Speeding up, slowing down, losing grip: On digital media metronomes and timespace friction in the platformised temporalities of fashion design

Repenning, Alica Article — Published Version Speeding up, slowing down, losing grip: On digital media metronomes and timespace friction in the platformised temporalities of fashion design Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space Provided in Cooperation with: Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS) Suggested Citation: Repenning, Alica (2024) : Speeding up, slowing down, losing grip: On digital media metronomes and timespace friction in the platformised temporalities of fashion design, Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, ISSN 1472-3409, SAGE Publications, London, Vol. 56, Iss. 5, pp. 1503-1520, https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X241231691 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/328347 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X241231691 EPA: Economy and Space 2024, Vol. 56(5) 1503 –1520 © The Author(s) 2024 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0308518X241231691 journals.sagepub.com/home/epn AEconomy and Space Speeding up, slowing down, losing grip: On digital media metronomes and timespace friction in the platformised temporalities of fashion design Alica Repenning Economy and Civil Society, Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space, Erkner, Germany Applied Economic Geography, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany Abstract The body of literature addressing platform capitalism, platform labour and platform urbanism paints a compelling picture of how digital platforms shape the dynamics of both leisure and labour within the framework of the platform’s model for extracting value. However, this literature rarely captures how the global timespaces of digital platforms are translated in platform-mediated fields of work and which frictions occur in this process. Therefore, the contrasts between the rhythms of the platform prompting users towards instantaneous data production and the production capabilities of the humans, whose daily (work) life has become dependent on such platforms, remain largely unexplored. In this article, I develop the lens of timespace friction, by integrating the existing research on platform labour with a timespace perspective. The aim is to present a framework that reveals the contrasting relationship between the conflating rhythms of platform capitalism and platformmediated labour. The mechanisms are explored utilising an ethnographic case study of the digital labour of independent fashion designers on Instagram. The proposed perspective on timespace friction demonstrates that mobile apps function as metronomes, nudging the timespaces of daily (work) life. Timespaces are thus negotiated in the polyrhythmic encounters of daily life, where designers challenge the rhythms of the platform or accelerate their practices to follow the imposed pace. A timespace friction perspective therefore sees beyond the smooth operating mechanisms of the platform economy that promise real-time data, flexibility and efficiency, revealing the hidden struggles of synchronisation (speeding up), de-synchronisation (slowing down) and losing grip (going viral). Keywords Digital timescapes, platform capitalism, platform labour, acceleration, timespace friction, digital ethnography Corresponding author: Alica Repenning, Economy and Civil Society, Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space, Flakenstraße 29-31, Erkner 15537, Germany. Email: [email protected] 1231691EPN0010.1177/0308518X241231691EPA: Economy and SpaceRepenning research-article2024 Original Article 1504 EPA: Economy and Space 56(5) Introduction: A temporal view of friction in platform capitalism Instagram gave us such a speed that we could not catch up. . .. It was not only chaos, but it was also a carousel where you could not get out anymore. (Designer 08) The quotation above is taken from an interview with a Berlin-based independent fashion designer who engages in the digital labour of posting and observing content on Instagram to build up her independent fashion brand. The fashion entrepreneurs, whose work has been examined for this study, work between material and technical arrangements, between haptic products and digital representations of their garments, between Instagram windows and shop windows and between online orders and the bodily experience of their clothes. In the polyrhythmic timespaces of their daily life, Instagram functions as a digital media metronome that co-directs the rhythms of digital engagement and coshapes their temporalities of work. In the quote above, the designer describes that the imposed pace of Instagram is experienced as standing in contrast to the tempo-spatial possibilities of her daily work life. To explore this relationship further, I lay out a perspective on timespace friction that aims to illuminate the temporal negotiations among the timespace of digital capitalism and its related forms of digital labour. In the emerging research field of critical platform studies, digital