Tara McMullin

Platform workers’ liminal status makes them much more vulnerable to exploitation. In the United States, most gig workers and creators are classified as “independent contractors,” a categorization the IRS defines as “people who offer their services to the general public” in an independent trade, business, or profession. In practical terms, this... See more

The experience of affective friction is similar as well: a loss of fluency combined with negative emotional signals arising from the gap between social expectations and realities. Even when the difference between an old norm and a new one replacing it seems trivial, the disruptions caused by the shift can create feelings of anxiety, awkwardness –... See more

We can always opt out of this arrangement, of course, and live happily in meatspace, but that is precisely the point: Offline we exist by default; online we have to post our way into selfhood.

Homelessness is about more than lacking a base that offers protection from the elements and material security. It’s about lacking an integrated identity, a “home” persona that is contained and shaped by, and active within, the home as a psychological boundary.

Untangling the question of what I want to make from what will sell feels like crawling out of a very deep well.

While being underrepresented is a fixed state that requires coordinated action to remedy systemically, being underrecognized is an ongoing, active state that we can change from moment to moment. Intuitively, it has an agent. That’s what makes this word an actual call to action. It puts the onus on the folks with the power to act, and it makes the... See more

I think of it as the difference between order and a different kind of order. Because there’s nothing chaotic in diversity. There’s nothing chaotic in a city with many different subcultures all interacting and going about their business. That is an order of its own. It’s just — it looks different from the suburbs.