
I know that they want to be seen with me [Desiree has 180,000 at the time of
interview] and have me post them in my stories because it gives them exposure
from the types of people that follow me. That can lead more followers and they
could start to grow some momentum. I think most of them want to become
influencer themselves.
This was a common finding, with participants routinely telling me how this process of resource
sharing was an unspoken, but widely known, practice in the industry. This was reflected in my
interview with Luka, a 26-year-old influencer who creates a range of social media content related
to surfing:
I don’t personally jump on that bandwagon so much just because I don’t really need
those extra followers at this point. But I see it all the time. People will turn up to
events just to be seen with people. As a way of showing that they hang out with
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cool people and getting attention from being with them. They don’t say it as such,
but it’s so damn obvious what people are doing… I’m sure it’s nothing new as
people always want to be seen with famous people. Just look at Hollywood and
people taking photos next to metal starts on the floor. They love that kind of thing.
But what’s new is that it’s all online…. They call it dick riding in the Hip Hop
world, but I don’t think we have a word for it in influencing. But maybe I’ll have
to create one [laughs].
Similar statements were made by Son who openly told me about a specific friend group he
maintains for the purpose of developing his social media following and career:
There’s no way I’d choose to be friends with these people in real life. We’re very
different. But at the same time, they go to some dope parties and they always invite
me. So, I stick around and play it cool so I can go to them. They’re also super
popular influencers. Actually, they’re bigger than me. It makes sense for me to
befriend them and just see what’s up… It’s all about playing the game, right?
I continue by asking him exactly what he’s looking to gain from these friendships: “You want to
be tagged in their photos. Especially one’s that goes on their main profile. That way other people
can click on your name and it takes them directly to your account. It gives you exposure and
possibly followers. It works for sure”. This was reiterated by Tara: “Being with the right circle can
grow your following quickly. I’ve seen people being tagged in just one post and gain like 3,000
followers from it”.
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This practice of seeking online attention by aligning oneself with other social media
influencers was also found to be a cyclical process as growing one’s online following also meant
that more people wanted to associate with you: “You see it all the time!” Becca tells me in a
passionate voice, before continuing:
It makes me sick and it’s also the worst thing about this social influencing work.
People suck-up to each other so much just to be seen in the right crowds… You
really don’t know who your real friends are and who is just tagging along hoping
to get seen by your followers… It’s so odd to me, but I also kind of get it. It’s what
the app [Instagram] has made us do.
I ask Becca for her own experiences of this:
I used to have this friend from San Diego called Kaylee. She is a wild one! She’d
like drive to LA every weekend just to hang out with us. Even sometimes on
weekdays. But she was wild in other ways, like a true definition of a socialite. It
also never felt genuine with her, it felt like she was just jumping between me and
people I know trying to get into the scene. It obviously worked as she now has a
following of maybe 35,000, so she’s done well from it. But do I think it was worth
the effort? Hell no! She fucked a lot of people off by how she acted and she’s
known as a bit of a “wanna be”… I also heard that she’s not getting brand deals so
it makes you wonder if she’s just doing it for more attention from guys rather than
actually wanting work.
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While Becca shared largely negative experiences of how her online following can result in
contentious relationships, others were more welcoming of this process. This included Ricky, a 23-
year-old influencer from San Francisco who moved to Los Angeles only a month before our
interview. In our discussion he talked about how his growing online popularity has offered him
new networks and possibilities that were previously denied to him.
I was doing what everyone else is doing really. I focus on creating good content
because content is king. But I was also mixing with the right people… I had a good
friend from high school who also became an influencer and he helped me grow my
following by just putting me on with his fans. We make similar content, so we now
share that audience. He’s really helped me in that way. I think a large part of it is
about who you know.
