Unequal pathways to digital self-entrepreneurship : class-inflected orientations regarding vlogging as a career

Abstract

Digital self-entrepreneurship has become one of the most popular career options among younger generations. However, limited attention has been paid to the relationships between socioeconomic differences and digital self-entrepreneurship among youths. Using an extended Bourdieusian framework, this article critically reassesses vloggers’ digital creative labour, conditions and decisions by conceptualising them as various outcomes of position-taking in the emerging field of digital cultural production, tied to socioeconomic differences. Based on interviews with YouTubers in Hong Kong, this study examines how class background shapes young vloggers’ career paths and future aspirations. The findings reveal their divergent class-inflected orientations towards the common tensions between (1) platform productivity and creative autonomy, (2) elite evaluation and mass rating and (3) career planning and an uncertain vlogging future. Shifting the focus to the nexus between class inequality and the platform creative economy, this article provides a nuanced account of digital creative work amid platform precarity and uncertainty.