[HN Gopher] Fake Fans
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Fake Fans
        
       Author : performative
       Score  : 148 points
       Date   : 2026-04-03 22:26 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.wordsfromeliza.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.wordsfromeliza.com)
        
       | jwpapi wrote:
       | I've noticed a lot of fake Tik Tok comments recently and was
       | wondering already..
        
       | cobbzilla wrote:
       | Modern payola. Fascinating but not entirely unpredictable. I'm
       | excited by the focus on hyper-local, authenticity is the scarce
       | resource. Great artists are usually not the best marketers, but
       | nothing beats "I am here, this is real". No amount of algorithmic
       | magic can create that experience.
        
         | girvo wrote:
         | > Great artists are usually not the best marketers, but nothing
         | beats "I am here, this is real".
         | 
         | Agreed 100%, which is why my local city's (Brisbane) post-rock
         | scene of the 2000s-2010s was so important to me
         | 
         | But it's also why despite being _phenomenal_ musicians, they
         | all worked normal jobs (even those related bands who were
         | indie-rock enough to be played on Triple J even though they
         | weren 't) and they've all stopped playing because touring loses
         | money.
         | 
         | I will always have the music and the years of amazing
         | experiences and the photos of the shows I took, but hyper-local
         | means niche and niche means unsustainable, I think.
        
           | cobbzilla wrote:
           | Yeah art is art, it's never paid well generally. You do it
           | because you love it, and your audience loves it. And that is
           | awesome.
           | 
           | And then commerce is commerce, and you make money and more
           | money means you did something good.
           | 
           | And then you put the two together and it's the same shit
           | we've seen for thousands of years. tbh no surprises! This is
           | all as expected.
           | 
           | There's still phenomenal live music in every city I've ever
           | visited, to the present day. Just go out and find it, it's
           | not hard!
           | 
           | Support live local music
        
             | gedy wrote:
             | I do think when rent was cheaper (globally) you could live
             | even when not paid well.
        
         | jfengel wrote:
         | I have found that the great artists you've heard of tend to
         | also be great marketers, or at the very least found great
         | marketers.
         | 
         | I know quite a few extremely talented artists who could never
         | crack the marketing, and so nobody else has ever heard of them.
         | Even local fame requires a fair bit of hustle. Talent alone
         | doesn't get you there.
        
           | cobbzilla wrote:
           | Could this be confirmation bias?
           | 
           | Isn't this the point of the unique & real discovery process
           | that actual connoisseurs of an art form participate in? We
           | find you (great artist), because you are brilliant at your
           | art but terrible at marketing.
           | 
           | Then you might become popular because 1) we (the finders, the
           | influencers) talk about you (I mean personally here, friend
           | to friend, in person, not social media) and 2) if your art
           | has broad appeal, it just needed the marketing. word of mouth
           | marketing is the most authentic kind so of course it's being
           | faked!
           | 
           | There are many artists that I love that "no one has ever
           | heard of" and that's fine! At some point, some of them will
           | make something with broad appeal and it'll catch on.
           | 
           | There's money at stake so of course people are trying to
           | juice the process, but that's been going on for a very long
           | time, hence my original reference to payola (pay to play on
           | radio) which started in the 1930s!
           | 
           | None of this payola bullshit takes anything away from the
           | true talent producing amazing art today! It just means, as it
           | always has, that if you want the good stuff you have to do
           | your own research. Most are too lazy and that's fine! They
           | have other interests. But the art form itself does not suffer
           | because there exist grifters who distort mass perception.
           | Connoisseurs are less interested in mass perception.
        
             | cobbzilla wrote:
             | As a counterpoint to my own argument above -- the Ramones
             | made more money selling T-shirts; every artist must market
             | somehow; so yeah it's definitely more complicated, I am
             | presenting an oversimplified view.
             | 
             | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47473673
        
           | mbb70 wrote:
           | Reminds me of "a terrible project with a great slide deck
           | might end up decent. A great project with a terrible slide
           | deck won't even exist."
           | 
           | In the real world there is no If You Build It They Will Come,
           | you've got to get the word out
        
