I’m a mom of three, which means my usual daily grind is a whirlwind of carline loops, PTA meetings, and trying to remember which kid needs a costume for Spirit Week. But in between Target runs and packing lunchboxes, I like to keep one ear tuned into what the next generation is actually doing online… because let’s be real, someday soon our kids will be out there chasing dreams, followers, or both.

So when I came across a couple of academic studies, one about hip-hop artists in Chicago and another about indie game developers in Canada, I didn’t expect to feel seen. But these creators are working just as hard (and multitasking just as wildly) as any busy parent trying to keep it all together.

The first study, by Jabari Evans (2022), looks at DIY hip-hop musicians on the South Side of Chicago and how they chase “digital clout.” Basically, they are working hard online to get noticed in the real world.

Evans breaks it down into three key moves: 

These aren’t just marketing tricks. Evans calls it “visibility labor”. This is the exhausting, never-ending work of being “seen” in a world where attention equals opportunity. To me, this is the part of social media and the “influencer” world that sounds the hardest and most time-consuming. 

That same kind of labor showed up in a second study I read by Pierson Browne and Brian Schram (2022), this time about indie video game developers in Montreal using co-working spaces.These are places where people build networks, swap ideas, and get a little of that “co-sign” capability just by proximity. That collaborative environment is very powerful. But also, like the hip-hop artists, these developers are constantly performing and working to be productive and stay in the game. There’s no “off” button for these digital creators. 

As a mom, this hit me. Our kids are growing up in a world where your digital presence is your portfolio, and collaboration often comes with strings of performative labor. So the next time you see a young person glued to their laptop or promoting their project on Instagram, maybe pause before the eye-roll. They just might be corralling, capping, or co-signing their way to a career and it is a lot more actual work than it seems from the outside. 

References
Browne, P., & Schram, B. R. (2022). Intermediating the everyday: Indie game development and the labour of co-working spaces. Media, Culture & Society, 44(2), 345–362. https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437211060251

Evans, J. M. (2022). The anatomy of digital clout(chasing): Visibility and relational labor among DIY hip-hop musicians on Chicago’s South Side. University of South Carolina.