ABSTRACT

Originally conceived to highlight problematic labor relations that required emotions, the term emotional labor is now deployed to describe emotional relations that require problematic labor. In this paper, we identify how digital platforms have amplified this inverted form of emotional labor and spawned a phenomenon we term technoliberal managerialism, or the use of the connection, quantification, control, tracking, and optimization capacities of technology to manage everyday interactions. Through the analysis of viral self-help Twitter threads, a mobile application, and an algorithmic prototype we trace how the resulting habituation rewards happiness, efficiency, and uniformity at the expense of moodiness, messiness, and difference. Ultimately, we argue that going off scripts and embracing the “fuck up” can help resist technoliberalism.

摘要

最初是为了强调需要情感的有问题的劳动关系，现在使用“情感劳动”一词来描述需要有问题的劳动的情感关系。在本文中，我们确定了数字平台如何放大了这种颠倒的情感劳动形式，并催生了一种我们称之为技术自由主义管理主义的现象，或使用技术的连接、量化、控制、跟踪和优化能力来管理日常交互。通过对病毒式自助 Twitter 线程、移动应用程序和算法原型的分析，我们追溯了由此产生的习惯如何以喜怒无常、混乱和差异为代价来奖励快乐、效率和一致性。最终，我们认为脱离剧本并接受“他妈的”可以帮助抵制技术自由主义。