         | doctorpangloss wrote:
         | Not at all. Saying something like that is the loudest signal
         | for how out of touch you are with how audiences are made.
         | 
         | From the article:
         | 
         | > "...it's like the first thing that they see or that first
         | comment that they see is their opinion even when they haven't
         | heard the whole album."
         | 
         | What is this trying to say? For every 1 person who thinks about
         | truth in some independent way, I don't care if it's spiritual
         | or because they do scientific tests for what the best music is
         | or all of this other stuff; there are 19 people who are, "LIKES
         | = TRUTH".
         | 
         | Are you getting it? That has nothing to do with payola or
         | authenticity or scarcity or whatever. You have no idea anyway,
         | you've never had to make a creative product. Likes = truth.
         | Authenticity is the seeming unlikelihood that social media
         | content authors are bought and sold. It's the OPPOSITE of what
         | you think. It is the OPPOSITE of payola. And look, they're
         | right. The vast majority of opinions on TikTok are not paid
         | for. This is the OPPOSITE of radio.
        
           | cobbzilla wrote:
           | > Likes = truth
           | 
           | sounds like pop culture = art
           | 
           | which is obviously not true
        
             | t-3 wrote:
             | But it's what at least some people making/selling music
             | believe, or else they _wouldn 't be buying likes_.
        
           | balamatom wrote:
           | Yeah yeah, instead of manufacturing the consent they're
           | manufacturing the whole consenters now. Afuckingmazing.
           | 
           | "Clap along, if you feel that happiness is the truth..." Then
           | one of those days someone comes along and claps back.
        
           | 998244353 wrote:
           | I cannot understand what you're trying to say at all.
        
       | fwipsy wrote:
       | Recently rereading William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition" and I'm
       | struck by his belief that certain art or memes are objectively
       | good and destined for virality. I think both Gibson and this
       | author are wrong. No content is intrinsically destined for
       | success. There are countless amazing artists, available to
       | anyone. Any sort of quality, insight, talent, novelty are table
       | stakes. If someone is big, they're either extremely lucky, they
       | got in on the ground floor, or there's marketing money behind
       | them.
        
         | balamatom wrote:
         | >objectively good
         | 
         | >destined for virality
         | 
         | Antonyms, in my book.
         | 
         | >Any sort of quality, insight, talent, novelty are table stakes
         | 
         | So that's why I ain't seeing much of those lately. You sayin'
         | someone left 'em on the table?
         | 
         | >If someone is big, they're either extremely lucky, they got in
         | on the ground floor, or there's marketing money behind them.
         | 
         | Yes. Meaning, if you're big, I simply do not wish to hear about
         | you or what you have to express; you're simply the thing that
         | ascribes to the money its value.
         | 
         | Relatedly, an ancient saying: "I do not happen to be a
         | connoiseur of the different flavours of excrement".
        
           | andrewflnr wrote:
           | Not antonyms. Some good art goes viral on its own merits. But
           | certainly not synonyms either.
        
           | ghtbircshotbe wrote:
           | Lately when I watch a video on YouTube, every single one of
           | the recommended videos is AI slop. Not sure what the next 5
           | years holds. It does make me question the argument that bad
           | AI generated content is equivalent to bad human generated
           | content. And they all have hundreds of thousands of views,
           | another mystery.
        
             | AJ007 wrote:
             | A dirty secret is the algorithms can't differentiate real
             | users from fake. The universe of content is so large now,
             | if you don't start with a fake audience you go nowhere.
             | Slop rises to the top, because slopfarms can spend all
             | their money on the farming rather than the content. It's
             | even worse if you look at short form video because it's
             | trivial to clone anything that went viral and alter the
             | message, no real human or attractive 20 year old American
             | required.
             | 
             | If content requires a real human network for transmission,
             | the cost of transmitting slop is your own reputation within
             | your network. A bunch of bots circle jerking each other
             | can't sell concert tickets or much of anything.
             | 
             | The idea that some artist is exceptionally talented and
             | good and they deserve to be famous or sell out concerts is
             | a myth. There are so many exceptionally skilled singers,
             | songwriters, and musicians that are all unknowns. Many who
             | are more talented than (insert famous living or dead pop
             | star here.)
             | 
             | I think this is part of the reason why the AI ruins
             | creativity is overblown. The music-art-talent pyramid
             | always meant a tiny percent at the top walked away with all
             | of the money. Look at the numbers from the last screen
             | actor's guild strike, the majority of actors earn at or
             | below minimum wage. It's a new world, and the old one
             | people believe deserves to continue perpetually existed in
             | but a blink of human civilization.
        
