On optimization: Cultural labor in platform capitalism

Abstract

To labor in platform capitalism is to optimize. Based on 66 semi-structured interviews conducted over 8 years with data scientists, software engineers, and content creators at BuzzFeed and Upworthy, this article conceptualizes optimization as a mode of algorithmic labor that emerges in response to the platformization of cultural production, distinguishing between three principal modes of social media optimization: presentational optimization, content optimization, and self-optimization. Through a detailed examination of BuzzFeed and Upworthy’s optimization practices, I argue that in platform capitalism media workers come to act, think, and labor like software engineers rather than journalists, editors, or other traditional categories of media work.