Philippine E-Journals

An Overview of Bruneian Creatives’ Affective Work and Labor on Social Media

Siti Mazidah Mohamad

 

Abstract:

Bruneian youth are actively searching for opportunities to empower and mobilize themselves economically and socially. Creative industry, an industry that requires passion, creative expression, and individuality, offers them the platform for self-exploration, self-discovery, and self-expression. In a span of just a few years, we witnessed our youth’s growing engagement with music, fashion, videography, photography, advertising and promotion, and performance art. This group of youth who are at the forefront of this industry that is characterized by its collaborative, participatory, and creative nature are taking advantage of today’s digital connectivity to mobilize their individualism, creative cultural ideas, identity expression, and cultural production. Using Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) and supplemented with personal communication with selected creatives, this paper examines the affective labor of three Bruneian youth and the work by other creatives through collective platforms in producing creative materials, self-promotion, and mobilizing creative youths in the nation. This paper aims to demonstrate the emergence of Bruneians creatives and the growing creative cultural ideas in the nation enabled and sustained by social media use. In so doing, this paper aims to reveal the creative curation of their Instagram via their affective labor and practice leading to the cocreation of new narratives of Bruneian creatives.