           | fwipsy wrote:
           | The objective parts of quality (technical skill) are fairly
           | easy to saturate, most serious artists do so, but it's not
           | sufficient to be successful.
           | 
           | Objective quality is common, but it sounds like you've just
           | defined subjective quality to exclude anything mainstream.
           | 
           | You're right that Gibson would not have defined quality and
           | virality to be the same. I should have used "or" in that
           | sentence. However, he still seems to believe that they depend
           | on properties of the content: some things have broad appeal,
           | some things have genuine quality, some things have neither or
           | both, and their success depends on that. I think it's all a
           | crapshoot.
        
             | RugnirViking wrote:
             | Your definition, that most art (or even things in general)
             | are of roughly the same quality above some bar of
             | competency is... Difficult to defend.
             | 
             | There are things that are just better than others.
             | Sometimes it's because they take much longer to make (time,
             | materials etc). Other times it's because they go into a new
             | direction (inventions, new genres). Not all things doing
             | these are good. In fact generally, spending more time on
             | something or trying new things results in overbaked
             | garbage. It's genuinely rare and special to hit upon a
             | combination of all three - competent, new, and with high
             | investment put into it.
             | 
             | Just spend time thinking about airport novels, or the
             | countless pop artists the music industry tries to push that
             | get no traction. Or failed hollywood blockbusters. Quality
             | matters.
        
               | fwipsy wrote:
               | Not of the same quality, just that the objective parts of
               | quality have been mastered by many people. What sets art
               | apart beyond that is individual taste. "Newness" is
               | definitely subjective; it depends on what you've seen
               | before (though it is correlated for people within a
               | culture.)
               | 
               | I suspect that you criticize airport novels, pop music,
               | cliched movies because they are similar to stuff you've
               | seen before. (I hope that you've _tried_ them, and aren
               | 't just criticizing them on the _perception_ that they
               | 're lowbrow.) But people who hadn't seen them before
               | could still enjoy them.
               | 
               | You eat at a Michelin-starred restaurant. I eat a bowl of
               | oatmeal and I enjoy it just as much. What makes your meal
               | better?
        
               | RugnirViking wrote:
               | I understand the hypothetical argument that you _could_
               | enjoy a simple meal, a simple life, etc. And there are
               | many that do - but that doesn 't mean some things aren't
               | preferable to other things to some people. It just shows
               | that people's preferences are different.
               | 
               | But generally, we see that given the choice, people do
               | rate art differently. That people prefer certain things
               | to other things more often than chance. Some of it is
               | perhaps cultural, sure. But does that really undermine
               | the point? The trick of making good art/products whatever
               | is literally hitting a thing a large group of people
               | like. It's not cheating to try and make people of your
               | culture, or any specific culture or subculture, like it.
               | That's actually kinda most of the point.
               | 
               | You really can distinguish between a competent but
               | otherwise uninteresting thing and something truly special
               | by just like... Putting it out there. Many things that
               | were widely distributed were not especially well liked,
               | and others remain literal classics. Why?
        
       | SL61 wrote:
       | It doesn't surprise me at all that this is going on. There are
       | lots of social media fan pages that are run by real people who
       | post real content 99% of the time but are willing to post promo
       | material for a fee. Usually that fee is pretty high, easily
       | $100-500 depending on the account's follower count, with
       | different price points for how long it stays up (pay more for a
       | permanent post, pay less and it gets deleted after X number of
       | hours). It's really effective because those accounts already have
       | a well-established presence and function as tastemakers.
        
       | adamtaylor_13 wrote:
       | Pieces like this all seem to be written with an unspoken
       | assumption that anyone who wants to make a living wage from being
       | an artist should be able to, as if it's some sort of right.
       | 
       | It would be _nice_ if that were true.
       | 
       | AI has exacerbated this issue. Suddenly we're faced with the
       | uncomfortable truth that much of human artwork is "mid" as the
       | kids would say and people aren't willing to pay for songs,
       | writing, and/or graphics the way they otherwise might.
       | 
       | Anyway, I'm very curious if anyone has a good argument for why
       | anyone who wishes to be an artist is owed a living wage for
       | merely their desire to be recognized as economically valuable.
        