media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter have been noted as examples of influential information and communication technology that alter economic and social interactions. In this context, this article defines digital media platforms such as Instagram as ‘programmable digital infrastructures controlled by platform operators who, as non-neutral intermediaries, curate the interactions of independent complementors and users’ (van Dijck, 2013: 29). Platform operators encourage user engagement and content production as a form of digital labour for the purpose of monetising user data (Evans and Gawer, 2016; Srnicek, 2021). Therefore, digital platform companies have spurred novel forms of digital labour, such as bloggers and influencers (Brydges and Sjöholm, 2019; Caplan and Gillespie, 2020; Glatt, 2022) and added forms of digital labour to existing fields of work. Accordingly, the work environment of fashion and music has become mediated by digital platforms (Hracs et al., 2013; Hracs and Leslie, 2014; Jarrett, 2022; Kneese and Palm, 2020). More precisely, this research underscores the platforms’ role as powerful time-structuring devices (Kitchin et al., 2017; Souza e Silva and Gordon, 2013; Straughan and Bissell, 2022; Wells et al., 2021), emphasising that digital media platforms ‘operate as platform economies, with peoples’ spacetime movements being commodified’ (Kitchin, 2019: 788). The temporalities of digital media platforms are described as real-time media, characterised by presenting ‘fresh, dynamic or continuously processed content’ that contributes to perceptions of the present (Weltevrede et al., 2014: 126). Against the background understanding of the digital media company’s hunger for data, this mechanism has amplified to the point where the workers produce more and more content, and the platform collects more data about ever-more situations in ever-shorter temporal instances, leading to the datafication of the everyday (Barns, 2019; van Dijck, 2013; Zulli, 2018). Stressing the conjunctural and asymmetrical role of digital platform companies, platforms are ‘simultaneously embedded and dis-embedded from the space-times they mediate’ (Graham, 2020: 454). On the one hand, this situation is conducive to the power of the platform corporations, rendering them unaccountable because platforms extract data and control labour by operating at a different spatial scale than the workers. On the other hand, these conjunctural geographies, ‘render platforms vulnerable. The ephemeral nature of platforms means we can avoid them, circumvent them and replicate them’ (Graham, 2020: 453). In-between the contrasting poles of platform-domination and user-resistance, a perspective on the timespace friction of platform capitalism foregrounds the way tempo-spatialities are constantly negotiated in daily life, representing a constant struggle between the platform and the user/worker. This perspective adds further depth to our understanding of how the conjunctural geographies of platform capitalism are formed (and fought over). Repenning 1505 Despite an increasing number of critical perspectives on digital labour (e.g. Kneese and Palm, 2020; van Doorn, 2017) and the spatiality of digital labour (e.g. Souza e Silva and Gordon, 2013; Wells et al., 2021), to date, a temporal perspective on digital platforms is not prominent in the academic debate. Introducing a dedicated temporal perspective, the aim of this article is to look behind the scenes of these always-updated platform interfaces, while examining the timespace contrast between the accelerating, and instantaneous rhythms of digital media platforms and the capacity of the humans, whose daily (work) lives have become dependent on such apps. Against this background, this article addresses this gap in research, answering the research question, how the global timespaces of digital (media) platforms are translated into the daily social realities of platform-mediated fields of work, and which temporal frictions occur in this process. Empirically, I examine how independent fashion designers, whose workspaces are enmeshed in the accelerated timespaces of the digital media platform Instagram make and disrupt the rhythms of platform capitalism and how time-space friction occurs. Therefore, this paper examines the temporalities of platform work, while examining digital media platforms as powerful time-structuring devices of platform-mediated labour. To answer the research question, this article makes two contributions. First, it develops a perspective on timespace friction. The perspective builds on Tsing’s (2005) perspective on friction and May and Thrift’s (2001) and Lefebvre’s (2004) perspectives on timespace and rhythms. Under the notion of timespace friction, I connect notions of instantaneous time and real-time with the experiences of platform workers. Secondly, this paper contributes to current academic debates by revealing the mechanisms of timespace friction in an empirical case study. This research relies on digital ethnographic methods. At its core, it draws from gathering and analysing 21 semi-structured interviews with independent fashion designers in Berlin and related