The Influencer Factory
A Marxist Theory of Corporate Personhood on YouTube
Published on 16. April 2024
Book
Paperback/Softback
254 pages
978-1-5036-3879-2 (ISBN)
Description
Influencers are more than social media personalities who attract attention for brands, argue Grant Bollmer and Katherine Guinness. They are figures of a new transformation in capitalism, in which the logic of the self is indistinguishable from the logic of the corporation.
Influencers are emblematic of what Bollmer and Guinness call the "Corpocene": a moment in capitalism in which individuals achieve the status of living, breathing, talking corporations. Behind the veneer of leisure and indulgence, most influencers are laboring daily, usually for pittance wages, to manufacture a commodity called "the self"-a raw material for brands to use-with the dream of becoming corporations in human form by owning and investing in the products they sell. Refuting the theory that digital labor and economies are immaterial, Bollmer and Guinness search influencer content for evidence of the material infrastructure of capitalism. Each chapter looks to what literally appears in the backgrounds of videos and images: the houses, cars, warehouses, and spaces of the market that point back to the manufacturing and circulation of consumer goods. Demonstrating the material reality of producing the self as a commodity, The Influencer Factory makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of contemporary economic life.
Influencers are emblematic of what Bollmer and Guinness call the "Corpocene": a moment in capitalism in which individuals achieve the status of living, breathing, talking corporations. Behind the veneer of leisure and indulgence, most influencers are laboring daily, usually for pittance wages, to manufacture a commodity called "the self"-a raw material for brands to use-with the dream of becoming corporations in human form by owning and investing in the products they sell. Refuting the theory that digital labor and economies are immaterial, Bollmer and Guinness search influencer content for evidence of the material infrastructure of capitalism. Each chapter looks to what literally appears in the backgrounds of videos and images: the houses, cars, warehouses, and spaces of the market that point back to the manufacturing and circulation of consumer goods. Demonstrating the material reality of producing the self as a commodity, The Influencer Factory makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of contemporary economic life.
Reviews / Votes
"Don't read this book if you want to learn how to become an influencer. Do read this book if you're concerned about 'the self' being reduced to a mere product circulating on an endless social media reel. As Bollmer and Guinness convincingly demonstrate, influencer culture is only about celebrity and entertainment on the surface. The real story here concerns the reorganization of capital in the 21st century, and this is a story we all need to understand as it is ultimately about how workers who once made products have become products."-Kate Eichhorn, The New School "A dazzling and organic application of cultural theory, The Influencer Factory is a lively and provocative read for anyone invested in understanding how a new, expansive, and important sector of our cultural economy works."
-Michael Palm, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill "At the intersection of authenticity, identity, and commerce, we find Bollmer and Guinness engaged in next-gen platform capitalism studies. The Influencer Factory nimbly combines digital media theory and political economy, with attention to the labor and infrastructure behind the corporate self."
-Alexandra Juhasz, Brooklyn College CUNY "This compelling book gives voice to the often-invisible work of influencers. From the house and car to market and warehouse, The Influencer Factory puts influencers, their work and what they reflect about contemporary media culture into context-historically, socially, and culturally."
-Larissa Hjorth, RMIT University, Melbourne "I feel like this is how nineteenth century proletarians must have felt reading Marx: like it just perfectly describes every last tiny indignity of working life, even the ones you'd never fully noticed before."
-Andrew Ladd, What's New "[Bollmer and Guinness] make a complex application of Marxist theory concrete as they unpack examples and offer critiques of late capitalism as evidenced in the ongoing excess and waste that mark influencer culture. Recommended."-L. McMillan, CHOICE
More details
Edition
New edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Palo Alto
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Edition type
New edition
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
13 halftones
Dimensions
Height: 224 mm
Width: 149 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
374 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5036-3879-2 (9781503638792)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Grant Bollmer | Katherine Guinness
The Influencer Factory
A Marxist Theory of Corporate Personhood on YouTube
E-Book
04/2024
Stanford University Press
€52.99
Available for download
Persons
Grant Bollmer is Senior Lecturer in Digital Media, and Katherine Guinness is Lecturer in Art History, at the University of Queensland.
Content
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. House
2. Car
3. Market
4. Warehouse
5. Corpocene
Further Viewing
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Introduction
1. House
2. Car
3. Market
4. Warehouse
5. Corpocene
Further Viewing
Notes
Bibliography
Index