Given the absence of absolutes in artistic expression, hinging on hypocrisy seems an odd thing to do. After all, to be a hypocrite is to go back on established standards, to cross lines; the lines in art are found with a dowsing rod of interpretation, differently located by different sets of arms. If I never mentioned it, or decided to focus on another, uncrossed line instead, the hypocrisy would essentially cease to exist. And simplifying is always the way to go when explaining a concept, so I would if I could, but I can’t, because every time I run around my brain collecting thoughts on this I stumble over the same damn line: using industry to define self.
For people my age this can be referred to as the ‘Myspace Mishap’. Yet this is a fast world we live in, and while I’m not old, the reference is and therefore bears explaining. Myspace, the first major social media, had, relative to modern social media, extremely customizable profiles. Caveat being that the customization came in two forms, music, arranged by copy/pasted links, and profile backgrounds, swapped out with blocks of HTML and CSS, both of which also copy/pasted because the majority of people can’t write code. Both the music and backgrounds were ripped from pop culture at the time, leading to a generation of me’s learning to communicate themselves through symbols provided by industry.
This feels dirty, but I am a pig. Of course, I feel myself to be above such base behavior, that’s the abstract, the artist in me. In reality, I was raised at a trough; the feed is information, 4000 plus years of human civilization that just so happened to be digitized during my lifetime. I may call and feel myself and my ideas unique but my humanity is run of the mill; that’s the nature of the beast.
I am a target audience, and not the first. I am made by marketing in a purchasable world. My contribution as an artist will be nothing more than a meager extension of the zeitgeist’s already gargantuan shadow. I am more than these affirmations, and simultaneously less – I need to be – hypocrisy, therefore, is also inherent in me.
I guess the true intention of this rant is to assuage my guilt at extrapolating beauty from some things I know were created with the sole purpose of making money. I get to feeling like doing whatever is necessary to connect the dots is wrong somehow, but it’s simply not. This is the Glass Bead Game we’ve got; who am I to refuse to play?
Vincent Santino Smarra 