Organising daily life and affective labour among YouTubers: a social media analysis

Work has become a central pillar of our lives, profoundly influencing all other aspects of our existence. While the significance of emotions in the workplace has been well documented, limited attention has been given to how work-related emotions impact other areas of life. This article demonstrates that affective labour provides a useful framework for understanding non-work-related domains, and explores how social media offers individual coping mechanisms to deal with emotions arising from collective issues such as long work hours, job stress and the scarcity of public or affordable care services. This study posits that the commodification of lifestyles and emotional wellbeing strategies, as elaborated on social media, reflects the blurring of boundaries between work and non-workspaces while creating productive subjects. Content analysis of selected YouTube videos within this genre reveals that adopting flexible work organisation patterns in our private lives implies personal solutions to societal issues and perpetuates gendered patterns of division of labour to sustain the reproduction of everyday life.