<![CDATA[Background: The visual communication industry in Bandung has grown rapidly, yet leaves freelancers with structural vulnerabilities such as economic uncertainty and weak social protection. The glorified narrative of flexibility risks triggering overwork and exploitation. Precariat studies mostly take sociological and economic approaches, overlooking how freelancers communicatively construct flexibility narratives. Purpose: This study explores how freelance visual communication workers in Bandung experience precarity, particularly how they perceive flexibility and navigate exploitation. Methods: A descriptive qualitative approach with a constructivist paradigm and a social phenomenology perspective was employed. Primary data were gathered through observation and semi-structured in-depth interviews with four freelance visual workers with at least two years of experience, complemented by secondary data from government documents and journals. Data analysis utilized horizonalization, validated through method and source triangulation. Results: The massive growth of visual communication actors in Bandung expands and reproduces systemic precariat conditions. A flexibility paradox emerges, where workers interpret flexibility as creative method autonomy rather than schedule freedom. Economic uncertainty and the absence of social protection are individualized as personal responsibilities driven by gig economy logic. Lacking formal contracts triggers relational exploitation because working relationships rely on vulnerable trust capital. Through daily interactions, workers normalize and internalize vulnerabilities as professional consequences, meaning communication processes unconsciously reproduce the precariat condition itself. Conclusion: Precariat conditions among freelance visual communication workers in Bandung stem from both structural vulnerability and workers’ own meaning-making. Flexibility is understood as freedom of creative method, not of time, while economic risk and trust-based agreements are accepted as personal responsibility and professionalism. Implications: This study extends precariat research into communication science by treating flexibility as a narrative that shapes how workers interpret their conditions. Practically, it highlights the need for contract literacy, written agreements, and stronger social protection for freelance creative workers.]]>
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