He later continued:
Once my guy had put me on, and I had my own thing growing, I noticed that other
people I never thought would reach out to me started hitting up my DMs [direct
messages]. I got several from people in LA saying that they want to work with me
and get some content cracking. It was a no brainer that I had to move down here to
collaborate with them because they have that potential to take me to even the next
level… It’s a weird game of how many important people can you know to help you
get up there. I’m sure the Kardashians and people like that at the top of industry
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don’t need to gain those connects, but for the rest of us it’s key you to the next
level.
As with the previously discussed monopoly maintenance work strategy, the creation, maintenance,
and exchanges within relationships was found to be a key aspect of the curating exclusivity work
strategy. For the latter, this included strategically creating and maintaining friendships as a means
of gaining potential exposure to their large online following. This was repeatedly conveyed as an
unspoken, but widely used, practice as influencers attempted to capture a greater share of the
limited pool of online attention. They also reported that they themselves developed new
friendships as people sought to use them for the same resource; with some such as Becca reporting
this as creating a problematic psychological burden, while others, such as Ricky, saw this as an
opportunity to expand their network and access further resources.
Challenges of the Curating exclusivity Work Strategy
Legitimacy
A recuring finding amongst these participants was a reported lack of legitimacy within the
influencing industry. Whereas those early entrants to the field predominantly spoke about their
lack of legitimacy amongst friends and family, this particular population claimed that other
influencers and consumer companies failed to take their work seriously. For this first group, this
included many stating that they sense animosity from the wider influencer community for two
reasons: 1) their ability to buy their way to success, and 2) for embodying the wider cultural
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imagery of influencers being entitled. This is something that was put to me by Oskar, one of the
younger influencers at 18 years of age, who told me how he is often snubbed by other influencers:
There’s been many times when I’ve wanted to collaborate with other influencers
and they simply haven’t replied or told me that that my content doesn’t align with
theirs. I know this is a cheap shot because they basically make similar content to
me… I think it’s because they see me as different.
I push Oskar on this later comment:
It’s because they’re all sponsored by companies like Ray Ban, Levis, and All
Saints, or whoever, but I don’t rely on those brands for clothes. I can just make the
content I want and rep’ [wear] all that kind of gear without having to wait on those
companies. I don’t know if its jealousy or what, but I think they hate that I can just
buy what they have do promo for.
Others noted how they understand any animosity directed at them as they perpetuate the image of
influencers being spoilt, as is so often negatively portrayed in the wider media. Speaking to this,
Johan told me:
I get it, I get it. I’ve come into this industry and just look like everything people
expect influencers to be. I mean I wear a Rolex in basically every one of my photos,
who wouldn’t hate me for that? But, its who I am and what I want to show to the
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world… Some people will love it and some will hate it. I’ve given up caring what
other people think because I’m doing well on Instagram, the numbers speak for
themselves… I think there is space for all different types of influencers through.
This sentiment was reiterated by Becca who said:
I did a photoshoot for Jo Malone [perfume brand owned by Estée Lauder] on the
beach last summer. There were six girls there with me, each doing a separate shoot
for each of the scents. I might be dramatic, but it did feel like me and one other girl
weren’t welcomed to the group… At the lunch interval we sat by ourselves because
they clearly had a clique, and they weren’t interested in getting to know us.
I ask Becca what she believes created this in-group out-group divide:
Well, those other five have been in the industry forever and are like career
influencers. But me and this other girl it was like one of our first shoots and we
didn’t really know how it worked… I felt like they didn’t like us being there
because we’re basically popular for being popular, whereas they have niche
audiences that they’ve grown for ages.
While it is hard to interpret the real dividing factor in Becca’s experience, what is clear is that
Becca believes and feels this divide and attributes it to her personal online presentation of self.
