More than two decades after YouTube first invited scrappy amateurs to “broadcast yourself,” social media content creation has grown into one of the fastest growing labor markets. Today, more than 200 million people work as platform-dependent content creators, influencers, or streamers. Social media platforms boldly tout the rewards of the creator economy:  autonomy, schedule flexibility, and the chance to convert one’s ingenuity into cash. Yet the image of work in this entrepreneurial Promised Land conceals a starker reality—one defined by labor precarity, instability, and entrenched structural inequalities. 

Algorithmic suppression, where unseen forces and so-called “shadowbans” bury worker output, along with systems of labor devaluation threaten creators’ visibility. Yet overexposure introduces risks of its own, from scrutiny and trolling to identity-based harassment. In this essential work, award-winning communication scholar Brooke Erin Duffy calls this paradox the “visibility bind” and shows how marginalized communities—creators of color, LGBTQ+ communities, and disability advocates—confront these binding conditions acutely.

 Drawing on more than a decade of insight and in-depth interviews, Duffy situates creators’ experiences within the broader landscape of cultural production and social media platform capitalism. While platforms wield immense—and often hidden—power in shaping the pathways to success, creators are gaining power in this high-stakes visibility game. They are organizing, building solidarity, and experimenting with new forms of labor consciousness.

In this eye-opening book, Duffy illuminates the hidden labor dynamics for a class of creators shaping everything from culture and commerce to civil liberties and geopolitical conflict. The Visibility Bind reveals the costs for anyone who “puts themselves out there.”