A revelatory look at the people, platforms, and power struggles shaping work in the creator economy. 

More than two decades after YouTube first invited scrappy amateurs to “broadcast yourself,” social media content creation has transformed into one of the fastest growing labor markets. Today, some two hundred million people work as platform-dependent content creators, influencers, or streamers. Social media platforms boldly tout the rewards of the digital creator economy: independence, flexibility, and the chance to convert one’s ingenuity into cash. Yet the image of work in this entrepreneurial Promised Land conceals a starker reality—one marked by labor precarity, exploitation, and entrenched structural inequalities.  

In this essential work, award-winning communication scholar Brooke Erin Duffy analyzes the paradox of the “visibility bind.” On the one hand, labor devaluation and algorithmic suppression—where unseen forces and so-called “shadowbans” bury worker output—threaten to render creators invisible. On the other, excessive visibility introduces harms of its own, from scrutiny and surveillance to networked harassment. For creators at the margins—among them, creators of color, LGBTQ+ voices, and disability advocates—the bind is especially pronounced, belying the promise of a talent meritocracy. 

Drawing on extensive, in-depth interviews and more than a decade of insight, Duffy situates creators’ experiences within the broader landscapes of self-commodification and platform capitalism. But while platforms hold immense power to structure the pathways to success, creators and influencers wield newfound sway in this high-stakes visibility game. They are organizing, building solidarity, and experimenting with new forms of labor consciousness.

Refuting conventional wisdom about creator careers, Duffy illuminates the hidden labor dynamics for a class of workers shaping everything from culture and commerce to civil liberties and geopolitical conflict. The Visibility Bind reveals the price and perils for anyone who “puts themselves out there.”

Brooke Erin Duffy is professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University, where she also holds appointments in the Programs in Media Studies and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Vox, Salon, Business Insider, Wired, and Forbes, and she is the author or coauthor of three books, including (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love: Gender and Aspirational Labor in the Social Media Economy.

Preface

1. The Visibility Bind
2. The Platform Pivot to Creators
3. Rules and Power Plays in the Visibility Game
4. Devaluation and Discipline Through Invisibility
5. Causes, Conditions, and Consequences of Hypervisibility
6. In/Visibility as Labor Resistance and Consciousness-Raising
7. Undoing the Visibility Bind

Acknowledgments
Appendix: List of Interview Participants
Notes
References
Index