experts. Additionally, field notes and 647 screenshots were collected during offline and online observations. An inductive qualitative content analysis was applied to the material. Examining the digital work of content production and consumption in independent fashion design allows for the disclosure of the negotiation of temporal rhythms between the platform, Instagram and the user, and the labour struggles connected to this. Beyond the technical possibilities, the timespaces of platform capitalism are examined against the concrete practices and perceptions of this group of users (see Lehdonvirta, 2018). This research therefore examines the case of independent fashion design as one example of independent creative production that has been significantly influenced by the digital platform Instagram. The digital labour of independent fashion designers has often been studied under the framework of the ‘platformization of cultural production’ (Nieborg and Poell, 2018: 4276). According to Nieborg and Poell (2018), this entails the extension of digital platforms in the app and web ecosystems affecting the operations of the creative industries. Typically, the work of YouTubers, Instagramers and bloggers has been studied in this context (Brydges and Sjöholm, 2019; Caplan and Gillespie, 2020; Glatt, 2022). Additionally, entrepreneurs such as fashion designers, artists and musicians who sell products, a brand, and part of their personality on digital media platforms and whose work practices have substantially changed because of this, can be classified as conducting platform labour in the platform-mediated field of cultural production (Duffy, 2017; Hracs et al., 2013; Hracs and Leslie, 2014; Jarrett, 2022; Kneese and Palm, 2020). One of the industries that has most gravitated towards Instagram is the fashion industry. The Business of Fashion media company reported that by March 2018, 98% of fashion brands had an Instagram profile (Berezhana, 2018; de Perthuis and Findlay, 2019). For such brands, having an Instagram page and maintaining it has become entangled with their day-to-day work. Posting on and reading Instagram are intertwined with designing, networking, producing and marketing clothes (Rocamora, 2017). Accordingly, independent fashion designers fulfil the hybrid role of being a designer, a blogger, an entrepreneur and a marketing agency at the same time (Repenning, 2022). Thus, the continuous work of engaging with the platform to consume digital 1506 EPA: Economy and Space 56(5) data to monitor the status of the industry, as well as the work of producing content to advertise the brand, as well as novel designs, and personal achievements, need to be set centre stage (Brydges and Sjöholm, 2019). The article is structured into the following sections: The theory section first defines and positions the perspective of timespace friction in longstanding academic debates on technology, time and acceleration. Subsequently, the concept of timespace friction is defined. In the next step, the role of Instagram as a time-structuring device in the fashion industry is elaborated, stressing perspectives on fast fashion, slow fashion and the role of digital labour. Then, a detailed description of the research methods used is provided. I then present the empirical material while synthesising three crucial timespace frictions: synchronisation friction, de-synchronisation friction and friction without grip. Finally, the results and their implications for the area of critical platform studies are discussed. Situating timespace friction in debates on technological acceleration In debates around technology and time, there has been a longstanding discussion about if and how technology induces temporal acceleration. In the following, I look at three relevant positions to situate the perspective of timespace friction. To start with, Harvey (1989) argues that innovation in communication and transportation technologies has reduced the temporal and spatial distances and thus increased the speed of capital production. He demonstrates how new prevailing modes of transportation and communication that encourage an increasing velocity of people, goods and information travelling across distance, indicate a new cycle of time-space compression in the organisation of capitalism. Harvey builds on what Marx has called ‘the annihilation of space by time’, a process fostered by innovation in technology and transport that reduces the costs of the circulation of goods across the globe, thus allowing the speeding up of the production of capital. Rosa (2020) extends these arguments while tracing the effect of the speeding up of transport and communication in the accelerated experiences of people. The so-called ‘acceleration of social change’ summarises that the increasing pace and circulation of information and news means that unvaried conditions have a shorter duration, and the circumstances of stability are perceived as ever-changing. The acceleration of the pace of life is conceptualised as a contraction and agglomeration of practices. Digital technologies impact the acceleration of practices, as tasks can be done more efficiently, resulting