The Death of the Artist—and the Birth of the Creative Entrepreneur

How we're killing creativity

We knew Trump would win Iowa.

We knew the WEF were idyllic, beady-eyed goons (I did enjoy videos like this)

We knew the Cowboys and their gnarled finger owner would choke.

What genuinely shocked me over the past two weeks is this war in Yemen. It seems that the US has a perfect record of 16-0 when it comes to drone striking Middle Eastern civilians. It's a grim reminder of how the first article of the US Constitution is often twisted in the name of power.

“Article I, Section 8, Clause 11: Congress shall have Power to declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; . . .”

I just wrapped up an interview about the war with an ex-Army Ranger turned journalist. That episode is debuting tomorrow. He says WWIII has already begun - these are just the skirmishes that predate the big boom.

I know I've been a bit absent lately. I've been pulling double duty, working on Wall Street during the day, and helping a YouTuber with their documentaries at night. I've hit my stride with some good information on both fronts… working on Wall Street alone has armed me with some serious ammunition.

Today I want to talk about a more macro spiritual point.

An article inspired by a brilliant piece from William Deresiewicz in The Atlantic.

The death of the artist —and the birth of the creative entrepreneur.

The Art Industrial Complex

Before the 20th century, creating art was a thankless task. Nobody gave a damn about it. It wasn’t until you died that everyone found out you were a genius.

Bill Finger, who created Batman, died penniless, while Bob Kane made all the money from his work.

Nietzche had to ask friends for money to publish his books and every woman he fell in love with rejected him.

And only after Vincent Van Gogh killed himself did he become a household name.

Would all of these guys have preferred fame, bitches, and a Phantom with 20-inch rims

Yes. Indeed. I think.

This debacle transforms art into porn, perpetuating the delusion that fame is the same as artistic expression. It makes us think Gary Vee is an artist or Mark Maron. I remember Dr. Dre saying a few years back that social media sapping the mystique of the artist. I agree.

Could you imagine Kurt Cobain on Twitter? Or Ayn Rand getting into a Facebook beef with Piers Morgan (admittedly, kind of cool).

Fame does not equal talent.

For a long while, artists had to think twice before they tried to pursue this art shit professionally. It usually meant:

• no job

• no friends

• no gf

• art school debt

• everyone at family gatherings looking at you weird

• your little siblings losing all respect for you

It's no wonder there's a proliferation of YouTube videos titled "How I Make Six Figures As a Writer, Artist, Musician,” and so on.

The distraction or attention economy means all attention is good attention.

Attention = Art.

Buzzwords, fake news, embellishing stories, lying about celebrities, taking shit, clout chasing — it’s like a Slasher Film.

This kind of art is killing our souls.

Is Great Art Dead?

I recently caught the latest Yorgos Lanthimos film, Poor Things, featuring the incredible talents of Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo.

It was one hell of an experience. What was more refreshing was that the entire theater was packed with people to see this weird experimental movie that... spoilers ... had Willem Dafoe reanimate a dead woman with a fetus brain from the baby inside her body.

Gross. But a lot of fun.

Great and complex art is still alive today, but uncovering it will require a lot of unraveling. If you're longing for American culture to regain its sense of novelty, innovation, and enjoyment, it starts here.

Hell, even people who are highly successful writers like Mark Maron should shut their mouths when calling themselves an "artist."

If you make self-help books or are good at marketing, you aren't an artist.

You can still be successful, but the word “artist” is a doormat nowadays.

If everyone is an artist, no one is. There needs to be some sort of gatekeeping; some mystique that doesn’t recognize buzzwords as art.

You couldn't cheat to be an artist years ago. You put in 10,000 hours (often more) and treated your work like a craft. Now, you can call yourself an artist without any of the labor or discipline.

As Deresiewicz points out in The Atlantic:

"The democratization of taste, abetted by the Web, coincides with the democratization of creativity. The makers have the means to sell, but everybody has the means to make. And everybody’s using them. Everybody seems to fancy himself a writer, a musician, a visual artist. Apple figured this out a long time ago: that the best way to sell us its expensive tools is to convince us that we all have something unique and urgent to express."

“Producerism,” he calls it, can be just as bad as consumerism.

It doesn’t mean you should not create. Create. But try to find your purpose, your focus, the 10,000 hours into a dedication that makes what you’re creating into art.

It’s why Gary Vee’s “Grind” message means nothing if you don’t know what you’re grinding for. As Aristotle once famously said, as a knock against Plato’s “An unexamined life isn’t worth living” … “An unplanned life isn’t worth examining.”

Taylor Swift is the best product the music industry has right now. And while what she is making is technically art —as much as it pains me to say so—her numbers or fanbase doesn’t make her any better than her contemporaries.

Taylor’s success also comes from having the push of a label that likes her multigenerational fan base, her universal appeal to normies, her more or less scandal-free career, and any lack of any major statements or political opinions to deter people on either side of the aisle.

Now that’s what I call art!

Final Thought

Comedian Katt Williams is an artist.

If you haven’t watched his 3-hour “special” with Shannon Sharpe, watch it.

Katt exposed everything from Hollywood cults to making Black men wear dresses in films to slandering comedians like Kevin Hart, Steve Harvey, Rickey Smiley... pretty much anyone and everyone.

I think it blew up because great art is a reflection of truth.

The main problem for these artists nowadays isn't AI. The main problem is that the establishment completely brainwashes them, and they essentially have no personality or soul. Since art is a reflection of its creator, their art reflects their inner emptiness, or basically, does not reflect anything. They have nothing important, insightful or meaningful to say and their art reflects that. That's why their art rings hollow. That's why it doesn't go viral (or it doesn’t satisfy the soul in the Platonic sense) or make anyone feel anything, and that's why their hopes of being an artist for a living seem impossible.

That's also why only insecure artists feel so threatened by AI.

We've already seen what happens when someone with a fire inside them puts that fire into a piece of art. It lights a fire inside millions.

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