Digital Labour?

I think there is some truth to the idea of “free labour” online, the idea that we as individuals engage in activity that benefits companies, products and celebrities, be it from sharing a music video, or posting about our own personal experience, word travels fast on the internet and every portion of publicity, large or small, will benefit any of these variables on the internet.

But personally I’m hesitant to even call our activity labour. Internet users, particularly those of our generation, are hugely addicted to activities online. Facebook, twitter, tumblr, YouTube. These sites are the most popular on the web, and why does one become addicted to anything? Because they enjoy it. That’s the point I’m making here, is it really labour if we enjoy the experience of it?

I want to use an example of what others refer to as digital labour taken from Lisa Nakamuras’ piece of work, which was mostly discussion on the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game) World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft is the single most popular online game, emphasised by its recurring mentions in some of the most popular television shows and movies, including one particularly famous episode of South park (NBC).

Nakamura brings to our attention the existence of Chinese gold farmers in the fantasy world of Azeroth, which serves as the location of the game. In World of Warcraft, each player assigns themselves an avatar and through missions and tasks, they proceed through the game and “level up” or purchase new powers or weapons for their character with gold they earn. Gold farmers however, are players that are not in the game for Leisure, but rather to earn the previously mentioned attributes, and sell them to other players in exchange for real world currency.

Although selling or purchasing items is not unheard of, Chinese gold farmers tend to engage in no other activity other than this, separating them from active players who may occasionally sell something they’ve earned.

These players seem to be despised on the whole by other online gamers, claiming that they ruin the game. While the argument can be made that this form of cheating “benefits players and the game industry alike”(Nakamura, 188)allowing players who might be stuck to develop their characters, this activity has also lead to networked racism towards Asians. The gold farmers tend to be Chinese, and other players have determined a way to identify who these players are. Usually a Chinese gold farmer wont speak much English, will have an unwillingness to interact with other players and will have generally repetitive behaviour. However, the gold farmers know what they are doing, and gain something from their actions. Digital labour, by my definition, is more apparent in other cases. For example in various Chinese prisons, prisoners are forced to play World Of Warcraft for hours on end to earn gold to sell for real profit.

I stated at the beginning of this blog that I was hesitant to refer to our activity as labour, but that’s not to say I don’t understand how it can be viewed as such. Its time consuming, and does take work. Some people work hard online to make it their career. YouTube is responsible for bloggers, animators, musicians and many more artists getting the recognition they deserve. But regardless of this activity being beneficial to them, it does take work to continuously come up with new material to release on the Internet; many artists get sponsored and allow advertisements on their channel as well.

So even if we can refer to online activity as digital Labour, I don’t think it exists purely by means of society being exploited, but rather, beneficial means to both sides of the screen.