in more activities being conducted faster. In sum, the increase in the flow of information, practices and experiences in a given time introduces social acceleration. Social acceleration finds its expression in modern society in the perception of stress, the fear of being left behind and the impression that time flies (Rosa, 2020). Whereas Rosa extends the argument of technological acceleration by integrating individual practices and experiences, feminist geographers further complicate the interrelation of technology, society and humans. They point out that globalisation and related trends of acceleration and digitalisation are uneven, complex and messy (e.g. Katz, 2001; Massey, 1994). Accordingly, Wajcman (2015) introduces a STS perspective to study temporal acceleration processes. She underscores that people use, design and govern technologies. Therefore, she insists that technologies produce complex and diverse socio–temporal relations, rather than mainly faster ones. In this respect, Wajcman (2015: 184) states that the technologies of digital capitalism ‘as much reflect our highspeed culture as shape it’. Applying this latter perspective to the examination of digital media platforms brings to light that these platforms are conceived within specific social contexts and are intricately influenced by the diverse and localised ways in which they are utilised. Temporalities inflicted by digital media platforms are therefore co-developed by the social context, people and the specific architecture of the technology in an ongoing mutual relationship where people and society shape digital technologies, and digital technologies shape them. Digital platforms are an example of a communication technology that co-structures user Repenning 1507 practices and shapes the user’s aspirations for increased efficiency. Together, technologies, people and media practices lead to societal acceleration or de-acceleration processes. Defining timespace friction Corresponding to these notions of temporality, technology and acceleration, I introduce a third perspective on timespace friction. This perspective further extends the STS perspective on the interrelation of technology, temporality, users and acceleration. However, it foregrounds the multiplicity of timespaces and how they are made and re-made, sped up and slowed by digital platform companies, social practices, as well as actors’ hopes and wishes. First, to understand the timespace frictions of digital media platforms as a contested tempo-spatial relation between platform imperatives and user imperatives, I turn to the conceptualisation of friction from Tsing (2005). Second, to define digital media platforms as rhythm-makers and time-structuring devices, I work with perspectives on timespace by May and Thrift (2001) and rhythms by Lefebvre (2004): Friction Tsing (2005) introduced a perspective on friction to establish a feminist, ethnographic viewpoint on global connections. Her empirical work stems from the Indonesian rainforest and traces the multiple and contested processes among its logging sites. Defining friction, Tsing argues that global connections are sticky worldly encounters made and un-made in messy daily confrontations across the globe. Rather than assuming to understand capitalism from a general perspective, she argues that it is necessary to discover how it operates in friction, where capitalism is made and unmade in the productive friction of daily encounters. She conceptualises friction as the ‘grip of worldly encounter’ (Tsing, 2005: 5), where capitalist universals are brought into action. Friction diverges from capitalism’s imperative, as they might block it. At the same time, friction translates the global flow of capitalism into daily life and thus makes these flows possible. Together, these processes constitute the messy, uneven forms of capitalism. Translating the concept of friction to the friction of digital capitalism means that friction occurs between the conjunctural timespace of platform capitalism and the rhythms of users’ daily (work) lives as they rub against each other. Frictions thus form the zone of ‘confluence’ where, according to Tsing (2005: 4), ‘universals and particulars come together to create the [tempo-spatial] forms of [digital] capitalism we live in’. A perspective on friction entails viewing the daily encounters of platform capitalism ‘from below’ and observing how timespaces are made and unmade in confluence or divergence with the rhythm of the platform. Users translate the temporal rhythm of digital media into the reality of their daily temporal rhythms. For instance, they speed up processes and actions to align with the tempo-spatial requirements of the platforms; at other times, they slow down their efforts. Thus, friction occurs where the instantaneous rhythms of platform capitalism and the timespaces of the people in their daily (work) lives rub against each other and form the messy, contested timespace of everyday life. Digital devices, timespace and rhythms Building upon Tsing’s concept of friction, this research adopts a timespace perspective rooted in the theories proposed by May and Thrift (2001) as