Progressive culture since 1954
Perhaps, the last best hope in this sorry and sordid saga is that this may be a wake-up call to workers in the videogame industry. It’s a strong argument for unionisation, an example of how passion alone cannot create a safe work environment, and motivation to hold abusive bosses to the fire.
This is an elegiac book, curiously devoid of anger, notably short on politics, suffused with discontented restlessness but paradoxically passive. It is difficult to see where it will take its likely readership except into a place of disconsolate bias confirmation.
What’s even harder to do when you’re unemployed is remembering that the problem is bigger than you; keeping in mind that many, if not most, rejections are not personal—they’re not serving as a rejection of your entire being, or a dismissal of your value as a person. Unfortunately, when you’re barely coping, focusing on systemic issues feels impossible—directing your negative emotions inwards and nurturing that feeling of self-loathing is far easier, even if you know it’s unhealthy.
With closures to strip clubs, brothels, massage parlours and independent work deemed illegal, the world’s oldest profession was forced to reanimate its identity in the online sphere. But what does this rapid shift to OnlyFans mean for workers who fell through the cracks, those who need to stay faceless, or those who don’t possess self marketing and admin skills or have access to resources, let alone excessive lingerie collections and high quality cameras?
will is standing the closest to the auctioneer (ian.). it is spitting. it is hot, then cold. wearing jackets of duck down. edelweiss. eight dogs mark their way around a spool of buyers. it is a buyers’ market. it is 3 hazelnut court. it could be 16 cherryberry drive. it could even be 92 foregone road. we are on the hill, jolly like a dog, watching will.
Putting prisoners and their unfree labour back into the historical picture not only tells a more realistic story of the past. It also tells us a lot about capital accumulation and its reproduction through related forms of labour—free and unfree, waged and unwaged.
On December 17, when we reach the end of the state of emergency declared under the Biosecurity Act 2015, prisons will continue to permanently traumatise over 42,000 prisoners held across so-called Australia, as well as over 1400 prisoners detained in immigration prisons.
For over 40,000 years, the Yarra has been actively cared for by the people of the Woi Wurrung and Boon Wurrung nations. These communities are still today fighting for the river.
Eight years ago, I wrote a short piece for Overland called ‘Pay the Writers’. I was fed up with being asked to work for ‘exposure’. It was a time when a lot of writing work was moving online, and this work was often unpaid. Writers were at risk of losing our incomes entirely. If anything needed some exposure, it was the working conditions of freelancers.