Everyone’s a sellout now

So you want to be an artist. Do you have to start a TikTok? vox.com/culture CULTURE   Do you remember in the early 2010s, when people were earnestly talking all the time about how selling out as a concept was dead? It was one of the first great millennial-driven discourses — about how Gen X had the luxury of caring about artistic purity because they built their careers in a good economy, but we millennials had graduated into the worst recession since the Depression and, by god, we were going to sell out every single chance we got. Ten years later, we’re living with the aftermath of that great shift. Now, the attention economy requires that everyone be a sellout because how else will anyone ever notice you or your work? But Rebecca Jennings chronicles in [her deep dive into the problem of building a “personal brand”]( that it’s not very fun to spend all your time marketing when what you want to do is make art. As Rebecca astutely puts it: “Self-promotion sucks.” —[Constance Grady](, senior correspondent Everyone’s a sellout now [an illustration of a woman sitting and recording herself]( Eleni Kalorkoti for Vox When Rachael Kay Albers was shopping around her book proposal, the editors at a Big Five publishing house loved the idea. The problem came from the marketing department, which had an issue: She didn’t have a big enough following. With any book, but especially nonfiction ones, publishers want a guarantee that a writer comes with a built-in audience of people who already read and support their work and, crucially, will fork over $27 — a typical price for a new hardcover book — when it debuts. It was ironic, considering her proposal was about what the age of the “personal brand” is doing to our humanity. Albers, 39, is [an expert in what she calls the “online business industrial complex,”]( the network of hucksters vying for your attention and money by selling you courses and coaching on how to get rich online. She’s talking about the hustle bro “gurus” flaunting rented Lamborghinis and promoting shady “passive income” schemes, yes, but she’s also talking about the bizarre fact that her “65-year-old mom, who’s an accountant, is being encouraged by her company to post on LinkedIn to ‘build [her] brand.’” The internet has made it so that no matter who you are or what you do — from nine-to-five middle managers to astronauts to house cleaners — [you cannot escape the tyranny of the personal brand.](For some, it looks like updating your LinkedIn connections whenever you get promoted; for others, it’s asking customers to give you five stars on Google Reviews; for still more, it’s crafting an engaging-but-authentic persona on Instagram. And for people who hope to publish a bestseller or release a hit record, it’s “building a platform” so that execs can use your existing audience to justify the costs of signing a new artist. 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. These days, the jig is up. [Read the full story »](  [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( The bland allure of Hailey Bieber Explaining Gen Z’s reigning beauty queen. [Read the full story »]( Zyn, the nicotine pouch at the center of a brewing culture war, explained Everyzyng you wanted to know about Zyn, in six questions. [Read the full story »](   Support our work We aim to explain what we buy, why we buy it, and why it matters. Support our mission by making a gift today. [Give](   More good stuff to read today - [Why conservatives are melting down over Taylor Swift]( - [Why are Megan Thee Stallion and Nicki Minaj fighting?]( - [Kiley Reid’s Come and Get It is a witty, overstuffed campus satire]( - [Scott Peterson’s guilt, explained]( - [Does Barbie need all the Oscars for feminism?]( - [A guide to health care providers, from doctors to nurse practitioners]( - [We don’t have much money, but want to improve our lives. Where do we start?]( - [How Boeing put profits over planes](  [Learn more about RevenueStripe...](   [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [YouTube]( Manage your [email preferences]( or [unsubscribe](param=culture). If you value Vox’s unique explanatory journalism, support our work with a one-time or recurring [contribution](. View our [Privacy Policy]( and our [Terms of Service](. Vox Media, 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Floor 12, Washington, DC 20036. Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved.