Offers a timely analysis of the sheer ingenuity and persistence of
young people who cobble together the resources they need to pursue the
lives and careers they want.
Young adults are coming of age at a time when work is temporary,
underpaid, incommensurate with their education, or downright
unsatisfying. Despite these challenges, media scholar S. Craig Watkins
argues that this moment of precarity is rife with opportunities for
innovation, and that young adults are leading the charge in turning that
into an inventive and surprisingly sustainable future. As a result,
society is expanding its understanding of who we think of as innovators
and what qualifies as innovation, while wealth is spreading beyond
traditional corridors of powerful tech companies, venture capitalism,
and well-endowed universities.
Drawing on over ten years of interviews and data, Watkins reveals the
radical ways in which this community of ambitious young creatives is
transforming businesses from the outside in. Diverse perspectives that
are often ignored or silenced by major corporations are garnering public
attention as women and people of color are redefining industries across
the globe--all from their computer screens.
We meet people like Prince Harvey, a New York-based hip-hop artist who
recorded his album entirely on an Apple showroom laptop; screenwriter,
producer, and actor Issa Rae, who first used YouTube and Kickstarter to
develop the web series that became her hit HBO show Insecure; the
Empowerment Plan, a nonprofit organization created by product design
student Veronika Scott in Detroit; and start-up companies like Qeyno
Group in San Francisco and Juegos Rancheros in Austin that help make
tech more accessible to people of color.
Forward-thinking and dynamic, Don't Knock the Hustle shows the
diversity and complexity of a generation on the rise.
UNIQUE APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING MILLENNIALS that looks beyond
stereotypes about their relationships with tech and labor, based on two
years of MacArthur Grant-funded research.
DIVERSE AUDIENCE APPEAL that will reach millennials, educators, people
seeking to hire millennials, and scholars of technology, media, and
labor.
