Famous for what

Being famous in 2013 isn’t what most artists dream about. This is a fact. You would think that all these new portals and technology would bring delight to the aspiring artists…you would be mistaken. The constant stimuli that teenagers and youngsters are plied with means that they develop a short attention span…the more that you see of it the higher your threshold for unrealistic expectancies and what you find stimulating enough. It’s a complete nightmare for any real artists with any real talent because unless they are practically nude or doing some fancy tricks in their music videos it’s so difficult to hold anyone’s attention long enough to become famous or to convince a potential fan to become one. It also means that even if people like your movies or music they are not prepared to pay for something their friend could ping them via internet in seconds. 

Being famous doesn’t always require much talent these days, just doing something wildly stupid could also get you noticed and on top on YouTube charts. There are far too many talentless individuals who are famous for absolutely squat all and even they couldn’t tell you what they are famous for. 

Ever noticed how incredibly talented artists are appearing in everything including razor adverts? Making guest appearances on small time TV shows with big marketing budgets? Traditionally art was a business the fan would fund with investment i.e. buying records, art, books, seeing the movie. Nowadays art needs to be funded by the corporations as the fans are not willing to pay for the state of the art...Art…Adverts mean big money and artists find they cannot pass over these opportunities because it pays well and will fund their stage costumes or help towards continuing to produce more art. 

So if you find that it’s annoying to see certain artists appearing everywhere and all the commercials then consider that this is your fault. As the new generation of greedy downloaders, freeloaders and people who do not seem to respect any artists they like the work of, this is what we have reduced artists to. 

It’s a conundrum really, you complain about corporations taking over everything human and make it mechanical and yet you keep pushing for cheaper and cheaper products and art and therefore reducing the value of everything as a result…reducing the value of art, having the ability to move people with your music or writing should be priceless not free.

So I just want to thank my editor for maintaining integrity with his business and not filling his newspaper with inundate amounts of adverts that you would have to sort through to actually read anything anyone has ever written and also the other writers who stay committed to their writing.