In a series called Mondo Bullshittio, let’s talk about some of the most glaring hypocrisies and faux pas in pop culture… and all that it affects.
In the aftermath of an ad that surfaced from 2019 (otherwise known as Before Corona Protocol), an almost surprising amount of outrage has surfaced, in turn. Granted, an image of a ballet dancer with the caption, “Fatima’s next job could be in cyber (she just doesn’t know it yet),” isn’t exactly encouraging to the few still hanging by a goddamn thread when it comes to the notion that “art” is sustainable as a career. News flash: unless you’re writing TV shows that actually air, it’s not. Yet it’s still entirely in keeping with what has been reiterated in the post-Renaissance epoch (and even then, art was looked upon as a commodifiable trade primarily to keep peddling the “majesty” of religion). For fuck’s sake Henry Miller had to leave his country and bum around Paris until the good fortune of Anaïs Nin as a patron came along (or rather, her très open husband). And even then, it’s not as though he lived on much. Being an artist of any kind has always connoted the acceptance of living on a wing and a prayer, and that the struggle for survival can often detract from engaging in one’s art at an optimal level.
While a country like Britain used to be slightly better about supporting the arts with things like the National Lottery Fund, they’ve capitulated to the American way long before Prince Harry did. As such, the National Cyber Security Centre, who spurred the creation of the ad as part of a “Rethink. Reskill. Reboot.” (clever, right?) “initiative,” is to “blame” for this delayed barrage of contempt. What’s more, the ad was apparently geared toward people still young enough to be talked out of a poverty-stricken life in the arts before it’s too late. In short, when they’re still under the thumb of parental guidance to be swayed in a different (read: more beneficial to the precious economy and its capacity for booming) direction. The paternalistic “she just doesn’t know it yet” can at least be vaguely explained away when considering this is the demographic. But, at this point, why is anyone even bothering to “explain away” anything? Art has been a lost cause for quite some time now, and the quality and caliber of what we see is a testament to that, perhaps in the world of literature and painting more than anywhere else (yet). The so-called poaching of people who might otherwise pursue art, however, is an ad hominem fallacy. It’s not a choice for the true artist, and to even fathom another life path often results in constant misery and/or suicide. Just as choosing the life of an artist will as well–another classic shit sandwich or shit cereal conundrum.
Could the blokes that run the government make the wages (therefore appeal) of creative jobs slightly more incentivizing? And the very word “creative” not entail the actually non-creative profession of advertising? Sure. But artists have never really done things for the monetary incentive. Not when one gets down to the purest form of it, back when doing it entailed having your basic expenses paid for via a patron à la da Vinci, Michelangelo, et. al. That’s all an artist has ever really wanted, the ability to live without the petty, quotidian worries of food, clothing and shelter so that they might actually be able to focus on the art. The homeless people on the street might be former artists, but many of them would be easily cajoled into a job in “cyber”–because it compromises none of their principles the way it does an artist’s. “Will Work 4 Food,” as the old adage of a cardboard box-made sign goes, is much different than: “Will Make Art 4 Food.” It is, indeed, the shill “artists” of the modern age, who started making the practice as pervertedly capitalistic as possible, that have tried to veer away from the quintessential stereotype of being an artist automatically inferring one must be “starving.”
If Fatima can be directed toward “cyber” before it’s “too late,” fine. But if she’s truly got the inclination within, it won’t go away. Art isn’t something that’s taught (contrary to many beliefs and the mere highway robbing existence of “art schools” and MFA programs), but innate. Self-curated by one’s own desire to partake of it. Chancellor a.k.a. Head of Her Majesty’s Treasury Rishi Sunak has illustriously suggested since the start of the pandemic that those working in the arts (already having won a fateful “lottery” in life to begin with) “should retrain and find other jobs.” In other words, he’s only saying what’s been tacit for centuries: the arts are a “cute” hobby, and you’re lucky if you get paid even the slightest amount of alms for it. This “philosophy” has long been especially patent in the nation Britain considers its brother, the United States.
Again, no one seems to want to put together the fact that there is shit content out in the world not because getting a well-paying sum for your artistic output is in league with getting struck by lightning twice, but because the only commodifiable form of art to the modern “patron” that is the corporation is the slop that will appeal to the lowest common denominator (whether that means franchisable books or copy like the phrase that appeared in the very Fatima ad being discussed). What there needs to be an ad for instead of “cyber” is PSAs to rich people investing their money in fuckery to instead invest it in aspiring artists. As in: “Sylvia’s next sponsor could be you (you just don’t know it yet).” Talking of the name “Sylvia,” we can also pick apart the ad by noting that it targets the non-white demographic about their “attempts” at art. What? Only white folk got the right to study at St. Martins College? But then, this too, is no source of shock to anyone with eyes to observe the manner in which the world “functions.”
That people can continually feign shock about things that have been going on for centuries is almost what’s most shocking of all. Do they assume their shock will do anything other than cut off one head of a Hydra called the government/corporation cluster fuck that has plenty more to spare? They can grow heads back more quickly than anyone can drum up more outrage. In fact, it’s almost as though the common people have taken up outrage as their own sport, rather than art.
