Sociology: do anything and call it work

Summing up years of someone else's work in one sentence. Mostly from sociology, because I'm almost 15 years deep down in the field. Following the steps of lolmythesis.com-senpai.

[loltheirscience]

Latin American migrants use TikTok to show off their lives and prove they belong in Spain or the US, basically reclaiming their rights one viral video at a time.

International Journal of Communication (Online) 16 (2022): 5578-5602. # Migrantes on TikTok: Exploring platformed belongings.

[loltheirscience]

TikTok helps migrant workers find their voice, but they're still stuck in a shitty system that exploits them both online and off.

The Oxford Handbook of Media and Social Justice (2024): 205.

Subaltern Digital Cultures: Precarious Migrants on TikTok.

[loltheirscience]

The world is literally not built for disabled people and it’s because of capitalism.

Gleeson wrote a book about how feudalism and industrial cities sucked for the impaired, and how modern cities still treat them like crap through bad design and NIMBYism. Basically, we need to stop designing cities that actively exclude people.

Geographies of disability. Routledge, 2002.

[loltheirscience]

TikTok is getting banned in the US, so everyone is panic-moving to another Chinese app called RedNote, proving that the "digital cold war" is basically just people switching tabs while the government yells about spies.

The Conversation Media Group Ltd, Published: January 16, 2025

US ‘TikTok refugees’ are fleeing to Chinese app RedNote. It’sa new phase of the digital cold war.

[loltheirscience]

Gen Z loves TikTok, governments hate it, and the author spent way too much time watching teens dance to explain why it's taking over the world.

TikTok and youth cultures. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2025.

[loltheirscience]

The author spent 18 months watching people scroll through TikTok just to confirm that they use it to rot their brains in peace, but feels kinda bad about it because the algorithm knows them better than their own mothers.

TikTok and everyday life: making sense of the meanings and politics of scrolling. Diss. Goldsmiths, University of London, 2024.

[loltheirscience]

People trust TikToks of migrants winging it more than sketchy ads from actual human smugglers.

Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy & University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

Crossing the Border on Tiktok: Documenting Irregular Journeys through Novel Social Media Platforms

[loltheirscience]

Public computer labs are basically carrying the entire job market for poor people on their backs, but the government still won't put a ring on it.

Les Cahiers du développement social urbain 55.1 (2012): 23-24.

Les espaces publics numériques, un appui à consolider pour les démarches d’insertion professionnelle.

[loltheirscience]

Uber drivers and delivery guys live in poor neighborhoods, but the author had to use a massive national dataset to prove what everyone already sees on the street.

compas ZOOm 27 (2022).

L’ubérisation des quartiers populaires.

[loltheirscience]

Cameroonian guys are hustling as "downloaders" to survive, proving that masculinity and dodging corrupt city officials are just part of the grind in the digital informal economy.

Lien social et Politiques 81 (2018): 102-120.

Processus d’émergence d’une «jeunesse android» et construction d’une nouvelle figure entrepreneuriale à l’ère de l’économie numérique au Cameroun: le téléchargeur des productions culturelles à Yaoundé.

[loltheirscience]

The government went digital and now everyone is screwed, so the author asked some social workers how much they hate being tech support for unemployed people who can't use a computer.

RESET. Recherches en sciences sociales sur Internet 13 (2024).

Faire avec ou à la place des bénéficiaires: la prise en charge des demandeurs d’emploi en contexte numérique, entre promotion de l’autonomie et contrôle. 

[loltheirscience]

Government programs for grads have failed, so young graduates are bootlegging Canal+ to survive.

Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny Abidjan-Cocody.

L'insertion professionnelle par l'auto-emploi: Cas des jeunes diplômés re-distributeurs de services du numérique dans la commune d'Adjamé

[loltheirscience]

The authors asked 10 young entrepreneurs in Fes how they use the internet, and it turns out that watching YouTube tutorials and using Facebook is basically their entire business strategy because they're too broke for anything else.

Laboratory for Cultural and Social Research and Studies & Laboratory of Sociology and Psychology, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, Morocco

L’Impact De l’Usage Des Plateformes Numériques Dans La Promotion De L’auto-Emploi Chez Les Jeunes Entrepreneurs De La Ville De Fès

[loltheirscience]

Even if you're basically the same, the news will find a way to make you the "other" so they can keep calling you a threat while pretending you're family.

Lund University, Sweden.

The Racialization of Syrian Refugees in Jordanian and Turkish Media

[loltheirscience]

Muslims are people too, and it's complicated.

Government and opposition 39.4 (2004): 614-631.

Being Muslim: Islam, Islamism and Identity Politics

[loltheirscience]

British people hate religion and Islam specifically, so Muslims are having a really hard time trying to fit into a secular society that's basically side-eyeing them.

Faith in the public realm. Policy Press, 2009. 41-62.

Soft’segregation: Muslim identity, British secularism and inequality.

[loltheirscience]

Muslims are actually different people and it depends on where they live.

Muslim identity formation in religiously diverse societies. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015.