Flexing and floundering in the on-demand economy: Narrative identity construction under algorithmic management

•App-work involves independent contracting, technological constraints, no coworkers.•Results in high depersonalization and low interpersonal accountability for workers.•Narrative flexing attenuates threat of depersonalization to narrative identity.•Intrapersonally, drivers rely on narrative structuring, fantasizing, rationalizing.•Interpersonally, drivers connect and compare through storytelling in online forums.