Sell out without selling out - by Yancey Strickler

Growing up a disgruntled ‘90s teenager whose heroes were Kurt Cobain, Ian MacKaye of Fugazi, and recording engineer Steve Albini, there was no greater crime against humanity than selling out. Selling out meant selling your soul and values to get rich and famous. Creating art was about self-expression and doing what you wanted to do. Creating art to get rich was shallow and lame — selling out. Some might critique this as a privileged position (which from a global perspective it certainly is), but the energy comes from an egalitarian, working class spirit. If we all work hard and stay true to where we come from and the scenes we’re a part of, the thinking goes, we’ll succeed against the monotonous drudgery of mainstream culture and make more interesting worlds of our own. The trick is to not sell out. Fast forward three decades and nobody talks about this version of selling out anymore. The whole line of thought has vanished. Why? Because the world has already been sold. Wealth inequalit

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