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A second way in which this specific group of influencers felt delegitimized in the industry
is through their interactions with consumer brands. Throughout the interview process the
participants expressed that they found it challenging to gain forms of temporary employment,
something they attributed to the “sell out” culture of other influencers who, as one participant told
me, “Will do anything and everything for a brand deal”. This feeling of not being taken seriously
was perhaps best articulated in my conversation with David, an influencer who told me that he
“fell” into the industry after gaining an extensive online following for posting pictures of his
sneaker collection:
I’m not in a position where I need the work, so I won’t just do whatever these
brands want me to… I’m not the kind of guy who will get told how to show a
sneaker in a specific way. I think that’s why I don’t get as much work as others.
I ask David to expand upon this:
For example, I have this friend called Sue and she’ll just do anything for money.
She’ll work with any company, and brand, any like restaurant or hotel. She’s the
type of influencer that they [companies] want to work with, not me.
These influencers therefore conceptualized the challenges they have in gaining temporary
employment as resulting from the moral boundaries they themselves construct around this type of
work. By this I refer to the ways in these participants conceptualize specific moral beliefs around
which types of work practices are culturally valued and those that remain stigmatized and should
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therefore be avoided. Amongst these participants this included viewing advertising labor as
problematic as it can potentially determine the types of social media content these influencers share
with their audience – a moral boundary that reflects their privileged economic position as they are
able to choose which types of work to perform and ultimately turn down paid employment
opportunities without fear of the material repercussions. This is something that helped establish a
reputation as delegitimate workers in the industry, but something they were content with if it meant
they retained control over the types of content they produced. This was reflected in my interview
with Shane:
There’s no way I’m going to be seen holding up a tube of toothpaste and smiling
into the camera saying how good it is. I don’t care that it means I won’t get work
and brands will turn me down. I’d rather just focus on being myself and showing
off brands that I like rather than do it in a sucky way… It depends on what the
brand is asking of course, if it was The Peninsula [luxury hotel brand] or something
like that, then I might be more willing to stoop [laughs]. But it would have to be
worth it money wise.
These comments reflect a perception amongst these influencers that their limited work
opportunities are a result of the personal boundaries they maintain around their image and labor
practices, and in turn brands choosing not to work with them.
As part of my data collection process I was lucky enough to speak with a number of brand
representatives who were able to offer their perspective on these relationships; with result offering
a contrasting narrative. This included brands representatives suggesting that they choose not to
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work with influencers that seemingly pay their way into the occupation because they are bad at
communicating and fail to see the job as work. Additionally, they are understood by brand
managers as: 1) seeking to gain cultural legitimacy amongst their peers through this type of work,
rather than expanding brand recognition amongst their online followers; and relatedly, 2) they do
not develop or maintain the types of close engagement and interpersonal relationships as seen
amongst other types of influencers. Therefore, the actual “influence” that this group create is highly
scrutinized by brand managers.
Psychological Pressures
Beyond the challenges of legitimacy, this group of influencers were also found to suffer from
psychological burdens produced through their work strategy. In particular they report a significant
pressure to maintain the continuous performance of an elite lifestyles online. This is something
that Martin expressed to me as we sat drinking coffee in a small coffee shop located in South
Pasadena, a quieter family-oriented neighborhood of the greater Los Angeles area that is known
for its privileged communities, liberal politics, and historic building:
There’s an expectation to be showing off your life on social media. I don’t think
there are many other jobs where people can just see your whole life. It’s like reality
T.V., but it just never stops… There’s a lot of pressure in that because you always
want to be showing your best version of yourself. But sometimes I just want to chill
on the couch and do nothing all day… It starts to feel like I’m going to nice
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restaurants to take photos rather than actually being in the moment and enjoying
myself.
Sarah was more direct in telling me about the psychological pressure this brings about:
I’m always worried about it. I’ve started to lose touch with where my social media
life ends, and my actual life begins. It’s all become a blur and I often think about
whether I actually enjoy this job or not.
