How will the Gig Economy shape the culture at large?
The Gig Economy is something that will be a big focus of a lot of my speculative fiction and my essays, and I'm finding some frustration in trying to research it.
Two pet peeves, in particular.
The first is the peculiar journalistic Millennial-fixation of this age. The media fetishizes Millennials and Gen Z (but especially Millennials, given that most of the media doesn't acknowledge Gen Z as a separate generational cohort yet).
I feel like there is so much problematica here that I don't even know where to start. Reducing gigging to merely a Millennial problem directly dips its toes into that Millennial-fixation - Millennial-anything must make better click bait than talking about other age groups. It tends to do what other "Millennials are killing it/being killed by it" discourse tends to do, that is, reduce a whole cohort to one specific stereotype (white, educated, owing student loans, and a member of the failing middle class).
But worse, it reduces a broader economic problem (all ages are gigging) to one that's specific to one age group, which subconsciously reduces it to a "life stage" that somebody is supposed to get out of.
I feel like it soft-soaps and couches a problem which shouldn't be soft-soaped to begin with. Especially since the media can't really decide what a Millennial even is (a specific generation? A specific age group?) and doesn't know the difference between Millennials (who are in their 30s now) from Gen Z (the current youth and college-age cohort). Even if half or more of Millennials are members of the growing Precariat class (into which giggers fall), the Precariat as a whole does not exclusively consist of Millennials. I'm trying to research broader trends and this fixation on Millennials is maddening.
The other pet peeve:
In all this discourse, there is virtually NOTHING about how the gig economy is affecting society, social relationships, purchasing patterns. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Could it just be that gigging is too *new* as a broader phenomenon for that information to really be out there?
How about psychological effects? Of living a precarious existence to begin with, but also the psychological fallout experienced by many self-employed people in this (American) culture that glamorizes entrepreneurship. When the reality for many is more like this: when you're your own boss, you may be working for the biggest jerk on the planet. (I’m a freelance designer, and often feel this way.)
And how will the new global monoculture incorporate a majority of people who now think of every moment of their time as either monetized or a missed opportunity to monetize?
Are all our friendships going to turn into multi-level marketing connections? How will gigging affect our sense of self and how we move in the culture, if being under pressure to constantly market means you are your brand 24/7?
Forgive me if I think like a science fiction writer, but... well... I think like a science fiction writer, not a journalist. I like imagining worst-case what-if scenarios.
