5. Craigslist Gigs, Class Politics, and a Gentrifying Internet

Abstract

This chapter looks at the hustle to find work on craigslist. Using interviews with craigslist users recruited through the site's gigs section, the chapter puts craigslist job searching in the context of shifting norms around work, like the reliance on digital tools to find employment, and moving away from long-term careers toward a string of short-term gigs. Understanding craigslist's jobs and gigs also points to a discussion of class. Many participants saw craigslist as part of the “poor people's internet,” and described a form of stigma around the jobs found on the site. While early narratives around the internet assumed that access to digital media could overcome class divides, the class bias associated with craigslist's gigs shows how these assumptions fall flat.