We are familiar by now with stories about the changing nature of work and labour, not just due to technological developments but from the pandemic, ongoing labour actions and strikes, inflation, and so on. I think about this a lot, since part of my research is devoted to untangling these narratives about the future of work and whose interests they tend to serve. One part of this discussion which seems to have hit a weird crescendo this week is over the blurred lines between amateur and professional.
Let’s situate this conversation first within typical talking points about labour that takes place online. Theories about free labour, introduced by Tiziana Terranova at the turn of the century, spoke of online work as “voluntarily given and unwaged, enjoyed and exploited,” referring, in the Y2K era, to things like participating in mailing lists and maintaining fan websites. In the years that followed, social media was likewise associated with this model, whereby users provide all the content on Facebook or Twitter, without any kind of compensation even as the platforms themselves make more and more money. In short, this became the primary way of understanding online experience aside from more direct employment scenarios of, say, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk or the gig apps.
It’s precisely this framework that is once again rearing its head today as this erosion of distinction between amateurs and professionals coalesced with the erosion of enjoyment and exploitation, as Terranova put it. Perhaps the most obvious example is the popularity of livestreamers on Twitch, largely video gamers who stream their play sessions and receive donations and other financial rewards through their play. As many scholars and commentators have pointed out, this is a perfect storm for what we might reluctantly still call late-stage capitalism (this is a long stage!) — making money by literally playing. The platform of Twitch (among others) facilitates the exchange, naturally determining the structures under which it’s allowed to take place and with particular mechanisms, and regular people provide most of the actual capital to the streamers, and the platforms love to make the most of this set-up because it seemingly releases them from most responsibility as would-be employers.
Today, though, the New York Times published a ridiculous article headlined “They Review Movies on TikTok, but Don’t Call Them Critics.” Recalling the Guardian piece I linked to in last week’s newsletter, about film criticism’s position within the digital economy which asked in its headline “Who needs film critics when studios can be sure influencers will praise their films?,” the Times piece seems to take this as a good thing, or at least as the thing that is happening that we must be hip to.
Let me start by saying that I am less interested in the TikTokers themselves, who are saying, “When you read a critic’s review, it almost sounds like a computer wrote it,” and “A lot of us don’t trust critics. They watch movies and are just looking for something to critique. Fans watch movies looking for entertainment.” I could take them to task, especially because many of them are full-grown adults in their 30s, not just emerging cinephiles on the dancing app. At the end of the day, these TikTokers are taking advantage of the system they’ve been given, and why not? We are all seasoned users of platforms that only exist to extract data, content, and capital from us, and TikTok has positioned itself as the cream of this crop, with an architecture and an algorithm designed to inculcate this kind of thinking through an array of tools and rewards. It is not my business, frankly, to “judge” any particular user or influencer for doing what they have to to make a living.
The problem is the way the article is framed by its writer, Reggie Ugwu, particularly in the labour context I’ve described. The most laughable part is when the article tries to put these influencers in the position of Davids against the “critical establishment” Goliaths, making the especially ahistorical and silly analogy to Godard and the 1950s Cahiers du Cinéma writers taking on the French mainstream press. As the Guardian piece pointed out, film criticism itself is in its death throes, and most film reviews are read by dozens, hundreds, or thousands, when compared to the millions that watch these TikToks. Is there reason to question the eternal wisdom of, say, Anthony Lane? Of course! But this is a bizarre way of understanding what these influencers are doing.
So again, it comes down to how we now think about labour and professionalism, expertise and fandom. As the quote about critics watching to critique while fans watch for entertainment, it is clear that most of the examples cited in the article tend to praise what they watch, offer listicle-type content like Pixar easter eggs, or otherwise directly partner with corporations like Disney and Warner Bros to create sponsored content:
In one, simple sense, this could be called the professionalization of fandom. Aaron Bady wrote a great piece about how the Hollywood strikes reflect how little difference there now is between the volunteer and professional creative. Bady points out that SAG-AFTRA, the actors’ union, suggests that “influencers should refrain from posting on social media about any struck work regardless of whether they are posting organically or in a paid capacity.” This caused confusion among fans — did this mean they can’t share their fan art anymore? The union later clarified that this suggestion only applies to influencers who work under their Influencer Agreement, but also anyone who hopes to. Bady pointedly wonders:
As he goes on to argue, workers in the creative industries have always had this relationship to what they do, a passion or a calling that leaves many of them doing countless part-time gigs just to make it so they can keep going on auditions or whatever. At the same time, especially now, fans contribute more than ever to the market value of art, all for free, because in some sense, our consumption becomes an act by which we are the only saviors of the media we love. Bady continues:
“It tells us something interesting about the cultural economy, in 2023, that so many people are doing volunteer promotional work for billion-dollar corporate properties that this even becomes a question. If the substantive difference between creatives and fans is only that the former get compensated for their valuable labor—while the latter volunteer it—then we’re just admitting that the work has economic value, but some people are doing it for free.”
So, returning to the MovieTokers, why wouldn’t you choose to be a well-paid quasi-publicist in this environment? The Times article makes the absurd decision to frame this decision as one of cultural power, a changing-of-the-guard aiming to “rebel against their elders.” Instead, it should be seen for what it is, an economic decision premised on a platform capitalist logic that is supremely interested in further muddying the lines between fan and pro because it suits them just fine. I know you can’t believe it, but my conclusion here is typical: we have been forced into a socioeconomic structure organized by platforms like TikTok, and we spend our time arguing instead about the workers and fans navigating it instead of questioning the system itself and devising strategies to fight back.
Think of it: if influencers and regular users alike agreed to stop sharing content related to struck work, it would hurt the Hollywood studios and the platforms at the same time. This kind of general strike action may seem out of reach, but that feeling is likewise a byproduct of the corporate control over the world of ~content~, as the billionaire class, in the tech industry as in Hollywood, limits our imagination at every turn. Mock the MovieTokers for a moment, sure, but don’t lose sight of the real enemy, the ones who have designed the playing field so that they always win. At a certain point, if and when the content gets shitty enough, even the professional fans won’t post about it anymore. This is a battle, then, to make the executives see that reality sooner than later.
Ephemera
Some excellent, ahem, film criticism, by Justin Chang on Oppenheimer.
A remarkable piece by Stephen Shankland about the undersea cables that power the internet, and the ongoing corporate geopolitical war being waged via this under-discussed architecture: ‘“It would not take much to break these cables. And a bad actor could do it,” Coughlan said. A 2017 think tank paper by Rishi Sunak, who's since become prime minister of the UK, concluded that subsea cables are “indispensible, insecure.”’
Great episode of Trashfuture with guest Alex Press, on apps that facilitate strikebreaking and more on the Hollywood strikes as a reckoning on Silicon Valley mindset.
My last dispatch of Fantasia Film Festival coverage, this time going over the great retro screenings I made it to: A Chinese Ghost Story, My Heart Is That Eternal Rose, Beauty and the Beast, and The Cassandra Cat.
Again: RIP William Friedkin
Song Recommendation: “Close to the Clouds” by Art School Girlfriend