Social media is work, just like housework is work, and it's about as dull as waged work too. Work is a relationship where some entity extracts surplus value off your unpaid labor.
I like the forced, scrolling text: makes you slow down and pay attention, but also not switch tabs halfway through and get distracted.
Why do people assume these are always the same thing?
If you read a book at 1/10 your normal speed, I imagine your reading comprehension would drop significantly. It's harder to focus on something when you're constantly distracted by its inappropriate speed, and it's harder to get value out of it when you can't process it in a normal way because you're constantly waiting for the next step.
facebook (could be replaced with youtube, or twitter) make their money from (or, at least,convince investors they will at some point make money from) user generated content, as it is user generated content which draws in the eyes which the advertisers pay for.
This manifesto of sorts pushes this argument forwards to assert that all activity on social media should be considered 'work' and therefore should receive a wage.
Theie argument is a bit like the traditional marxist (often trotskyist) notion of the transitional demand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_demand), in that it makes a demand which can be argued for rationaly, but that capitalism/the borgeouise state cannot meet, thereby creating a kind of intellectual crisis for the ruling order.
Giant black Impact(ish) font on a white background, scrolling rather slowly. I can only read the first line of each paragraph then it all kind of bluhhhhs out for me.
From a technical standpoint, I find the forced scrolling on this page incredibly frustrating. I read faster than the vast majority of people, yet I could not take control of the scroll bar to read the page at my own pace. I gave up about a third of the way through.
(Yes, I'm aware of noscript and the like. I've chosen not to browse with it, to have the same experience as the vast majority of the non-tech population this site owner might want to reach.)
Here is the copy/pasted text for those those who cant be fucked with the auto-scrolling website.
"They say it’s friendship. We say it’s unwaged work. With every like, chat, tag or poke our subjectivity turns them a profit.They call it sharing. We call it stealing.We’ve been bound by their terms of service far too long—it’s time for our terms.
To demand wages for facebook is to make it visible that our opinions and emotions have all been distorted for a specific function online, and then have been thrown back at us as a model to which we should all conform if we want to be accepted in this society. Our fingertips have become distorted from so much liking, our feelings have gotten lost from so many friendships.
Capital had to convince us that it is a natural, unavoidable and even fulfilling activity to make us accept unwaged work. In its turn, the unwaged condition of facebook has been a powerful weapon in reinforcing the common assumption that facebook is not work, thus preventing us from struggling against it. We are seen as users or potential friends, not workers in struggle. We must admit that capital has been very successful in hiding our work.
By denying our facebook time a wage while profiting directly from the data it generates and transforming it into an act of friendship, capital has killed many birds with one stone. First of all, it has got a hell of a lot of work almost for free, and it has made sure that we, far from struggling against it, would seek that work as the best thing online.
The difficulties and ambiguities in discussing wages for facebook stem from the reduction of wages for facebook to a thing, a lump of money, instead of viewing it as a political perspective. The difference between these two standpoints is enormous. To view wages for facebook as a thing rather than a perspective is to detach the end result of our struggle from the struggle itself and to miss its significance in demystifying and subverting the role to which we have been confined in capitalist society.
If we take wages for facebook as a political perspective, we can see that struggling for it is going to produce a revolution in our lives and in our social power. Not only is wages for facebook a revolutionary perspective, but it is a revolutionary perspective from a contemporary viewpoint that points towards class solidarity.
It is important to recognize that when we speak of facebook we are not speaking of a job as other jobs, but we are speaking of the most pervasive manipulation, the most subtle and mystified violence that capitalism has recently perpetrated against us. True, under capitalism every worker is manipulated and exploited and his/her relation to capital is totally mystified.
The wage gives the impression of a fair deal: you work and you get paid, hence you and your boss are equal; while in reality the wage, rather than paying for the work you do, hides all the unpaid work that goes into profit. But the wage at least recognizes that you are a worker, and you can bargain and struggle around and against the terms and the quantity of that wage, the terms and the quantity of that work.
To have a wage means to be part of a social contract, and there is no doubt concerning its meaning: you work, not because you like it, or because it comes naturally to you, but because it is the only condition under which you are allowed to live. But exploited as you might be, You are not that work.
To ask for wages for facebook will by itself undermine the expectations society has of us, since these expectations—the essence of our socialization—are all functional to our wageless condition online. In this sense, it is more apt to compare the struggle of women for wages than the struggle of male workers in the factory for more wages. When we struggle for wages we struggle unambiguously and directly against our social exploitation. We struggle to break capital’s plan to monetize our friendship, feelings and free time, through which it has been able to maintain its power.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 17.8 ms ] threadI like the forced, scrolling text: makes you slow down and pay attention, but also not switch tabs halfway through and get distracted.
