5(2) 2019: Laborious Play and Playful Work I

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Owning It. Made in Chelsea and the Post-Work World
Winslow, J. D. A. (2019) , S. 149-158
This paper analyses the constructed reality TV show Made in Chelsea as a vision of a post-work world. Specifically I situate the programme as providing a more realistic vision of a post-work economy than that set out by left futurists advocating for fully automated luxury communism. Through an analysis of the depiction of work and play within the show it becomes apparent that any apparent boundaries between the two are rapidly collapsing, with both subsumed under the auspices of performa- tive authenticity. I argue that increasing automation will more likely lead to fully automated luxury communicative capitalism, unless left futurists acknowledge the affective aspects of social media use.