10/21/2016 Yuccies,Slashies,andtheDigitalEconomysValorizationoftheMultiskilled,AlwaysonCreativeWorkerCultureDigitally

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W I T H S U P P O RT F R O M :

Yuccies, Slashies,
and the Digital
Economys Valorization

of the Multi-skilled,
Always-on Creative
Worker # C U LT D

BROOKE ERIN DUFFY JUNE 18, 2015

#cultd
,
-
Last week the interwebs were abuzz with reactions to the most
TimElfenbeinRetweeted

- - -:
recent attempt to conceptually delineate the generation
TarletonGillespie
.

formerly known as Y the yuccie A rather unpalatable term to @TarletonG

, Young, Urban, Creatives; #cultdICAPreconferenceonMedia

-
be sure the yuccie is an acronym for

Distributionift.tt/2dVpIDy
, ,
-
its Reagan era ancestor the yuppie is but a specter of these

, , . 13Oct

( - )
self enterprising digitally networked creative aspirants

Mashable contributor
-
and self identified yuccie David Infante
MatthewCrainRetweeted
defined the post hipster prototype as one borne of suburban CultureDigitally

comfort , indoctrinated with the transcendent power of

@CultureDig
ICAPreconferenceonMediaDistribution
,

education and infected by the conviction that not only do we
goo.gl/fb/e4HlSh#cultd
; .
-
deserve to pursue our dreams we should profit from them
13Oct
Infante explained how yuccies are driven by the well worn

ideals of career passion and getting paid to do what you love. ChuckTryonRetweeted

CultureDigitally

@CultureDig
, ICAPreconferenceonMediaDistribution

-
In the wake of Infante s piece which was both a treatise of and

, goo.gl/fb/e4HlSh#cultd

self reflective indulgence in the yuccie ethos traditional media

Time, CNN, and the New York Daily News 13Oct

sources including

weighed in. And true to form, Buzzfeed oered a witty list of 99

ThorstenBusch,PhDRetweeted
,
,
Things All Yuccies Love including creating their own vacation

Embed ViewonTwitter

# .
hashtag on Instagram not understanding how someone could

live without Amazon Prime , and TBT

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10/21/2016 Yuccies,Slashies,andtheDigitalEconomysValorizationoftheMultiskilled,AlwaysonCreativeWorkerCultureDigitally

-
( #19
Market driven categorizations such as yuccie are inherently
FOUNDERS

, ,
)
problematic a word incidentally which appears as on the

aforementioned Buzzfeed list . They are expressions of

what Joseph Turow described as the industrial construction of
Tarleton Gillespie

the audience, wherein commercial segmentation practices reify

Hector Postigo

[]
. ,
Josh Braun

(
existing social divisions i Of course yuccies are not primarily
Sam Srauy

defined by their consumer potential though we can imagine

- !),
advertisers working feverishly on pitches for clients seeking to

reach the yet untapped yuccie market but , ,

rather as future

producers eager to join the ranks of the creative workforce.

: AUTHORS

#
Infante o ers a few yuccie career exemplars social consultants

-
coordinating sponsored Instagram campaigns for lifestyle

, ,
-
brands brogrammers and legions of entrepreneurial minded
Adam Fish

twenty somethings seduced by the potential o erings of the Adrienne Shaw

. , , Alice Marwick

internet playground Above all then the yuccie is defined by

, ,
-
Alison Harvey
her labor or perhaps more accurately her unwavering quest

, .
Andr s Monroy Hernndez
to secure a purposeful profitable form of work
Anne Helmond

Annette markham

Alison Novack

Aphra Kerr

Arturo Arriagada

Aynne Kokas

Ben Peters

Elizabeth Wissinger

Brooke Erin Du y

Burcu S . Bakioglu

. .
C W Anderson

Carla Ilten

'
Carrie Rentschler

-
Casey O Donnell

Christina Dunbar Hester

Christopher Boulton

Chuck Tryon

Daniel Kreiss

Daren Brabham

Jonathan Malesic s (@ jonmalesic ) parody of the

Purpose venn diagram
Dawn Nafus

Daniel Guagnin

Fenwick McKelvey

, ( ) Finn Brunton

Several years ago
the voguish and similarly discordant term

,
Fred Turner

( . .,
for the idealized creative worker was slashie named for a
Gabriella Coleman

/ / ).
worker identity that spans several professions e g Gina Ne

banker artist etsy shop owner The archetypical slashie is the Greg Lastowka

Graham Meikle

financially secure analyst or lawyer who escapes the banality of

.. .
Guobin Yang

her day job with a D J gig or freelance work as a muralist
Hope Forsyth

, , ;
/
Media coverage not surprisingly glorifies the slashie lifestyle
Hugh Gusterson

