Industry frames everyone under the dual roles of customer and employee

Evidence

As employees, men are reminded of the rational organization and urged to fit in like sensible people. As customers, the freedom of choice, the charm of novelty, is demonstrated to them on the screen or in the press by means of the human and personal anecdote. In either case they remain objects. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 113 (#expands, via linked claim)

The representation of exchange is a background against which an entirely different process of exchange emerges. YouTube is the factory where influencers work to forge themselves, but it is also the marketplace where those selves are traded. The influencers themselves are both product and producer, worker and widget. — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 208 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: People are reduced to objects whether addressed as employees or consumers — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 113; Influencers are simultaneously product, producer, worker, and commodity — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory: A Marxist…, 208

Broader Connections

• People are reduced to objects whether addressed as employees or consumers #expands (0.82) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 113
• Influencers are simultaneously product, producer, worker, and commodity #exemplifies (0.75) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 208