Quotation:
“As a form of self-sustained, precarious labor, influencing work is a fruitful breeding ground for logics of capitalist labor pinned to an entrepreneurial subjectivity where the messages that define one’s self-worth are pegged to a person’s ability to garner more attention, and thus make themselves more attractive to potential brand partners.” – pg. 2

Comment:

There is a lot happening in this quote, but I think the main thing to take away from it was the idea about someone’s self-worth being defined by their ability to garner attention online that would be valuable for partners. It’s not so much about what someone can do for a company anymore as much as it is about will someone be valuable to this company right away based on their history online and how many people they can influence for us. It is hard to agree that this is the best way to determine someone’s worth in today’s society. People have so many varying skills and assets that they can bring to the table that it is almost criminal to take their social media influence into account over other things. I think that because of the digital age we are in, and the digital future we have ahead of us, it will ultimately be important to have a presence online in different communities. Our presence today does not matter as much as it might in the future, that is why I disagree with our self-worth’s main determining factor ever being what type of influence we hold over others on the internet. 

Something that can have its worth decided by social media and an online presence is something like a business or product. The amount of influence a business has on social media can actually be a big factor in determining the profitability of the business and how much money they make. Businesses rely on people as customers to operate, so it makes sense that their worth can be measured by the number of people who are interested in their business.

Question:

How should one’s ability to garner attention affect their self-worth?