Tech culture’s self-image conceals a closed system of privilege centered on profit

Evidence

Taken as a whole, these themes of authenticity, meritocracy, and entrepreneurialism reinforce both a closed system of privilege and one centered almost entirely around the core beliefs of neoliberal capitalism. This does not make technology intrinsically better or worse than any other American business; I’d certainly rather socialize with tech people than bankers. But it does reveal the threadbare nature of digital exceptionalism. People in tech repeatedly portray San Francisco and Silicon Valley as places where the smartest, most motivated people from around the globe are changing the world for the better, and this rhetoric has been taken up and repeated often by traditional media outlets. Unlike, say, community activists, public schoolteachers, social workers, or health care providers, technologists are ultimately focused on a small slice of the population, and they are primarily looking for ideas that will prove profitable. These entrepreneurs may have a passion for better audio streaming or e-mail, but to say that such pursuits are world-changing is a bit disingenuous. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 647

Categorization

• CANDY: The line about preferring to socialize with tech people over bankers is an arch one-liner, but the passage as a whole is substantive.
• XREF: Connects to ‘digital exceptionalism’ critiques elsewhere and to broader foundational texts on Silicon Valley ideology and Silicon Valley new capitalism. — connects to: Tech meritocracy discourse masks a narrow demographic and behavioral mold — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 46; Burning Man models the ideals and labor structures of tech culture — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 139; For-profit tech firms cannot sustain gift economies despite their ideals — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 140 (+20 more)

Broader Connections

• Internet self-representation conceals a capitalist infrastructure producing the self as commodity #corroborates (0.90)
• The meritocracy myth masks structural inequality and justifies tech wealth #expands (0.85) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 673
• Social media promotes an ideal of privatizing the self into corporate form #corroborates (0.82) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 354
• Digital capitalism profits from unpaid pleasurable user activity. #expands (0.80) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 197
• The internet functions as a factory producing the self as commodity #exemplifies (0.80) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 18
• Believing in the selfie as a thing masks the class politics of influencer culture #exemplifies (0.78) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 61
• Gender inequality is structurally embedded in Silicon Valley’s self-image and status system #complicates (0.75) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 648
• Technology’s cultural effects are mediated by late capitalism not deterministically #qualifies (0.72) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 410