The internet offers teens (especially girls, who have embraced social aspects of the web) a voice in the books they read, from reviewing, blogging, and creating fan sites, to actually collaborating on books-in-progress — such as The Amanda Project — by writing portions of the book or suggesting storylines. But while these new means of participation are seemingly empowering for teenage girls, is this participation a form of empowerment, or is it merely a way for publishers to exploit teens’ labor to create commodified cultural products which they in turn can sell back to the teens who helped shape them? In an era of user-generated content, this article examines how teens’ affective labor as peer-to-peer-marketers and content creators is changing the transmedia cultural products created for them.
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