London Evening
,
as an English tutor theatre director told a Ilana Gershon

Standardreporter , Jan Fernback

I m lucky because it doesn t feel like work

it s creative and it s enterprising . Such narratives construct an

James Bennett

Jean Burgess

John Carter McKnight

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10/21/2016 Yuccies,Slashies,andtheDigitalEconomysValorizationoftheMultiskilled,AlwaysonCreativeWorkerCultureDigitally

idealized model of cultural work , where labor and leisure blend Je Drouin

in perfect harmony . Jennifer Lena

Jessa Lingel

Jessica Beyer

, , John Banks

The problem of course is that labor and leisure aren t

, . John Durham Peters

( )
harmonized not for most cultural workers at least Media trend

, , -
Jonathan Sterne
pieces by pairing passion with worker profit glamorize labor
Joshua McVeigh Schultz

conditions that are far less remunerative and gratifying than

Je Pooley

hyped . We may conclude that such discourses represent Julia Sonnevend

an industrial valorization of
multi-skilled, always-on, digitally Karine Nahon

.
networked creative worker.
Katherine D Harris

Katy Pearce

Kevin Driscoll

Kate Miltner
As part of a book project on

, Laura Forlano

gendered social media labor
Lee Humphreys

I ve spent the last few years

Lee Vinsel

studying a particular subset Limor Shifman

of aspiring creative Lisa Nakamura

producers : fashion bloggers , Lonny J Avi Brooks

, Lisa Silvestri

/
beauty vloggers and DIY
Image from SheKnows
Lucas Graves

artists designers . While a

Mari Castaneda

handful of my interviewees Mark Chen

Mark Deuze

[]
emphasize the benefits of flexibility and autonomy that

characterize the new media workstyle , ii many of these young

Mary Gray

:
Matthew Crain

-
women have drawn attention to the less glamorous aspects
Matt Ratto

demanding hours , a frenetic pace , high barriers to entry , multi

M l Hogan

skilled work patterns , and the expectation from commercial Mel Stanfill

brands that they will work for exposure rather than for financial M lanie Millette

compensation . And given that social media metrics are the

Neal Thomas

,
Nicholas John

currency animating the digital economy participants engage in

Nick Couldry

/ / []
largely unpaid relational labor as they try to build networks and Niki Strange

. Rasmus Nielsen

,
grow their friends followers likes iii As one fashion blogging

Ray Fouche
aspirant shared There are times where I m up until two o clock
Rena Bivens

in the morning blogging and making sure everything looks
Robert Gehl

perfect , and that all my posts are scheduled in a timely fashion . Rodrigo Zamith

Rosemary Avance

Samuel Woolley
My research has also highlighted the significance of social class

-
Sara Kingsley

in structuring the hierarchies of the aspirational labor market . Sarah Banet Weiser

O en , those who are especially successful at channeling their Saugata Bhaduri

Scott Brennen

/
passion projects into lucrative digital media careers come from

Seth Lewis
a position of relative privilege by virtue of economic and or

.
Shira Chess

social capital Class markers are central to constructions of
Stephanie Schulte

, ,

yuccies and slashies a fact not lost on Infante who
Steven Schrag

. ,
-
concedes that yuccies possess enormous privilege Similarly Tamara Shepherd

Ted Striphas

-
high profile members of the slash generation hold down

multiple jobs not because they need to , but for self

Tim Highfield

Thomas Streeter

Tim Jordan

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10/21/2016 Yuccies,Slashies,andtheDigitalEconomysValorizationoftheMultiskilled,AlwaysonCreativeWorkerCultureDigitally

.[] Tom Boellstor

-
actualization purposes iv The playing field for those seeking

much vaunted creative careers is thus anything but even . Tony Liao

-
Torin Monahan

Valerie Belair Gagnon

But for the media , creative , and technology industries looking Whitney Phillips

, Zachary McDowell

-
for talent in an oversatured labor market this uneven playing

:
Zizi Papacharissi

/
field acts as a built in employability filter those who identify

with the yuccie slashie lifestyle represent the ideal worker for

. , ,
(
the digital economy They are disciplined entrepreneurial and

-
can invest resources in their own training whether gleaned

, ARCHIVES

).
through unpaid internships or personal brand building courses

which are now being o ered at various universities Above all ,

. SelectMonth
[]
they embody the structures and practices of individualization Archives

L I N K S F O R CO N T R I B U T O R S

Log In

Google Zurich

,
-
To employers the benefits of this constructed worker

subjectivity are manifold : they seek self actualization rather

;
( ).
than competitive pay they save on labor expenses through the

- (
culture of BYOD bring your own device And if you provide

),
them with an ber hip workspace think Googleplex or any

# #
of these they may share images of corporate
workspace

:
#
porn with their social media networks
funo ice workspaces

lovemyjob

In the end , while social constructions of audiences remain

central to the mechanics of the consumer marketplace, the logic

of the digital economy relies on the industrial construction of

model worker. The discourse of

( . ., )
the yuccies and slashies

e g personal fulfillment from a creative career

ensures that

, ,

aspiring creators toil in exchange for autonomy excitement

and ubiquitous access to technology though not necessarily

adequate compensation .

REFERENCES

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10/21/2016 Yuccies,Slashies,andtheDigitalEconomysValorizationoftheMultiskilled,AlwaysonCreativeWorkerCultureDigitally

Author note : Many thanks to Je Pooley for his comments on an

earlier version of this argument .