         | palmotea wrote:
         | > Pieces like this all seem to be written with an unspoken
         | assumption that anyone who wants to make a living wage from
         | being an artist should be able to, as if it's some sort of
         | right.
         | 
         | Comments like yours seem to be written with the unspoken
         | assumption that everyone's life should be hard unless they can
         | please the market, which technology makes increasingly
         | difficult. It's deeply anti-human.
         | 
         | > AI has exacerbated this issue. Suddenly we're faced with the
         | uncomfortable truth that much of human artwork is "mid" as the
         | kids would say and people aren't willing to pay for songs,
         | writing, and/or graphics the way they otherwise might.
         | 
         | Is that news to anyone? But mid people exist, they worthy
         | people, and they need to eat. AI is leading us to a dystopia
         | where, unless you're in the top 0.1% of talent, the market has
         | no use for you. And guess what happens to you then?
         | 
         | > Anyway, I'm very curious if anyone has a good argument for
         | why anyone who wishes to be an artist is owed a living wage for
         | merely their desire to be recognized as economically valuable.
         | 
         | Because that was the last promise the tech bros made: our tech
         | will replace you, then you get to be an artist, be creative!
         | Now it will take your creative job, and free you up for
         | draining monitoring tasks and manual labor.
        
           | y-curious wrote:
           | People are only willing to pay for quality, mostly. I can't
           | just say that I'm a neurosurgeon because I want to be one.
           | There has always been reward for merit and suffering for lack
           | of merit.
           | 
           | Nothing "anti human" about social Darwinism
        
             | wolvesechoes wrote:
             | > There has always been reward for merit and suffering for
             | lack of merit.
             | 
             | But conflating merit with economical value is very recent
             | invention.
             | 
             | > Nothing "anti human" about social Darwinism
             | 
             | It didn't arise until rise of capitalism and bourgeoise
             | (lack of) morality. For most of human history, and among
             | countless cultures, social Darwinism wasn't the case.
             | 
             | Peak ideology, btw.
        
               | lotsofpulp wrote:
               | What is the definition of "social Darwinism"?
               | 
               | I am under the impression that for most of human history,
               | the ability and willingness to inflict violence was what
               | determined the social hierarchy. Would that not be the
               | reason that almost all tribes were patriarchal?
               | 
               | It seems to be a very, very recent phenomenon that simply
               | selling goods and services can elevate one in the
               | hierarchy, due to the advent of legal systems and
               | policing (e.g. women's rights).
        
               | defrost wrote:
               | The social Darwinists that ran with nature red in tooth
               | and claw and took survival of the best fitted to mean the
               | physically fittest and most aggressively dominant win are
               | the ones responsible for your impressions.
               | 
               | * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Darwinism
               | 
               | They're very much a fork from the Alfred Russel Wallace /
               | Charles Darwin theory of natural selection.
        
               | wolvesechoes wrote:
               | > I am under the impression that for most of human
               | history, the ability and willingness to inflict violence
               | was what determined the social hierarchy.
               | 
               | As most things people today believe, this is not really
               | true, at least not in such universal way as usually
               | implied.
               | 
               | > Would that not be the reason that almost all tribes
               | were patriarchal?
               | 
               | There is no data to assert that.
        
             | leviathant wrote:
             | >People are only willing to pay for quality, mostly.
             | 
             | lol, lmao even.
             | 
             | In America at least, people pay for branding, and to give
             | the impression that they're of a higher standing than they
             | are - whether or not what they're buying is quality.
             | Whether that's someone deeply in debt sporting Luis
             | Vuitton, or a US President putting gold-painted foam
             | ornamentation on the walls of the oval office.
             | 
             | When it comes to the arts, or boutique fashion, or small
             | scale manufacturing, people also pay for parasocial reasons
             | - a variation on the branding angle. Storytelling about the
             | founder, or the people doing the work, pictures of the
             | space where a thing is being made, will give potential
             | buyers a sense that they're paying for authenticity. That's
             | why there are so many garbage ads on social media of a
             | twenty-something talking about the old "one weird trick"
             | that changed their routine... just so they can dropship you
             | some garbage from Aliexpress with a 300% markup.
        
