Quote from the wonderfully hilarious movie Popstar: Never Stop, Never Stopping.
"Nowadays if you don't sell out, people will wonder if no one asked you to."
this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2025
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To quote Tool:
I've got some bad advice for you, little buddy
Before you point your finger, you should know that I'm the man
If I'm the fuckin' man, then you're the fuckin' man as well
So you can point that fuckin' finger up your ass
All you know about me is what I've sold ya, dumb fuck
I sold out long before you'd ever heard my name
I sold my soul to make a record, dipshit
And then you bought one
All you read and wear or see and hear on TV
Is a product begging for your fat-ass, dirty dollar
Shut up and buy, buy, buy my new record
And buy, buy, buy, send more money
Does Snoop Dogg performing for the Trump crypto ball or whatever the shit that was count as selling out?
Absolutely yes it does.
When He didnt Show up on Kendricks Pop out I got curios. When He showed up at the olympics I knew something was afoot.
Now everything is clear.
Oh God, I did not hear about that one. God dammit.
Because selling out is the standard in America now.
It's not noteworthy to sellout anymore. It's expected.
I think the plot was lost when the piracy/drm wars reached a peak and set new norms. The 'talent' that emerged steadily became performers rather than artists and put out disposable, largely formulaic pop made with protools.
Nearly all the mainstream now are what many would have called sellouts prior to all this.
Maybe there will be a move back to quality over quantity. Granted quality music is still being made, but by and large the current listener just wants to jump from the current sensation to the next after the staleness sets in.
Long story long the internet changed a lot of things, attention spans are eroded, and we're still learning how to deal with all of it.
Its the only way for artists to survive now. It was always dicey before, but cost of living and meager returns on streaming mean that artists need to produce music with broad appeal.
It's because nothing is punk anymore. Everything has been commodified, especially radical art.
True, it's not really a thing any more. Two reasons I'd say:
- If you want to make a nice living by being distributed by a label "selling out" is mandatory
- Anti-establishment musicians have a cheap distribution method in the form of internet. If they don't care about making money, they just offer it for download directly to their fans
That being said, the term is still used in the open source software community quite a lot.
When I was younger I’d frown upon artists making a pop record. Now that I know most working bands often barely scrape by and often get screwed over by labels and promoters, etc., I can’t really fault them for it. And usually they’ll keep making what they want on the side anyway.
If your idols are youtubers and tiktokkers, their business model is selling merch.
So opinions had to change.
Can’t sell out when everything is a sellout.
Echoing what others have said, I think most people realize how hard it is to make a living in the arts. I think another part of it is with the recent awareness for workers rights, the idea of being a 'starving artist' has lost its glamour.
we do hear about 'industry plants', however..
Came here to mention industry plants, too. There's no "selling out" for the most part because most major artists are controlled from day one by the industry, versus back in the day when they needed to scrape their knuckles on their own to appeal to a major label. Social media and The Algorithm lets the labels build careers out of nothing.
McDonalds started charging $15 for a Quarter Pounder Value meal, and everyone realized in this post 9/11 America, you need to make as much money as possible just to be able to survive, which is diametrically opposed to the 60's and 70's still post war boom(ers) playacting socialist/communist Hippies, pointing and laughing when an artist they liked took a big check, when they're own rent was either subsidized by their parents, or cost them $200 a month and their University tuition another $500 a year. Shit was different. Shit changed.
Adding on to this, I'll say the term is likely used less now because, for the reasons you mentioned, the common person actually aspires to get famous for the specific purpose of selling out and making a big payday to escape the hellscape of everyday wage-slavery.
But then there are also "sell outs" that are totally situational. For example, a content creator (who I won't name because that's not the point) who's an OG that's been around for over 20 years now, constantly putting out content, never had sponsors until a few years ago. Initially I was annoyed at suddenly seeing "Sponsored by NordVPN!" and "Sponsored by RAID Shadow Legends!" in every video, but then I learned he'd had a child with his wife. And his child had a bad birth defect that required a lot of expensive surgeries.
