Work used to clock us in. Now it wants us to perform the shift, sell the hustle, and smile for the algorithm.
By Michael Smith — Reflective MVS
Tomorrow is Labor Day.
Somebody will grill.
Somebody will buy a mattress at 40 percent off.
Somebody will post a cheerful corporate graphic thanking “our hardworking team members” before asking half of them to report for their regular shift.
America knows how to celebrate labor without getting too carried away talking about workers.
But this Labor Day feels different.
Because somewhere between the factory floor and the TikTok feed, something strange happened to work.
The job became content.
And the worker became the brand.
The Factory Got a Ring Light
Reuters noticed the trend just in time for Labor Day: “day-in-the-life” influencers are turning ordinary workdays into entertainment.
Commute.
Coffee.
Laptop.
Meeting.
Lunch.
Gym.
Repeat.
The ordinary routines generations once considered too boring to discuss are now edited, scored, captioned and monetized for TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Meanwhile, companies have figured out that employees can double as marketing departments with better lighting.
There is real opportunity in that.
The creator economy is not imaginary money. EMARKETER expects U.S. creators to collect more than $21 billion in revenue in 2026. Digital creator jobs exploded from roughly 200,000 in 2020 to about 1.5 million by 2024.
That is work.
Writing is work. Editing is work. Building an audience is work. Filming three takes because somebody walked behind you during the first two is definitely work.
But look a little closer and something very American begins to appear.
The same economy telling workers that technology may make their jobs unnecessary is simultaneously telling them they should become entrepreneurs, creators, personal brands, consultants, side-hustlers and tiny corporations of one.
Lose the pension.
Download Canva.
Progress.
We Turned Economic Insecurity Into a Personality Trait
For years, “hustle culture” sold insecurity back to workers as ambition.
One job not paying enough?
Get another.
Your employer does not offer enough stability?
Build a side business.
Worried about layoffs?
Develop your personal brand.
The rent went up?
Have you considered monetizing your morning routine?
At some point, structural instability became a motivational poster.
The latest numbers explain why the hustle has such a large audience.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that the economy added 162,000 jobs in August, with the national unemployment rate holding at 4.1 percent. Average hourly earnings were up 3.1 percent from a year earlier. Those are real signs of a labor market still producing jobs.
But statistics can describe the weather without telling you who forgot an umbrella.
The Black unemployment rate stood at 6 percent, compared with 3.7 percent for White workers. And a separate BLS report released just last week found that 3.3 million people were displaced between 2023 and 2025 from jobs they had held for at least three years, an increase of 746,000 from the previous survey period.
The Federal Reserve found another crack beneath the supposedly solid floor. In its latest household survey, 42 percent of adults said finding or keeping a job was a concern, up from 37 percent the year before. Among working respondents, about one in five reported having more than one job during the previous month. One in four workers said they had used generative AI as part of their job.
So yes, people are working.
They are also hedging.
And that distinction matters.
The Algorithm Is a Boss That Never Has to Look You in the Eye
This week brought a nearly perfect Labor Day metaphor.
Uber announced plans to eliminate roughly 3,300 jobs, about 10 percent of its workforce, its largest round of cuts since the pandemic. At the same time, the company is pouring billions into autonomous-vehicle technology as it prepares for a future where even the driver may become optional.
Think about the arc of that company.
Uber became enormous by using an app to reorganize work.
It did not invent driving. It inserted a platform between the worker and the customer.
The platform set the terms.
The platform controlled visibility.
The platform collected data.
The platform took its share.
Now the technology is evolving again, and the worker who once represented the great flexible future of labor is staring at the possibility that flexibility may eventually mean the company is flexible about whether it needs you at all.
That is not uniquely Uber.
It is a preview of the central labor question of the next decade:
When technology makes workers more productive, who gets the dividend?
More leisure?
Higher wages?
Shorter workweeks?
Greater economic security?
Or another earnings call celebrating labor-cost efficiencies?
