Rhetorical Analysis on “The Gig Economy Celebrates Working Yourself To Death” by

Jia Tolentino

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/jia-tolentino/the-gig-economy-celebrates-working-

yourself-to-death

“The Gig Economy Celebrates Working Yourself to Death” by Jia Tolentino was

published in The New Yorker on March 22, 2017. In the article, Tolentino discusses, much like

the title suggests, that the current gig economy and America’s obsession with self-reliance

normalizes and applauds workers for working themselves past a healthy extent. Tolentino makes

this argument in the article and supports it, using Logos and Pathos by using a real story from the

Lyft Company Blog to emphasize her point. Tolentino also uses Ethos by using a strong tone on

the subject and calling out the problem directly at its source.

The author starts the article by telling a story. The story is one she found off of the Lyft

Company Blog about a Lyft driver from Chicago named Mary. Mary was nine months pregnant

and had just finished a long day of mentoring when she decided to do some drives for Lyft to

earn a few extra dollars. After picking up a few riders, Mary went into labor. Her due date wasn’t

for another week or so, so she continued doing drives. Eventually, Mary got around to getting to

the hospital and ended up giving birth. At the end of the post, they ask other drivers if they have

any similar stories. Tolentino then explains how this can be viewed as a good example of how

somebody can make some money doing Lyft drives no matter what they’re going through. She

then goes onto the other side and calls out Lyft for not offering any form of paid medical or

maternity leave, and offering no health insurance to their drivers. She then uses the story to push
her point that gigging culture has convinced people that making a quick $11 is more important

and easier than tending to any medical needs. Tolentino then ends the article talking about a

couple books to tie her point together, “A Cool Million” by Nathaniel West and “Dancing In

The Dark: A Cultural History of The Great Depression” by Morris Dickenstein. Tolentino

believes that the current gig economy is a flawed system that has people prioritize working for a

small amount of cash over any health or personal issue. These stories are often shown in a good

light and used to inspire “Doers”. Tolentino doesn’t think these stories should be shared in a

good light, instead they should be used to inspire people to demand change from these businesses

to offer better benefits for their workers.

In the article, Jia Tolentino uses Pathos to express the point she’s trying to make by

telling the story of Mary the Lyft driver. She tries to make the reader feel a form of concern for

Mary and many other drivers that find themselves in similar situations. She uses the story as a

tool to put the problem of overworking into perspective for people to see and feel bad for Mary.

Then, she explains how Lyft doesn’t provide a paid Maternity leave to spark a disturbed feeling

from the audience. Tolentino also explains the average pay for a ride in Chicago for a Lyft driver

is about $11. Then claims that people are prioritizing working for $11 over caring for their

personal needs.

Tolentino then uses Logos to convince the readers on the other side of the argument. She

says that the company and many others see Mary’s story as a good example of a group of

hardworking and dedicated people. She also says that the company sees it as a great example of

how “flexible” working as a Lyft driver can be. Tolentino then takes a second to build how Lyft

is glorifying Mary’s story and trying to inspire more people to become drivers and to use their

services. Tolentino counters this and says that this isn’t a story Lyft should be using because it
shows their flawed system. She then calls out the company for not offering any benefits to the

drivers and how Lyft doesn’t even consider their drivers as “employees”.

Lastly Tolentino uses Ethos. She takes a much more driven and serious tone for the next

part. Instead of trying to get the reader to feel bad for Mary and those in similar situations, now

Tolentino is trying to get the reader to be upset with what’s going on and the flawed economic

system. She brings up an example of a man walking twelve miles to work each day. This story

was covered in the news in numerous states and commonly shared as an inspirational story to

show the determination of working class Americans. However, Tolentino feels that this story

isn’t inspirational and instead is showing the flaws of capitalism and how people can’t stand up

to it and are taking the punishments of “the system”. She then goes on to talk about a book. “A

Cool Million” by Nathaniel West. The book talks about a character, Lemuel Pitkin, a hard

working guy who has to save his mom’s house from foreclosure. While working, instead of

saving the house, he ends up losing various body parts like his eye, thumb, teeth, leg, and scalp.

Morris Dickstein in his book “Dancing In The Dark: A Cultural History Of The Great

Depression”, has a character talk about Pitkin’s misfortunes in West’s story. He tells the

audience, “through Pitkin’s hard work and enthusiastic martyrdom, ‘America became again

America’(9)”. She included that quote in her story because she believes that that’s the “hard

working American spirit” so many companies will happily boast about when in reality, it’s not

something to be bragging about poor working conditions.

By sharing Mary’s story and how the story was viewed versus how she believes it should

have been viewed. Tolentino makes a solid point using pathos, ethos, and logos in her article to

convince readers that the current gig economy celebrates people overworking themselves and
that instead of celebrating people working themselves to the bone, we need to hold companies

accountable for keeping workers safe and providing them with enough benefits to do so.

Word Count 1004

Works used:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/jia-tolentino/the-gig-economy-celebrates-working-yourself-
to-death

Paige Crawford- This was a good essay! I think the greatest strengths of your essay is the
summary and the evidence from the original article. The original article was explained in a lot of
depth that will give readers the context they need to understand your essay. The summaries/
quotes that you used can also help the reader understand the author’s motive in including it in
the original article. However, I believe that there was a little too much summary of the original
article. When you were explaining the rhetoric that the author used, you summarized what she
was saying rather than explaining how it could impact the audience. I was able to find your
thesis statement, and it did a good job of explaining what you would be writing about in your
essay. There were a few grammatical errors, but enough that it will be easy to fix. The
organization and structure of your essay were good! There were a few parts that were confusing
for me, but not enough for the essay to be confusing. It was easy for me to follow what you
were saying from one idea to the next. Overall, I think you have a good essay!

Good job! I think this is a very well written and strong essay. There are just a few things I would
fix to make it a little more strong and professional. I think you did a really good job at thoroughly
explaining how logos, ethos, and pathos were used throughout the essay. I think your
introduction was very well written and did a good job at introducing the article, author, and topic
at hand. The summary is also very strong. I had a hard time finding the thesis statement in your
essay. I think you did a good job with your claims. They were all very valid points. I liked your
conclusion, I think it did a good job at summarizing the whole essay and bringing it to a close
that will make the audience think about what was talked about in the essay. I thought you also
did a really good job at tying all the points Tolentino made in her article into the rhetorical
element of logos, ethos, and pathos. I think each element was well represented and it all
balanced out very nicely. The organization of the essay was done very well. It all flowed from
one thing to the next very nicely. Overall it is a very well written essay!
-Audree Hunt