Autistic women’s microwork on TikTok

the atomization of the modern freakshow

Abstract

This paper analyzes the microwork performed by autistic women on the TikTok platform, understanding activities such as video production, affiliate marketing, and other occupations as a sociotechnical phenomenon marked by the spectacularization and precarization of disability. In the brazilian context, where 85% of autistic adults are unemployed, digital platforms emerge as flexible income alternatives that nonetheless mask exploitation and the absence of labor rights. The research employs a bibliographic approach and non-participant observation within an instant messaging group to investigate how these women's experiences are transformed into algorithmic capital. The general objective is to analyze how TikTok transforms the daily lives of autistic women into the precarization of microwork, articulating this phenomenon with the concepts of culture by Marshall Sahlins (1976), “The psychic economy of algorithms” (Bruno, Bentes, and Faltay, 2019), “The society of the spectacle” (Debord, 1967), and the “E3 Internet” (Hine, 2015). The results reveal that these women belong to two groups: influencers who use the banner of autism as a means of engagement and advocacy among their followers, and another group that uses the platform as a source of extra income, anonymously feeding the algorithms. The findings demonstrate that disability is exploited as a persona for entertainment and algorithmic input. The psychic economy and the logic of the spectacle explain the transformation of existence into raw material. The autistic woman’s labor is reduced to the atom, the minimum unit of work, where her daily life and subjectivity are fully incorporated as capital for the contemporary algorithmic economy.