           | Unai wrote:
           | I share the same opinion that, just because someone is or
           | wants to be an artist, doesn't mean they deserve to make a
           | living wage out of it. But I'm not a capitalist, far from it.
           | I actually think people shouldn't have to work at all if they
           | don't want to, but we're just not at all there yet.
           | 
           | From experience, this seems to be a very unpopular opinion.
           | Everyone see themselves as hard working, and hate lazy
           | people. But since a few years ago, all of the sudden, and
           | mostly in relation to AI, everyone thinks all artists deserve
           | to make a living. I find this hypocritical.
           | 
           | If you're not providing enough value for others to give you
           | money, that's just how things are, artist or not. Too bad the
           | mediocre work of a machine is good enough. The day the system
           | changes, and it will, will be for everyone, so no one is
           | required to provide value to be able to feed themselves.
           | Artists are not special just for declaring themselves an
           | artist.
        
           | balamatom wrote:
           | >if anyone has a good argument
           | 
           | >Because that was the last promise the tech bros made
           | 
           | Tech bros are to be believed?!
           | 
           | >And guess what happens to you then?
           | 
           | Nothing as simple as you might hope for ;-)
        
           | adamtaylor_13 wrote:
           | No, life is hard on its own unless you can please the market.
           | 
           | Why is it anti-human to suggest that an underwater basket
           | weaver should not make the same amount of money as a
           | neurosurgeon?
        
             | palmotea wrote:
             | > Why is it anti-human to suggest that an underwater basket
             | weaver should not make the same amount of money as a
             | neurosurgeon?
             | 
             | Because that's a hyperbolic exaggeration to make you feel
             | fine about ignoring the plight of others?
             | 
             | The machine should serve society, society shouldn't serve
             | the machine. Unfortunately, what we have is far closer to
             | the latter.
        
         | conception wrote:
         | Software engineers should be asking themselves that same
         | question day in and out. All know workers actually. The cost to
         | produce art has dropped to zero. The cost to get knowledge on a
         | topic - effectively zero. The cost to write basic software -
         | effectively zero. The cost to produce today's software will
         | never be higher than today. In six months the chances that it's
         | significantly cheaper to do so are very high.
        
           | onion2k wrote:
           | _The cost to produce art has dropped to zero._
           | 
           | The cost to _produce an image_ has dropped to pretty much
           | zero, but whether an image is  'art' is a question people
           | have been struggling with for a long, long time. Art is
           | usually considered to be the expression of something more
           | meaningful than just making a picture, and in order to
           | express something as a work of art you need to live, feel,
           | and experience that thing (or a proxy of that thing.) There's
           | a reason why we have entire art movements called things like
           | "impressionism"; that's the artist creating what they believe
           | impressed something on themselves, and trying to transfer
           | some of that feeling on to the viewer of their artwork.
           | 
           | That is entirely missing in AI generated artwork.
           | 
           | The problem for artists is that very few people care about
           | that aspect of art, and just want something nice to hang on a
           | wall.
        
             | ehnto wrote:
             | I am on the side of humanity here, but people don't pay for
             | art. People pay for status, consumption, image and
             | authenticity. But commercial art consumers, where most
             | artists make a living, ie ad agencies, game studios etc,
             | they actually don't give a shit about any of that. Some do,
             | you can probably think of some, but they are the notable
             | minority. Most don't, most are just out here to make money.
             | They begrudgingly pay artists, and will love the day they
             | can stop (some already have stopped)
             | 
             | Can we see that in their output? Absolutely, but if it
             | doesn't affect their bottom line they will not care.
             | 
             | Anyway, to the GPs point, that is true for software in a
             | much larger way. Nobody ever cared about the soul and craft
             | of software except the developers. The moment we can be
             | replaced for cheaper, it will be nothing but business.
        