well as Lefebvre (2004). May and Thrift (2001) highlight the multiplicity of timespaces and how they are made and re-made, sped up and slowed by social practices and their variations. Therefore, they emphasise the individual daily experiences and practices of making timespace, underscoring how ‘a sense of social time is made and re-made according 1508 EPA: Economy and Space 56(5) to social practices’ (May and Thrift, 2001: 5). May and Thrift’s (2001) definition of timespace accentuates that the construction of social time relies on the temporal ordering of spatially situated practices. Additionally, they describe social time as influenced by spatially situated practices and contingent processes of temporal meaning-making. Timespace thus relies on a temporal organisation of spatially situated practices, as well as meaning-making. Additionally, they foreground that people’s tempo-spatial practices are rhythmically rendered by social, technological, natural and material domains. Crucially, they argue that a sense of time emerges from one’s relationship with various instruments and devices. They refer to tools such as the sundial, video recorders and telephones as shaping the nature and the perception of time. Additionally, they argue that not only devices but also timetables, such as weekly calendars or hourly schedules that are written down or transmitted in electronic form, shape socio-temporal practices and meaning and thus constitute a sense of time. In Lefebvre’s (2004: 48) perspective on rhythms, he critically assesses the rhythm-making effects of the media, highlighting that ‘the media enter into the everyday; even more: they contribute to producing it’. He reflects on how the media seamlessly produces daily rhythms, as the images and words that enter everyday life at re-occurring intervals order daily and weekly structures and thus contribute to making up daily temporalities. In sum, a perspective on timespace and rhythms allows us to see digital devices, as well as the media, as tools that influence the ordering of practices (May and Thrift, 2001), the daily re-occurring rhythms (Lefebvre, 2004) and the perception of the sense of time (May and Thrift, 2001). Thus, the digital interfaces that are part of daily spaces of platform-mediated interaction (May and Thrift, 2001), as well as the underlying capitalist incentives of the digital companies that provide these apps (Lefebvre, 2004), currently shape the perception of time and the rhythmic ordering of daily practices for many. Synthesising timespace friction Against the background of these theories, I define timespace friction as a contested tempo-spatial relation between the imperatives of platform capitalism and the temporal possibilities of the users. It denotes the temporal structuring process among the time-structuring mechanisms on the platform, orchestrated through the digital interfaces, nudging the users towards instantaneous data production or consumption. These mechanisms are negotiated because of the limited tempo-spatial possibilities of the platform users. Thus, the friction between the platform’s timespaces and the users’ everyday life are moments where the digital media timespace and the timespace of daily life rub against each other, are adjusted, and are formed. The digital interfaces of a media platform, such as Instagram, are defined as a digital timetable or metronome that directs user practices in pre-conceived temporal forms and contributes to a sense of time. In this way, I underscore that the user practices are temporally ordered and synchronised by the digital interfaces and contribute to the meaning-making of time. Instagram and accelerated timespaces of the fashion industry Instagram’s tempo-spatial characteristics Instagram represents a classic example of a digital media platform that has risen in prominence as a daily used digital tool. At its core, it matches corresponding user affordances and thus encourages forms of digital data production and consumption that operate in tandem with the platform-specific mechanism of value extraction (Hine, 2015; van Dijck, 2013). More specifically, Instagram affords interpersonal contact between individuals or groups that may be personal or/and professional Repenning 1509 (Barns, 2020; Lingel, 2017; van Dijck, 2013). Users establish digital connections via the ‘follow’ button to stay updated about the professional and/or personal life of other users. Additionally, they are encouraged to interact with the presented content through comments, likes, or shares. Further, Instagram promotes user-generated content. As a visual platform, it affords creative and cultural activity via the uploading of videos and photos in intersecting amateur and professional spheres (van Dijck, 2013). Therefore, Instagram is particularly prominent in the realms of artistic, creative and cultural production and consumption (Boy and Uitermark, 2017; Duffy et al., 2021). The fashion industry is one such creative-cultural industry that has been drawn to the use of Instagram, and functions in close relationship with the platform as a central space for marketing, sales, networking and inspiration (Repenning, 2022). Rocamora (2017) underlines that digital media has a substantial impact on the way that design is constructed and the way that fashion shows are presented. She even argues that the photographic representation of a dress on digital media has often become more important than the dress itself. Similarly, under the notion of ‘brick-and-platform’ (Kneese and Palm, 2020: 2), the authors describe how platforms affect local merchants, brick-and-mortar shops and digitalised labour and sales processes in the case of the economy of fashion and music. Crucially, Instagram also functions as a spatio-temporal media. The platform provides options to geotag posted content, filter data based on location and provide local as well as translocal social connections (Kitchin et al., 2017; Souza e Silva and Gordon, 2013). To this end, Lingel (2017) defines digital media platforms as social spaces that explicitly reference geographic locations in text, images and videos. Additionally, she underlines that implicit descriptions in the meta-data reveal the date, time and location of the content production. Beyond the geotag and the metadata, digital media platforms such as Instagram are denoted as real-time or instantaneous media that further compress the sense of time and distance. Weltevrede et al. (2014) introduce the notion of ‘realtimeness’ to describe how digital media platforms produce distinct forms of real-time for their users. The idea of platforms as real-time media suggests characterising platforms based on if they present ‘fresh, dynamic or continuously processed content’ (Weltevrede et al., 2014: 126). For instance, Instagram stories are online for 24 hours, and live broadcasts are online only when live. This necessitates increasing interactions among users, who become more active and increase their ‘live’ glances on the site (Weltevrede et al., 2014: 142–143). Therefore, Zulli (2018) argues that the name Instagram points towards the platform’s role in presenting instant visuals, creating a continuous fleeting cycle of posting and viewing at always-updated digital content ordered by the platform’s digital interfaces. Moreover, digital platforms and social and spatial media have altered the practices of coordination in time and space (Souza e Silva and Gordon, 2013). The platform company nudges, which increase user interactions, result in capturing increased real-time data that the platform company then capitalises on (Kitchin, 2019). Fast fashion, slow fashion and Instagram In particular, the fashion industry represents a case whose tempo-spatial constitutions have dramatically changed. Due to the increasing importance of Instagram in the daily life of designers and consumers and the growing reliance on digital marketing and sales, the tempo-spatialities of fashion have been redirected. Under the term ‘fast fashion’, changes in the global production network of fashion have occurred. It serves as a critical term, indicating the prevailing fashion production approach led by major global players like Zara, H&M, Benetton, Topshop and Shein. Fast fashion can be described as a minimisation of the so-called time-to-market that, first and foremost, is ensured by a fast and responsive supply chain and cheap production costs. This entails that global fashion retailers spend minimal time on design. Instead, they source information on trends and designs and immediately start production and sales in swift timeframes. They source their clothes globally, with offshore production 1510 EPA: Economy and Space 56(5) sites that produce massive amounts of clothes that cost little per item that are then sent to their stores globally. Consequentially, new fashion pieces are seen, selected, produced and sold almost immediately, and new collections enter the store at an ever-increasing rhythm. The three key assets of fast fashion companies are: (i) an increasing number of retail stores, (ii) a reliable information infrastructure to detect the latest trends and (iii) a quick and cost-efficient supply chain (Tokatli, 2007; von Hirschhausen, 2017). Instagram, as real-time media, has fuelled two of the three crucial elements of the fast fashion architecture. First, the swift information system allows the detection of trends in real-time. For instance, information from the latest collection presented at Fashion Week travels through Instagram worldwide immediately. Trends are thus detected faster and can be directly included in the upcoming production line of fast fashion retailers. Second, the option to directly present and sell the items to customers through the always-updated digital interfaces on Instagram triggers the customers to order the clothes instantly from anywhere at any time. Information is transported even faster and desires are created quicker and replaced by new desires at an increased pace. Shop opening hours or commuting times are tempo-spatial obstacles slowing consumption. These barriers have been reduced because customers can order items anytime and anywhere through Instagram and the connected online shop (Crewe, 2017; von Hirschhausen, 2017). This entails compressing time and space (Harvey, 1989); platform technologies allow more products to be provided more frequently and in more territories than before. On the other extreme of fast fashion, there is a contradicting development connected with the introduction of Instagram and the changing tempo-spatial rhythms of the fashion system. This development is sometimes referred to under the description of ‘slow fashion’ and thus associated with local sourcing and a slow pace of production and consumption, as well as sustainability (Leslie et al., 2014; von Hirschhausen, 2017). Essentially, the argument entails that the longstanding hierarchies in the fashion industry have become democratised because of the digital opportunities on Instagram. The hope is that everyone can make it from everywhere because every brand has the chance to utilise the many online options for independent producers. Consequently, independent and/or sustainable designers have used Instagram as a free tool for a sustainable counterculture to raise sustainability awareness, report transparently on the production process and sell their clothes to a personalised customer base, while not following the accelerated fashion industry trends. For independent fashion brands, these developments indicate that Instagram has equally become a space of frustration and hope. On the one hand, Instagram is a media of frustration because platforms are used as a source of information to monitor the industry’s status and identify overall societal trends. The speed with which information is diffused has increased due to Instagram, and information is posted, accessed and commented on almost instantaneously by a translocal online network. These factors impact the increasing pace of trend diffusion, with the accelerating speed of fast fashion brands functioning as a catalyst. Independent brands encounter challenges in keeping pace, leading to feelings of frustration (von Hirschhausen, 2017). On the other hand, Instagram is a media of hope because small players and independent designers have the chance to reach customers directly, market their clothes and build up a brand on their own. This raises hope for a democratisation of the industry and the opportunity to raise awareness for small brands and more sustainable fashion alternatives (Crewe, 2017). These inclinations increase the motivation for independent fashion brands to engage with customers and peers through Instagram. Thus, independent designers work between offline studios, online shops and online spaces on Instagram (Repenning, 2022). Building up a brand’s Instagram presence takes a lot of effort but no additional up-front monetary costs. Therefore, the continuous work of engaging with the platform to promote the work and the brand’s achievements has become an extra form of digital labour (Duffy, 2017). This labour stretches across public and private spaces and includes presentations of the self, as well as of the brand (Brydges and Sjöholm, 2019; Kneese and Palm, 2020). Thus, we can see that the tempospatial order of fashion has been altered due to the prominence of Instagram. Repenning 1517 wheel turns without friction and cannot be processed. Therefore, the increased impulses for motion turn into stressful, messy and chaotic situations on the ground, as the platform seems to move and usher responses that are almost impossible to translate in the offline world. These viral situations are very much fuelled by hope. The designers generally are enthusiastic about such situations, saying that are surprised and happy. These reactions show that the viral situation is a moment where their aspirations materialise because the platform presents the potential for sudden growth (Duffy, 2017; Pettit, 2021). Therefore, the designers try to catch up with the rhythms of the platform to ride along with the unexpected wave of success. Who dictates and executes the rhythms becomes very apparent in such an extreme situation. While trying to catch up with the platform’s pace, a chaotic moment of hope and disappointment of acceleration and the perception of being too slow remains. After a rush on the account, the situation ends and slows down after a couple of days, as the attention on the always-updated digital media interfaces shifts elsewhere. Conclusion: On digital media metronomes and timespace friction I have brought together in this paper the platform labour and timespace perspectives to propose a framework to study the relationship between the temporal rhythms of platform capitalism and platform labour. I propose that digital media platforms can be seen as a metronome that nudges the timespaces of daily (work) life. To gather data, and subsequently profit, the platform prompts the user towards increasing interaction with, and attention to, the platform. A focus on examining friction reveals that timespaces of platform capitalism are adjusted to the polyrhythmic encounters of daily life that challenge the rhythms of the digital media metronome or accelerate practices to try to follow the imposed pace. Going beyond notions of acceleration, real-time, instantaneous time or disconnecting time, the notion of the digital media metronome builds on the