Empowered by consumers: how content creators use relational labor to resist labor control

Abstract Researchers often discuss consumers as a means of labor control. In contrast, I ask how workers leverage consumers to resist control over their labor process. Focusing on sponsored content creation as a case, I explain how creators prioritize audience interests to resist sponsors’ control over their creative decisions. Using semi-structured interviews with 39 content creators and observations of a conference session, I show that the managerial practices of sponsoring brands contradict audience expectations due to the relational labor that creators perform to build a sense of community, authenticity, and trustworthiness in the eyes of audiences. Second, I document the role of part-time content creation and YouTube’s paid channel memberships in enhancing creators’ capacity to be selective with sponsorship requests and resist brand interventions that may ultimately lead to a decline in audience engagement. I extend the literature by theorizing when consumers enable workers to resist labor control.