               | leviathant wrote:
               | >I am on the side of humanity here, but people don't pay
               | for art.
               | 
               | Man, maybe you don't hang out with enough artists. It's
               | true, people typically don't make the equivalent of a
               | tech salary for art, but people absolutely pay for art,
               | and artists are able to not only survive, but have the
               | capacity to thrive.
               | 
               | I get what you're saying, and for ad agencies, game
               | studios, etc. that's always been the case (I remember
               | when office supply stores sold CD-ROMs full of Clip Art)
               | All of the sound effects in Doom were from commercially
               | available sample libraries. And this isn't even touching
               | on "gallery scene and art auctions as money laundering
               | facilities" side of things.
               | 
               | I get the impression that most of the people who post
               | about this topic in tech circles are general consumers,
               | already primed for slop by mass manufacture and pop
               | culture. But even through that lens, "people don't pay
               | for art" falls flat - looking at what people pay for Star
               | Trek prop replicas, or buying into the now very diverse
               | Disney ecosystem. Now, a lot of those kinds of folks
               | might be more prone to slurping AI slop (Hey Gemini turn
               | me into a Funko Pop!) but there are still tons of people
               | who value artists and their artistry. I suspect you're
               | just not among those people.
        
             | conception wrote:
             | Sure i think i meant more consumer art. Mass produced art.
             | The cost to take a professional level photograph from
             | before 2010 is effectively zero now as well.
             | 
             | But photography as art still obviously exists. It's just
             | much harder to get paid for it.
        
         | jemmyw wrote:
         | I think that AI isn't the only thing exacerbating this issue.
         | More people are doing artistic like things as hobbies. The
         | internet makes it easier to learn and the cost of entry has
         | gone down - paints, canvases, brushes, guitars, pianos, film
         | equipment, the low end has gone up in quality and down in
         | price.
         | 
         | I do some painting and I've met quite a few local artists. Some
         | are amazing and some not so much. I haven't met anyone making a
         | living from it though, not the creative stuff anyway. A couple
         | of them do make a living by doing commercial work. One friend,
         | who seems to try the hardest, does book illustrations, runs
         | classes, prints and sells her own work, and makes a loss every
         | year so is supported by her partner, who is a builder.
         | 
         | There are two art galleries in town. I go to both regularly.
         | The work has never been flying off the shelves. And some of it
         | deserves to.
         | 
         | None of the above has anything to do with AI. It was the same
         | before AI, and AI doesn't paint physical pictures anyway. I've
         | seen some digital art prints but they're really not popular for
         | whatever reason.
         | 
         | To answer your question then: my argument is that most artists
         | don't expect to earn a living from it at all. And if more
         | people are engaged in creation (not a bad thing) then it would
         | logically follow that there is less chance of making money.
         | 
         | Probably the most tragic thing in my opinion is that if I visit
         | the art exhibition for my local town, the artwork on display is
         | wonderfully varied in quality, style and imagination, and when
         | I visited a national gallery recently displaying the works of
         | modern artists who have "made it" to that level, it was all
         | absolute shite. Actual technical ability seems to be being
         | relegated to poverty artists.
        
           | balamatom wrote:
           | >Probably the most tragic thing in my opinion is that if I
           | visit the art exhibition for my local town, the artwork on
           | display is wonderfully varied in quality, style and
           | imagination, and when I visited a national gallery recently
           | displaying the works of modern artists who have "made it" to
           | that level, it was all absolute shite. Actual technical
           | ability seems to be being relegated to poverty artists.
           | 
           | The artist becomes the artwork. The artifice here is
           | precisely in "making it", in the act of _convincing_ others
           | of the value of the piece.
           | 
           | It's an acquired taste; I agree with you that not all people
           | appreciate it. But surely, at the end of the pipeline, all
           | this money must buy _something_ of value?
           | 
           | And with passively consumable art such as music (which you
           | can have playing in the background while looking at something
           | else) it's that much easier. IIRC Blixa Bargeld predicted
           | Spotify decades ago. Music on tap - like the power line and
           | water mains; and that's all.
        
             | jemmyw wrote:
             | > not all people appreciate it
             | 
             | The problem is it's only whomever curates these spaces that
             | needs to be persuaded. And they're hardly thrumming with
             | people for all the millions they get in funding.
        