After that, I was like, "Get that paycheck, my guy." It's hard out there.
which is diametrically opposed to the 60's and 70's still post war boom(ers) ..., when their own rent was either ... cost them $200 a month and their University tuition another $500 a year
I think this is it. The cost of living was lower, so Boomers could get by without selling out. The attitude continued into the 1990s and early 2000s until it became harder and harder to lead a comfortable life on a modest paycheque.
I didn't know I was living in post 9/11 America.
well, then you were mistaken, and being purposefully obtuse for some reason. there's everything before 9/11, and then there's everything after, and you can draw a clear line to differentiate the two time periods, in every country around the world
Sellout would be what I'd call snoop doggy lapdog after his recent performance
Because artists need to eat too.
You haven't been listening to enough Reel Big Fish lately?
I don't think I've heard anything newer than 20 years by them. Ska isn't my primary taste in music, but they had a few bangers way back when. And yes, this includes "sell out".
Many social media influencers nowadays try to get big with the goal of "selling out", or getting sponsored. From what I understand, ad revenue on its own hasn't paid well for years, so they take on sponsors in order to fund their channels and pay their bills. You then have influencers like MrBeast and Logan Paul living large and shouting out their sponsors, making it look glamorous to their (often younger) audience.
I only know this phenomenon from the punk scene and I think it still exists today. NOFX released a song about it 10 years ago.
First verse lyrics:
She asked me if I was a singer, then called me has-been
She said she really liked my band in the early '90s, oh yeah
I said stop saying those mean things, my ego is so fragile
And then she called me a poseur punk
Why don't I drink up and get the hell out
'Cause I'm a sellout
I suppose the bands / artists that were accused of "selling out" back in the day have weathered that criticism and inspired multiple generations of subsequent bands / artists that have also gone in to inspire multiple bands / artists.
Take Green Day for example. For me they were the canonical sell out band for my generation. But now nobody cares about that. And bands that rode the wave of their success don't care. And bands that were inspired by Green Day don't care either. Neither do the fans, neither does the press.
So I think it's just less and less of a thing these days. So people don't care as much when you leave your small indie label and join a major. In fact quite the opposite. Good on you for winning against the system.
So people don't care as much when you leave your small indie label and join a major. In fact quite the opposite. Good on you for winning against the system.
That's integrating with the system, not winning against it. Which may be taken how one will.
FWIW there are still loads of people/bands in the punk scene who loathe Green Day specifically for how commercial they went. No clue about the press or fans, but plenty of venues around here where I'd be laughed out of for mentioning Green Day in a serious punk context
Loved hearing that story. Margaret Killjoy is a treasure, and as it turns out so is Chumbawamba.
She sure is! Have you read the Sapling Cage? I just finished it a week ago. Incredible.
I haven’t read that yet, but I read the two Danielle Cain novellas in a day each.
I keep meaning to check those out. 10/10 recommend the Sapling Cage though. Her 'How to Survive the Dino Wars' series has been helping to keep me sane the last few months.
From what little I know about them, that tracks. They just happen to have a song that was pretty in line with what was (became) popular at the time and made it big. Everything else by them is A LOT more punkish.
Because most people recognize “selling out” is the end goal for many acts. Why shouldn’t the act that can make enough to retire young on not go for that option if that is what they want for themselves?
A lot if the people bitching about selling out and authenticity in the 1990s were kids who did not have bills to pay.
Indie won the war and "selling out" to a big company is now just a simple business decision and not having your hand forced to participate.
the rich bought all the fuckers who were going to sell out back in the 00's.
Everyone aspires to sell out.
Because artists now serve a younger generation who are far more authoritarian than Generation X. Selling out meant giving up the punk ideals that made one cool, and those ideals aren’t what’s cool any more.
Because for a lot of people who aspire to be artists don't want to hear about how its about the money and not the art