[] i ( )
, . 2007 . Breaking up America: Advertisers and the new
Turow J

media world. , : . ,
( )
Chicago IL University of Chicago Press See also

, . 2004 . Business, not politics: The making of the gay

( )
Sender K

market. : New York ; , . 2006 . Columbia University Press Ang I

Desperately seeking the audience. : .

New York Routledge I also

want to signal Lizabeth Cohen s richly detailed history of

postwar American consumerism , which explores how the

evolution of market segmentation shaped political identities

such that consumerism got rerouted as citizenship

[] (
, . 2010 . ) :
( .), Managing Media Work ( . 249-262).
ii Gill R Life is a pitch Managing the self in new media

. .
, . (2002).
work In M Deuze Ed pp

London : ;Sage McRobbie : A Clubs to companies notes

.
Cultural Studies, 16(4), 516-531; , .,
on the decline of political culture in speeded up creative worlds

, ., & , .
(2005). :
Ne G Wissinger E Zukin S

. Social Semiotics, 15(3), 307334; , .

Entrepreneurial labor among cultural producers Cool

(2012) Venture labor: Work and the burden of risk in innovative

jobs in hot industries Ne G

industries. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

[ ] , . . (2015).
iii Baym
N K Connect With Your Audience ! The

. The Communication Review,

18(1), 14-22.
Relational Labor of Connection

( )
For a discussion of the culture of reciprocity among

fashion bloggers , see Du , . . 2014 .

y B E Link love and comment

:
( .) Online evaluation of creativity
karma Norms and politics of evaluation in the fashion

blogosphere . In H . . C Suhr Ed

and the arts, New York: Routledge.

[] iv The first appearance of the term was a 2008 piece by The

.
// /2008/05/16/ - -
Future Laboratory

: : .
- /
See http almostalwaysthinking com work slash

creative lifestyle

[]
, (2002)
(2000) (2000)
v In her article
Clubs to Companies McRobbie draws

on Beck and Bauman to explain how

individuals and more about the

-
individualization is less about

fact that people increasingly have to become their own micro

,
-
structures they have to do the work of structures by

,
( )
themselves which in turn requires intensive practices of self

monitoring or reflexivity . page 518 . See also , Ne , 2012.

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P O ST E D I N : U N C AT E G O R I Z E D

TA G G E D W I T H : C R E AT I V E W O R K , C U LT U R A L P R O D U C T I O N , D I G I TA L L A B O R ,
D I G I TA L W O R K E R S , I N D UST RY , SOCIAL MEDIA

AUTHOR

Brooke Erin Du y

Brooke Erin Du y is an Assistant Professor in the Department of

Communication at Cornell University .

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Jointhediscussion

BOOMWearayearago
WeloveyourworkBrooke!AreallydeepanalysisofthewordYUCCIE.

Wearesellingawesome,creativeclothingandweconsideritYuccie.Whatdoyou
thinkaboutit?Visithttp://boomwear.co.uk/ifyouhavetime:)

Thanks!

Reply Share

TCayearago
HiBrooke,

Ifoundthenotionofpassionascareer,exposureaspaytobeareallyinteresting
idea.Icaneasilyseehowtheyuccie/slashielifestylewouldespeciallyappealto
millennialsbecausewe'vebeenraisedtoseejobsaslesssomethingonedoesjust
tosupportthemselvesandmoreassomethingthatoneshouldatleastenjoyandat
mostbeinlovewith.Pleasureisasimportantasfinancewhenchoosingacareer
pathandeventuallywhichcompanyyouwanttoworkfor.Thetypeofcareerthat
http://culturedigitally.org/2015/06/yucciesslashiesandthedigitaleconomysvalorizationofthemultiskilledalwaysoncreativeworker/ 6/7
10/21/2016 Yuccies,Slashies,andtheDigitalEconomysValorizationoftheMultiskilled,AlwaysonCreativeWorkerCultureDigitally
pathandeventuallywhichcompanyyouwanttoworkfor.Thetypeofcareerthat
wewouldtheoretically"doforfree".Theissue,asyoumentioned,isthatpeople,and
theeconomy,can'tliveonlovealone.Sothereisthisfundamentalgapinneed
fulfillmentbetweentheyucciewhowantsacareerthatispurposefulandprofitable
andthecompany,whooffersonlyexposureandamplification.

Andwhatvaluecanweputonexposureandamplification?Oneexamplethatcame
tomindwhilereadingwastheyoungmanwhodesignedbothofMichelleObama's
inaugurationballdresses.Ifshehaddecidednottopayhimandrequestedthe
dressforfree,wouldhestillhavedesigneditforher?Hislaborwouldbeunpaid,but
theexposureofdesigningtwodressesforthefirstladywasphenomenalforhis
emergingcompanyandbrandandwould,inthelongrun,havebeenveryprofitable.
Iwonderifthatissomethingthatcreativestakeintoconsiderationwhenbeing
offeredexposureinsteadofmoney.
Reply Share

Rayayearago
IthinkI'minlovewithyou.
Reply Share

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