Selling Out as an Inevitable Aspect of Consumerism Essay

From the sellouts' point of view, selling out is not as nefarious asone would make it out to be. Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorn point outthe various levels of capitalistic intrusion into the consumerism game.With this in mind, the argument could be made that the moment you get yourfoot in the door is the moment you sellout. The extrapolation of Horkheimerand Adorno's critical theory is that selling out is the result of theculture industry, which is propagated by the capitalistic society we liveunder. "No object has an inherent value it is valuable only to the extentthat it can be exchanged" (Craig and Muller, 2007, p. 442). Using musicalartists as an example, in order to make it big in the recording industry,you need exposure, which means you will need to sign with a reputable brandname recording company and make public appearances on radio, television,etc. Record producers will edit and fine-tune the original music to be morepalatable to the mass public. Rentfrow, Goldberg, and Levitin (2011)identified five preference factors in music, regardless of genre, thatappeal to music listeners. Most if not all of your Top 40 songs today willlikely contain at least one of these factors, which we can safely assume isnot by accident. By entering this game, the numerous levels of consumerismfrom the advertisements that are played alongside your music and thesketchy practices of these big businesses, you have already sold out onsome level. Even the most ideal musical act that has no intention of"selling out" has already done so by simply the pursuit of their musicalambitions. As a result, if playing the game is equivalent to selling out in someovert form and is painfully obvious if any time is taken to assess thesituation, then one must come to the conclusion that selling out is simplythe astute thing to do in the current environment. Unless there is anoverhaul of...

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