I inquire into any particular challenges she faces:
It’s having to keep up with the Kardashians, being able to produce that much
content to be able to keep up with the real leaders in this space. I’m imaging giving
up one day, just because I’m getting sick of the world thinking I’m always this little
rich girl that parties all the time. In reality I spend most of my time just hanging out
with my best friend and my dog relaxing. You just can’t show that because I’ve
built up this look now and it would be off brand.
Similar sentiments came from Michael who told me:
Spend, spend, spend. That’s all I seem to do. Whether its dresses or nightclubs or
hotels, it’s just a lot of money going out of my account. It’s the Nipsy Hustle song
but in reverse, “all money out, no money in”. I start to worry about it because my
career is built on this bachelor image of cars, and women, and holidays, and if I
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stop living that life then my following would die… It’s a catch twenty-two. A fun
one, but my god it makes me worry too because tomorrow the industry could crash
or something and I’d have no money coming in.
Michael was one of the few to express any concerns around the financial aspect of the curating
exclusivity work strategy, with few suggesting they feared money related challenges. Rather, the
majority discussed how it was a fear of losing their audience that gave them the psychological
pressure to continue:
It’s our job at the end of the day, to show inspiration to people online. We only
create content that’s either education, inspiration, or entertainment. But whatever
one of those you create it has to be consistent in terms of style and regularly being
posted. You don’t get to stop unless you want your audience to shrink.
Reflecting the previously discussed process of influencers gaining new friends and a large social
circle as a result of having significant online following, many of the infleuncers stated that the
psychological burden also extended to losing these connections. Eight participants from this group
discussed how being a social media influencer was a status symbol within their immediate
networks; one that must be maintained if they are to retain this social capital. This was reflected
in discussion with Tara, a social media influencer based in Santa Monica, and also the daughter of
a famed guitarist and song writer:
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Amongst my friends it’s clear that having a lot of followers is a big deal. And I’m
not just saying that because I have around the most of the people we know
[approximately 250,000 at the point of interview]. It’s because it gets us access to
clubs, to shows, to parties, you know, it’s just an easy in when someone thinks they
can get free promo from you… Those connects are only there because of that, and
we all realize it. Like, if I were a nobody and didn’t have an I.G. presence then they
wouldn’t care about me and give me those opportunities. So it’s really important to
keep doing what I’m doing even just for that reason… I know it’s shallow, but this
is also L.A. and it comes with the territory. No matter if you’re a doctor or a lawyer,
or a director, or an actor, people will be around you because you are somebody. It’s
not different in this industry, people follow the crowd and where the attention is. I
get it, I really do. Its stressful, but it is what it is
Tara later continues on this subject area:
It’s so good to just talk about it to be honest. The problem with being around those
people is that you can’t talk about it because they’ll think you’re calling them out
for tagging along. But I really just want to talk about it objectively, as an interesting
social thing. You get it? I hope you don’t mind this [interview] is ending up like
therapy [laughs].
Throughout these interviews these participants were therefore found to experience a range of
psychological pressures to continue their specific work strategy. This included a fear of losing
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followers and potential employment opportunities, but more significantly a fear of losing
connections and the social networks that have developed around them as a result of their online
fame. While it may be easy to devalue these concerns as shallow, as they are not focused on real
material hardships, it is important to remember that psychological pressure is context and person
specific and were true challenges experienced by this select group of workers.
Summary
My data came to reveal a distinct type of social media influencer within the industry. Characterized
by their personal wealth and privilege, they have developed a work strategy in which they are able
to turn that privilege into large social media audiences and in turn generated the types of online
attention necessary for gaining temporary employment in this industry. This work strategy is found
to include forms of “documenting” labor in which they continuously create and upload social
media content to Instagram that reflect an elite day-to-day lifestyle. Far from being spontaneous
however, these uploads are curated so as to purposely reflect the type of esteemed life they are
trying to present online. This practice is supplemented by even more curated and planned social
media content in the form of longer videos and photoshoots that resemble the types of media found
in high fashion magazines and websites. Such photoshoots are organized in advance with these
individuals hiring additional creative professional such as videographers and make-up artists to
help with the production process. The result is high-end social media content that reflects an elite
and seemingly unreachable position for most. This is purposeful as this population has found that
presenting themselves in such a way results in large online followings as Instagram users
congregate around them.
