A gimmick exposes contradictory labor amounts in its production

Evidence

The no-mirror mirror selfie follows how literary theorist Sianne Ngai theorizes the “gimmick.” A gimmick is a technique that reveals a simultaneous deficiency and excess of labor in production, something that “seems too expensive or too cheap,” where “the technology behind it is too new or too old.” — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 87

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Ngai’s ‘gimmick’ concept that the mirror-selfie panic instantiates.