previously established definitions of timespace friction. It entails that digital media platforms have become rhythm makers that co-shape the temporal practices and experience of time in the daily life of its users (Lefebvre, 2004; May and Thrift, 2001). Digital media metronomes nudge users towards providing instantaneous data, real-time communication and ‘just-in-time’ interactions (Weltevrede et al., 2014; Zulli, 2018). However, this article underscores that digital media metronomes do not operate in a vacuum but are a product of societal imperatives, media practices and users hopes and wishes (Wajcman, 2015). Thus, the digital media metronome operates as a socio-technical arrangement between the imperatives of platform capitalism and platform labour. Users can turn a metronome on and off, it can be set faster or slower, and it can be followed or ignored. However, even though both platform owners and users can direct the digital media metronome, it is essential to distinguish their difference in terms of power (Massey, 1994; van Dijck, 2013). To this end, the friction between the platform’s accelerated time-spaces and the users’ everyday life is indicated as the moment where the digital media timespaces and the timespaces of daily life rub against each other, are negotiated, adjusted and formed. This perspective reveals how the platform’s instantaneous and fast rhythms are re-arranged by the users and points towards the daily labour struggles. The framework established was employed to study independent fashion designers in Berlin and their work on the digital media platform Instagram. In the case study, three timespace frictions of platform capitalism were distilled: (i) synchronisation friction occurs when the platform’s speed is translated into the daily life of the workers who try to follow the rhythms of the platform and speed up their actions; (ii) de-synchronisation friction resembles a continuous and effortful distancing from the speed of the platform, with workers slowing down and trying to impose their own rhythms of engagement; and (iii) friction without grip is an extreme situation that occurs during the phenomenon of viral events. With such events, the platform’s algorithms spin free and lose connection to the rhythms on the ground. They require such a higher amount of interaction in such a short time that is 1518 EPA: Economy and Space 56(5) impossible to follow. Therefore, the situation is shaped by a mix of hope, chaos and the continuous need to try to catch up. This paper demonstrated that observing the timespace friction of digital platforms allows us to see beyond the apparently smooth operating mechanisms of the platform economy that promise real-time data, just-in-time flexibility and efficiency (see Lehdonvirta, 2018). Instead, it underscores that platform timespaces are negotiated on the ground where they either rhythmically pulsate together or grapple against other daily rhythms. Offline practices take more time and effort than always-updated online clicks (see de Perthuis and Findlay, 2019). Therefore, frictions among the contrasting timespaces occur. The power relations between the rhythms of the platform and the rhythm of the worker show that often the workers feel inclined to follow the platform’s time-space nudges while increasing and speeding up their digital engagement (Duffy, 2017; Kitchin, 2019; Kneese and Palm, 2020; Zulli, 2018). For the platform, the goal is accomplished because more attention and interactions are created. Thus, data and capital accumulate. Acknowledgements The author wishes to thank the research participants for the deep insights into their daily work, their critical reflections, their honesty, and for the time they took to talk to me in their busy daily schedules. Additionally, the author thanks the brilliant referees for their support in developing the theoretical framework of the paper. Their thoughtful suggestions improved the paper considerably. Also, the author wishes to thank Suntje Schmidt for her encouraging guidance in the paper writing process. Finally, a special thanks to Mary Beth Wilson for her final language proofreading and thoughtful language suggestions. Declaration of conflicting interests The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This paper is based on research within the frame of the project ‘Platform Ecology: Creative collaboration in the field of tension between virtual and concrete spaces in the case of fashion design’ (2019–2021) at the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS). As a member of the Leibniz Association, the IRS is funded by the Federal Republic and the Federal States of Germany. ORCID iD Alica Repenning https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6152-7362 Supplemental material Supplemental material for this article is available online. References Barns S (2019) Negotiating the platform pivot: From participatory digital ecosystems to infrastructures of everyday life. Geography Compass 14(2): e12464. Barns S (2020) Platform Urbanism: Negotiating Platform Ecosystems in Connected Cities. Singapore: Springer Nature. 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