Comment by c-hendricks
2 days ago
I'm glad you brought up "in the age of the internet" because there's a part of "separate the art from the artist" that I don't see discussed enough:
In the internet age, simply consuming an artists media funds the artist. Get as philosophical as you'd like while separating the art from the artist, but if they're still alive you're still basically saying "look you're a piece of shit but here's a couple of bucks anyways".
People consume media without paying anyone. The internet is kinda famous for it.
That's a pretty lazy analysis. As an easy counterpoint, no one pays to look at Facebook or Instagram posts, but both Meta and (at least some) individual influencers are able to run profitable businesses based on that media consumption (and you could say the same of some bloggers in the late 00s/early 10s, for that matter). More speculatively, I think there is also an argument to be made that even gratis media consumption gives cultural weight to a work which is then available for monetization, especially in this age of tentpole franchises and granularly tracked personal behavior.
Influencers are, by definition, advertisers - and a particularly insidious, ugly bunch at that.
If we go by the vibe of this thread, it's yet another reason to avoid social media. You wouldn't want to reward people like this.
As for the broader topic, this segues into the worryingly popular fallacy of excluded middle. Just because you're not against something, doesn't mean you're supporting it. Being neutral, ambivalent, or plain old just not giving a fuck about a whole class of issues, is a perfectly legitimate place to be in. In fact, that's everyone's default position for most things, because humans have limited mental capacity - we can't have calculated views on every single thing in the world all the time.
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>even gratis media consumption gives cultural weight to a work which is then available for monetization
At a certain point you're just making the argument that any lack of action directly opposing something is "allowing it to thrive", making anyone directly responsible for everything.
Not technically wrong, but at a certain point there has to be a cutoff. Can you really hold yourself responsible for enjoying a movie which is problematic because one of the batteries in one of the cameras used to produce it was bought from a guy who once bought a waffle from a KKK bake sale? The "problematic-ness" is there, no doubt, but how much can you orient your actions towards not-benefiting something you disapprove of before it disables you from actually finding and spreading things you actually do like?
I don't find it fair, nor in good faith to claim my argument is lazy. By downloading the media of the artists who's behavior your find abhorrent, but who's art you enjoy (and you can separate the art from the artists), you can assure yourself to some degree that they are not receiving monetary gain. People who were interested in the Harry Potter game (but didn't want the author to finance) simply pirated the game. Roman Polanski, R Kelly, and many others artists are exploited in this fashion.
I do agree that the consumption of that media could very easily increase its cultural strength.
Even in your influencer example, there are ways to bring less traffic/ad views to that content while allowing some ability to consume. example here: https://libredirect.github.io/
It's true, piracy does get around the whole monetary side of the equation.
Eyeballs increase ad revenue, just because you're not paying money doesn't mean the artist isn't making money.
> Eyeballs increase ad revenue
If you're blocking ads, I think this is usually false. (But I would appreciate a correction if I'm wrong, or more detail if it's complicated.)
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> but you're still basically saying "look you're a piece of shit but here's a couple of bucks anyways".
Is it ethical to buy Dilbert books now that Adams is dead and the money's not going to him?
Ethical? I'd say it would be fine.
Tolerable? I couldn't enjoy the books. It's like when I found out about the Breendoggle and tossed all my MZB books in the recycling bin.
If you (the royal you) thought it was unethical to buy a Dilbert book because the person who stood to make something like $4 off of it had some views you disagree with, you are a broken person. Even if Adams agreed with every single opinion you had, it's a statistical certainty that a dozen people who also make money off that book have views you find reprehensible.
> you are a broken person
On the contrary, I think folks that always try to find some sort of hypocrisy in how folks choose to not spend their money are broken.
It seems too cynical by half, and completely discards any sort of relative morality to one's purchasing decisions. I have also long suspected that there is a selfish motivation to it - as if to assuage your (again, the royal your) own morality about how you choose to spend your own money, you need to tear down other people's choices.
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"You are a broken person" is not an appropriate response for someone engaging in a personal boycott. This is verbiage of flamebait and it really doesn't belong here.
"Ethical" is the wrong lens to see it through. I have only so much money to spend on art. I'd rather use it on something I wholeheartedly like. Ideally, something that wouldn't exist unless I supported it (art buyers, even if we are artists outselves, should not be "gilding the lily" and heap money on artists who don't need it).
Good point, retailers typically get 50% of the purchase price, which means that they're getting as much as the author/printer/editor/marketer/etc. all combined. So perhaps if you bought the book from a bookstore you wanted to support (assuming they would carry it), that could outweigh the impact to the author.
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Still depends on where the money ultimately goes.
As I once noted to a homeopath regarding their extensive selection of impossibly diluted water remedies, by their own dictum, it's all toilet water.
That makes a certain kind of sense.
Then again looking at the table, laptop, and protein drink in front of me, I know that many people were involved in making and shipping them. Some were quite possibly rapists, racists and/or worse.
And I don't find myself caring at all.
This is something special about art, isn't it?
That’s interesting analogy! With art, you re receiving something that’s not physically consumed but informs you or even changes your mind - depends how that art works for you.