We like to think of it as the work of singular geniuses whose motivations are purely creative and untainted by the market — this, despite the fact that music, publishing, and film have always been for-profit industries where formulaic, churned-out work is what often sells best.

I asked Deresiewicz if he felt anything had changed in the 13 years since he wrote the piece. Back then, he says, “I was still in that mindset of ‘selling out is evil.’” When he began research on his next book, however, “I realized that was kind of an outdated, privileged, and intensely unrealistic attitude,” he says. “Now, you don’t have a choice,... See more

If there was a decade defined by its obsession with authenticity and artistic purity, it’s the 90s, an era where trying too hard or caring too much about anything was embarrassing, where “selling out” was the ultimate sin.

In his essay collection The Nineties, Chuck Klosterman defines the term “sellout” not as someone who sells something in order to get rich, but someone who compromises their values to do so.

A world in which artists think like entrepreneurs, he writes in the Atlantic, is one where “You’re a musician and a photographer and a poet; a storyteller and a dancer and a designer ... which means that you haven’t got time for your 10,000 hours in any of your chosen media. But technique or expertise is not the point. The point is versatility.... See more

A society made up of human beings who have turned themselves into small businesses is basically the logical endpoint of free market capitalism, anyway. To achieve the current iteration of the American dream, you’ve got to shout into the digital void and tell everyone how great you are. All that matters is how many people believe you.

while social media hugely increased the number of people who pursued art, it didn’t increase the number of people who can support themselves financially by making it.

“You’re getting worse at [your art], but you’re becoming a great marketer for a product which is less and less good”

A world in which artists think like entrepreneurs, he writes in the Atlantic, is one where “You’re a musician and a photographer and a poet; a storyteller and a dancer and a designer ... which means that you haven’t got time for your 10,000 hours in any of your chosen media. But technique or expertise is not the point. The point is versatility.... See more