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This work strategy however is also found to come with unique challenges that include them
experiencing a lack of legitimacy from wider groups of influencers, and those brands that act as
temporary employers. This is problematic as it reduces their opportunities for work; however, is
largely not seen as a significant problem as they have enough personal wealth to not require such
continues forms of employment. A second burden these influencers face is the psychological
pressure of having to continuously present themselves as elite members of society. This includes
the pressure of having to curate and produce high-end social media content that presents prestige
in a way that other groups of influencers do not. This pressure is predominantly linked to a fear of
losing Instagram followers and in turn losing the types of social esteem this offers in their more
immediate social circles.
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CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS
How does the presence of social media influencers further our understanding of the contemporary
U.S. labor market? This dissertation seeks to answer this question through a qualitative study of
the Los Angeles social media influencing industry. In particular, through 50 in-depth interviews
with social media influencers working in this space, I investigate the specific types of labor and
work processes these individuals perform within this newly emerging profession. I select this case
study as social media influencers operate as an archetype as to the new types of online freelance
workers that have come to populate the U.S. economy since the turn of the Digital Age.
Current research in this area suggests that these types of workers face extensive
employment precarity as technology companies such as Amazon, Google, and Uber organize
workers into temporary labor markets that: 1) deny workers secure hours of employment, 2) deny
workers a set and consistent wage, 3) deny workers long-standing employment rights such as
holiday pay, health care, and pension contributions, and 4) alienate workers by reducing
employee/employer interactions to impersonal communications via website and mobile
applications.
While this scholarship helps to outline the organization and outcomes of these freelance
online labor markets, less research has focused on how such workers mediate and manage these
working conditions. This includes research attempting to understand the types of resources that
are necessary to succeed in these types of jobs, the processes that workers develop in order to
mediate these contexts, and the new types of people that are produced through the enactment of
these processes.
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This dissertation helps to extend our knowledge in this area by identifying and illustrating
three specific processes that social media influencers perform. Terming these Hustling, Monopoly
Maintenance, and Curating Exclusivity, I highlight the unique forms they take, including the
specific forms of labor enacted within them, the types of resources necessary to perform each one,
and the different networks and relations that influencers develop within these processes. In doing
so, this dissertation adds to our current understanding of the U.S. labor market in three predominant
ways:
Firstly, it highlight that there is no singular way of being a social media influencer, but
rather it takes different forms dependent upon an individual’s access to critical resources necessary
for success in this profession. For example, those enacting the monopoly maintenance work
process have access to key networks and large social media followings that lead them to perform
types of labor specifically aimed at maintaining their access to these critical resources. Meanwhile,
those performing the curating exclusivity work process are found to use their extensive financial
capital to create types of digital media content that is not achievable by most. This offers them an
advantage in this industry, but is something that is clearly not accessible by most and therefore
uniquely shapes their work process. As such, we can say that online freelance workers develop
specific strategies through which to navigate their labor market conditions; a finding that mimics
historic labor research showing similar processes in other labor market contexts.
Secondly, my findings add to the growing body of scholarship highlighting the extensive
precarity experienced by those working in America’s freelance online labor markets. This includes
the majority of my participants stating that they are unable to secure consistent employment hours
or stable wages that would position them as full-time social media influencers. Instead, they are
found to perform long hours of unpaid labor in their attempts to compete for temporary work
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contracts. This is a context that the majority of influencers are found to navigate through working
other low-income jobs that support the lack of income they receive from their influencing work.