         | balamatom wrote:
         | >Pieces like this all seem to be written with an unspoken
         | assumption that anyone who wants to make a living wage from
         | being an artist should be able to, as if it's some sort of
         | right.
         | 
         | Yeahp, it's pure ideology.
         | 
         | In contemporary civilization, the role of creator of shared
         | aesthetic constructs (artist) is left to an elect few. This is,
         | on the whole, a reduction in average individual capacity.
         | 
         | So how about this instead: anyone making a living _should be
         | making art, as if it 's some sort of obligation._
         | 
         | The media technologies of the XX century (recording,
         | photography, motion photograpy) made it that much easier to be
         | audience, and that much pointless to be artist.
         | 
         | This effectively robbed the common person of any reason to
         | participate in the collective meaning-making process that is
         | art. Eventually this was substituted by the clicktivism, the
         | dogpiling, and all that. If you are never permitted to develop
         | a sense of scale beyond the ouroborically narcissistic,
         | participating social media fills a much similar psychological
         | niche, to you, as influencing people through creative media.
         | 
         | Those who aspire to star status must first sacrifice a fixed
         | amount of integrity to reproducing the kayfabe. Speakers of
         | dead balamatomic languages may be wise to observe induction
         | into "artist" status by humiliation-transfer - those natives
         | were so dumb they thought they had to show publically how it's
         | done at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBaC0IRc1Bk
         | 
         | >Anyway, I'm very curious if anyone has a good argument for why
         | anyone who wishes to be an artist is owed a living wage for
         | merely their desire to be recognized as economically valuable.
         | 
         | Anyone [cut] is owed a living [cut]; done.
         | 
         | No person asks to be born; much of "what you are" and "what
         | your function in society is" is involuntary and immutable;
         | nobody is owed a useful function; nobody is owed a _meaning_.
         | 
         | But, through art, one can _make one 's own meanings_, and share
         | them in a _voluntary_ way; as opposed to resource-
         | constrainments (money) which is at its root an instrument of
         | coercion.
         | 
         | That's the thing about art which has always terrified the money
         | people. Eager beavers that they are, they've built (well, more
         | like had us build for 'em) these whole elaborate semi-sensible
         | institutions for reducing art to a special ritual for emitting
         | high-denomination banknotes (paintings, album profits, walking
         | banknotes in the form of performing artists who "made it big
         | (sus)" - always loved the honesty in how the Japanese call
         | their pop stars literally "idols"...)
        
         | drewbeck wrote:
         | I believe that everyone deserves food housing and and security
         | regardless of what they do or don't do professionally. I have
         | no logical argument only a moral one, which I sense would not
         | be sufficient to convince you.
        
           | adamtaylor_13 wrote:
           | It's hard to be convinced by your moral argument when you
           | don't actually provide it.
        
         | armchairhacker wrote:
         | Nobody has an intrinsic right to anything, but I believe art
         | makes the world a much nicer place to live in, inspiring people
         | to behave and advance society in more direct ways.
         | 
         | It's hard or impossible to fairly select people, because
         | someone has to produce food, shelter, etc. But I believe
         | society should strive to allow more people to spend little
         | enough time and effort in other work so they can devote
         | themselves to art and other creative pursuits.
        
       | svantana wrote:
       | I'd like to know more about "Chaotic Good Projects" [1]. Isn't it
       | fascinating that they so openly do "UGC" (user-generated content)
       | and "Fanpages" even though they are neither users nor fans, but
       | paid consultants. And even openly displaying the musical acts
       | they performed these dark-pattern services for.
       | 
       | [1] https://chaoticgoodprojects.org/
        
       | TrackerFF wrote:
       | Not sure how this is ethically different from industry plants or
       | payola. Things which have been in the industry since the dawn of
       | time. Astroturfing with fake fans is just the natural next step
       | due to how easy it is. Back in the day some labels would drum up
       | fake engagement by handing out tickets to influential people,
       | paying certain people to go, and things like that.
        
       | spongebobstoes wrote:
       | I dislike music elitism, and this piece has a lot of it. music is
       | both art and entertainment
       | 
       | it's no secret that being an artist is a tough path with little
       | chance of success
        
       | probably_wrong wrote:
       | > _One day after this piece went up, Chaotic Good made
       | significant changes to their website -- including pulling the
       | "Narrative Campaign" section completely._
       | 
       | I checked the Internet Archive but I cannot access any of the
       | archived versions. Apparently the website uses JS to display its
       | content and the IA can't deal with it. Internet searches show
       | that the page existed, though, so I'll take the content deletion
       | as proof.
        
         | armchairhacker wrote:
         | https://archive.md/AjZPm
        
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