Caste System of the Digital Age 
by Joanna Glasner
July 1999

In their upcoming book, NetSlaves: True Tales of Working
the Web, former cubicle jockeys Steve Baldwin and Bill
Lessard set out to dismiss the stereotype that Net workers
are all a bunch of happy kids with lots of stock options.

"We believe the new media world is not like an open,
classless society," said Baldwin. "We believe there's a
pecking order and a power structure."

And as in any food chain, bottom feeders outnumber those 
at the top.

Here are the major castes Net Slaves authors Baldwin and 
Lessard have identified in the Web workforce:

    1.Mole People: Both Lessard and Baldwin identified
      themselves as members of the Net's lowest caste,
      the so-called mole people. Unpaid or underpaid,
      low-profile, and often cynical, mole people post
      obscure Web sites about their personal hobbies or
      scurry from one short-term gig to another. They
      never cash in a stock option.

    2.Cops and Streetwalkers: If the Web had street
      corners, these would be the people hanging out on
      them at 3 in the morning. The streetwalker caste
      consists mostly of people involved in the profitable
      Net porn business. The cop class could include
      anyone from an editor at a porn-filtering site to an
      anti-smut lobbyist.

    3.Social Workers: These are your real
      community-booster types. Social workers run online
      chat sites, keep up bulletin boards, and run
      newsgroups. "The social workers are the emoticon
      masters of the new media universe," Lessard says.
      Not a bad sort, overall. Also very unlikely to strike it
      rich.

    4.Garbagemen: Someone has to clean up the refuse
      on the tech frontier. Garbagemen are the people
      who run help desks, do low-level coding, and check
      to see that sites and services are free of bugs.

    5.Cab Drivers: These are your really savvy
      freelance types. Web designers, content producers,
      and others with obscure Net industry titles who hop
      from job to job. Cab drivers often get well-paid gigs
      here and there, but aren't looking for long-term
      stuff. "They're trying to pick up a good fare to the
      airport," Baldwin says.

    6.Fry Cooks: The cubicle-bound slobs who work in
      the back offices, carrying out the business plans
      that marketing execs come up with. Fry cooks tend
      to be young, overworked, and often angry at the
      world.

    7.Gold Diggers and Gigolos: Think conference
      speakers and marketers. Gold diggers are expert
      networkers, fast talkers, and good at spinning a
      glamorous mystique around things like targeted
      e-commerce marketing and portal personalization.

    8.Cowboys and Cardsharks: In the e-commerce
      era, the closest thing to a cowboy may, oddly
      enough, be a consultant. The consultant caste is
      famous for taking on a project, building something
      that's full of holes, pocketing the cash, and leaving
      town before the authorities can catch up.

    9.Priests and Madmen: Otherwise known as
      visionaries, digerati, or anyone who puts in a guest
      appearance on ZDTV. These are the laptop-toting
      pundits who claim to foresee the digital future, often
      with notably absurd results. "They're much sought
      after by the rest of the business, which just doesn't
      have a clue," Baldwin says.

   10.Robots: These are people who actually have a solid
      understanding of how computers and networks
      function. Once viewed as a distant cousin of the
      much-maligned mole people, these sorts have
      managed to claw their way close to the top of the
      caste system.

   11.Robber Barons: The all-powerful rulers of the
      digital kingdom, held in awe and contempt by the
      lower castes. They're also the ones who own most
      of the stock.

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