Funny how “productivity” always sounds exciting until you realize somebody may be describing your departure.
Black Workers Have Seen the Rebrand Before
This is where Labor Day 2026 connects to something much older.
My Black Labor Archive, The Untold Labor History of Black America, traces the story from 1669 to the present: slave codes, Black Codes, sharecropping, convict leasing, industrial labor, union struggles, civil rights victories, deregulation, gig work and the modern fight over worker power.
Explore The Untold Labor History of Black America
Those systems are not morally identical. Enslavement is not Uber. Sharecropping is not TikTok.
History deserves more respect than lazy equivalence.
What repeats is the question of power.
Who controls the work?
Who sets the terms?
Who collects the largest share of the value?
Who absorbs the risk when the economy changes?
And perhaps most importantly: what story are workers told to make the arrangement seem natural?
Enslavement had a story.
Jim Crow had a story.
The exclusion of Black workers from better-paying trades had a story.
Deindustrialization had a story.
The gig economy has a story.
The creator economy has one too.
The language gets cleaner.
The machinery gets prettier.
Sometimes it gets an app.
Sometimes it gets a ring light.
Power has always understood the usefulness of good branding.
That Is Where The Influencer Prince Walks In
This is also one of the reasons I wrote The Influencer Prince.
Not because influencers are uniquely evil. That would be both silly and a terrible marketing strategy for a man promoting a book online.
The deeper argument is about performance and power.
Machiavelli wrote about princes, armies, territory, advisers, reputation and fortune.
Our century has brands, movements, subscribers, followers, consultants, billionaires, platforms, algorithms, virality and carefully managed public personas.
The prince did not disappear. He got a microphone.
And sometimes he got an HR department.
One chapter of the book is called “The Union Is Its Own Army.” The point is larger than organized labor alone. Democracy becomes fragile when ordinary people lose the institutions that allow them to negotiate with concentrated power between elections.
I put it this way in the book:
“Power becomes democratic only when ordinary people possess institutions capable of surviving the ruler’s change of heart.”
That applies to government.
It applies to corporations.
And increasingly, it applies to platforms.
Because if your livelihood depends entirely on an algorithm you do not control, rules you did not write, an audience you do not own and a company capable of changing the terms overnight, you may be independent on paper while remaining remarkably dependent in practice.
The crown got a content strategy.
The bill still comes to the public.
Labor Day Should Ask Who Owns the Shift
The first Labor Day was celebrated in New York City in 1882. Congress made it a federal holiday in 1894. The Department of Labor describes it as a celebration of the social and economic achievements of American workers.
Fair enough.
But a holiday honoring workers should do more than thank them.
It should make us ask what workers actually possess.
Not just wages.
Power.
Who owns the technology?
Who controls the workplace?
Who owns the data?
Who writes the schedule?
Who decides whether productivity becomes higher pay or fewer employees?
Who owns the audience after a creator spends five years building it?
Who gets the upside?
Who gets told to “adapt”?
Black labor history has been answering versions of those questions for centuries.
That is why I built the Black Labor Archive.
That is why I wrote The Influencer Prince.
And that is why Labor Day cannot become merely another holiday where America thanks workers for building the house while politely changing the subject whenever somebody asks who owns it.
Enjoy the barbecue.
Take the day off if somebody actually gave it to you.
But remember what the holiday was supposed to recognize.
Labor creates value.
Power decides where it goes.
And in 2026, the factory may have gotten a ring light, but somebody still owns the building.
Power performs. The people pay.
Keep Digging
Explore the Black Labor Archive:
The Untold Labor History of Black America — 1669 to Today
Read The Influencer Prince
Available now in paperback and Kindle, and available to read with Kindle Unlimited.
Book page:
https://www.reflectivemvs.com/p/the-influencer-prince-by-michael-smith.html
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HGM9ZQP8
Machiavelli wrote for rulers. This book is for everybody forced to live with their decisions.
POWER PERFORMS. THE PEOPLE PAY.
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