Importantly, this precarity is not experienced by all influencers in the same way, but rather the
types of work process and resources they hold on an individual basis comes to shape the form this
takes. For example, the those performing monopoly maintenance do not feel immediate precarity,
but are continuously working to avoid a position in which they would; meanwhile those curating
exclusivity are found to experience widespread job insecurity, but due to their personal and familial
financial wealth do not fear for the consequences of being unemployed for extended periods of
time.
The third prominent addition I make to our understanding of these labor markets is that I
show how this system of precarious employment is made possible by a work culture that values
forms of individual entrepreneurialism and creativity; characteristics that are offered in the process
of being a social media influencer. Regardless of material compensation for their work, social
media influencing therefore enables many people to access forms of social prestige that are
potentially not found in other professions. These cultural attitudes are also combined with a shared
sentiment that “success is inevitable”, and that as long as one works hard and long enough in this
job then the material rewards shall ultimately arrive. As such, participants are not found to widely
recognize or conceptualize any boundaries to their success; and when they are discussed, then they
are often dismissed as inconsequential as they are young enough to make mistakes and recover
from any financial challenges they face at this period. Collectively, we can therefore see how
cultural attitudes are coming to support the wider systems of unequal labor market access and
precarious labor conditions that are emerging in these online freelance labor markets.
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A limitation to these findings is that I did not complete observational or ethnographic data
collection on these participants. Doing so would have enabled me to view the types of relationships
and forms of exchange that help support the types of work processes that I identify in this research.
This is a gap in my findings I realized having realized the important role that networks and
interpersonal relationships play in maintaining people’s participation in these labor markets. For
example, those performing the monopoly maintenance work process were largely focused upon
maintaining relationships with their large online audiences and gatekeepers of the labor markets
that came in the form of consumer brand representatives and advertising agents. Equally, hustlers
were found to rely heavily upon friends and family members to help them perform their work
process, a relationship they call Instagram Husbands and something I shall discuss more in chapter
two. Furthermore, those seeking to curate exclusivity could only complete their labor practice
through developing and utilizing relationships with other creative industry professionals such as
videographers, photographers, beauty workers, and clothing stylists. Relationships therefore
became key to this overall industry, the success of social media influencers, and an area of future
research that would be highly beneficial for the field.
In order to achieve this, future studies would benefit from employing Zelizer’s analytical
tool of relational work (2012) towards better understanding these relational ties and how they
constitute the market conditions in which workers operate. By relational work Zelizer refers to the
concerted efforts that market participants undertake to negotiate the forms of exchange and the
meanings of those exchange that take place in economic transactions. This would be beneficial in
understanding, for example, how hustlers are able to negotiate a context in which they solicit forms
of unpaid labor from friends and family that supports their work as social media influencers.
Understanding the exchanges that take place, the boundaries that occur within those exchanges,
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the form the3y take, and the meanings that are shared in that moment would further explicate how
and why some influencers are more successful than others in this industry. It would also add further
nuance and potential credibility to the three work processes I identify in this research as they
highlight how they are made possible through the development and performance of certain social
relations.
Another avenue of research that could build upon this dissertation research is to investigate
forms of inequality in the creation and capturing of online attention. Multiple scholars argue that
online attention is a critical resource in the modern economy as it becomes the pathway through
which social influence, culture, and political ideals are shared around the world – including many
suggesting that we now live in an attention economy. My research highlights that not everyone has
equal access to online attention or the resources necessary to gain this type of capital in the current
context. This includes my data illustrating how the children of elite families have developed work
processes that enable them accumulate online attention through spending their financial capital on
expensive products and hiring creative professionals to produce their online social media content.
As this resource becomes ever more critical in the digital age, further research is therefore
necessary to understand how access to this resource is distrusted, the types of people who have
access to it, the processes through which they are able to gain it, and how this comes to perpetuate
wider forms if social inequality.
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Ripley, Matthew Paul
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How to be a social media influencer: the work process of the entrepreneurial labor force
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Sociology
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2021-12
Publication Date
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