Why do people assume these are always the same thing?
If you read a book at 1/10 your normal speed, I imagine your reading comprehension would drop significantly. It's harder to focus on something when you're constantly distracted by its inappropriate speed, and it's harder to get value out of it when you can't process it in a normal way because you're constantly waiting for the next step.
MAJIKTHISE: We’ll go on strike!
VROOMFONDEL: That’s right. You’ll have a national philosopher’s strike on your hands.
DEEP THOUGHT: Who will that inconvenience?
MAJIKTHISE: Never you mind who it’ll inconvenience you box of black legging binary bits! It’ll hurt, buster! It’ll hurt!
This manifesto of sorts pushes this argument forwards to assert that all activity on social media should be considered 'work' and therefore should receive a wage.
Theie argument is a bit like the traditional marxist (often trotskyist) notion of the transitional demand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_demand), in that it makes a demand which can be argued for rationaly, but that capitalism/the borgeouise state cannot meet, thereby creating a kind of intellectual crisis for the ruling order.
In the little I gathered, it seems their argument is about as well thought out as their UI.
If the medium is the message....
(Yes, I'm aware of noscript and the like. I've chosen not to browse with it, to have the same experience as the vast majority of the non-tech population this site owner might want to reach.)
"They say it’s friendship. We say it’s unwaged work. With every like, chat, tag or poke our subjectivity turns them a profit.They call it sharing. We call it stealing.We’ve been bound by their terms of service far too long—it’s time for our terms.
To demand wages for facebook is to make it visible that our opinions and emotions have all been distorted for a specific function online, and then have been thrown back at us as a model to which we should all conform if we want to be accepted in this society. Our fingertips have become distorted from so much liking, our feelings have gotten lost from so many friendships.
Capital had to convince us that it is a natural, unavoidable and even fulfilling activity to make us accept unwaged work. In its turn, the unwaged condition of facebook has been a powerful weapon in reinforcing the common assumption that facebook is not work, thus preventing us from struggling against it. We are seen as users or potential friends, not workers in struggle. We must admit that capital has been very successful in hiding our work.
By denying our facebook time a wage while profiting directly from the data it generates and transforming it into an act of friendship, capital has killed many birds with one stone. First of all, it has got a hell of a lot of work almost for free, and it has made sure that we, far from struggling against it, would seek that work as the best thing online.
The difficulties and ambiguities in discussing wages for facebook stem from the reduction of wages for facebook to a thing, a lump of money, instead of viewing it as a political perspective. The difference between these two standpoints is enormous. To view wages for facebook as a thing rather than a perspective is to detach the end result of our struggle from the struggle itself and to miss its significance in demystifying and subverting the role to which we have been confined in capitalist society.
If we take wages for facebook as a political perspective, we can see that struggling for it is going to produce a revolution in our lives and in our social power. Not only is wages for facebook a revolutionary perspective, but it is a revolutionary perspective from a contemporary viewpoint that points towards class solidarity.
It is important to recognize that when we speak of facebook we are not speaking of a job as other jobs, but we are speaking of the most pervasive manipulation, the most subtle and mystified violence that capitalism has recently perpetrated against us. True, under capitalism every worker is manipulated and exploited and his/her relation to capital is totally mystified.
The wage gives the impression of a fair deal: you work and you get paid, hence you and your boss are equal; while in reality the wage, rather than paying for the work you do, hides all the unpaid work that goes into profit. But the wage at least recognizes that you are a worker, and you can bargain and struggle around and against the terms and the quantity of that wage, the terms and the quantity of that work.
To have a wage means to be part of a social contract, and there is no doubt concerning its meaning: you work, not because you like it, or because it comes naturally to you, but because it is the only condition under which you are allowed to live. But exploited as you might be, You are not that work.
To ask for wages for facebook will by itself undermine the expectations society has of us, since these expectations—the essence of our socialization—are all functional to our wageless condition online. In this sense, it is more apt to compare the struggle of women for wages than the struggle of male workers in the factory for more wages. When we struggle for wages we struggle unambiguously and directly against our social exploitation. We struggle to break capital’s plan to monetize our friendship, feelings and free time, through which it has been able to maintain its power.
Wages for faceboo...