Fandom = Digital Labour = Free Labour = Your Exploitation
Fandom. Everyone seems to be a fan of something. Even me. So, I may also be a victim of this digital labour. What does that even mean? Let me explain that a bit. With fandoms, people tend to be very big advocates for certain things, ranging from video games, to clothes, to food. Because of this, they may share their experience with others through means of posting and pictures because they could not hold their excitement for the thing they are a fan of. This is then a part of digital labour. But since you are not doing this for pay to advertise for the company of what you are a fan about, you are giving out free labour for the company’s capital, which leads to your exploitation. This actually allows “some companies may find it makes short-term economic sense to reduce their workforce” (Making Sense of Digital Labour) The reason they are able to do such things, as in lessen their workforce, is because we (the fans) work for them for free already!
This may be too much of a pessimistic view on things. Some people see it in a different light. They see it as they voluntarily put what they want to share out there. Some don’t even care that it is free labour. You would tend to hear people rave after a good movie saying “Yooooo! You definitely have to watch this movie asap!”. Some do not think about the marketing aspect of it and just enjoy the thing they are a fan of for the pure aesthetics of it being pleasing to them. Some see it as being empowered to share their decisions on the matter. If anything, I’m all for empowering the individual to make them feel better about themselves. As for me, I’m going to keep arguing why Sasuke is so much stronger than Naruto.
