Generation Bubble

Specters of Marx: Immaterial Labor and the Primitive Accumulation of Cool

In reifying and quantifying our identity in ways that both flatter us and stoke our positional anxieties, social networks encourage us to shed the last vestiges of market anonymity for full-blown self-revelation. We give the details of our lives freely and in great detail, because they return back to us in the form of affirmation and affect, confirming our capability to produce cool within the networks we ourselves build. Their ease of use takes immaterial labor out of the exclusive hands of hipsters and cultural entrepreneurs and enable all of us to engage in it. Everyone can express themselves — even if it’s just clicking a thumb’s-up next to a status update. Everyone can “share” their off-the-cuff thoughts and moods and secretly dream of their universal relevance, their impact. No need to live in a creative-class ghetto, pursue a graduate degree, or try to master the intricacies of various totemic subcultures anymore — we are all hipsters now.