Lady Gaga sells out to corporatism

[TexasTowelie]

Journalism school taught me never open an article with a quote unless the pope swears. What about when the quote is Lady Gaga in her keynote address at South By Southwest, addressing the cloak of corporate sponsorship that is beginning to suffocate the festival?

“Without sponsorships, without these companies coming together to help us,” she says, “we won’t have any more artists in Austin.”

Please.

The idea that artistic and cultural expression cannot possibly occur without corporate sponsorship is an insidious one. Corporate culture that ought to exist only in boardrooms now pervades American life. Everything is a brand, everything is better off sponsored, everything is a cross-promotional opportunity, and every phrase would look better with a hashtag hanging off it. (An aside: hashtags #lookcompletelystupid)

More at http://www.austinpost.org/article/austin-not-brought-you-doritos .

[Puzzledtraveller]

1. from day 1

[CBGLuthier]

2. Sells Out? You have to have had some integrity first to "sell out."

This "entertainer" is as much in it for the money as most of them.

[TexasTowelie]

3. Point taken.

I didn't think that mentioning the actual title of the article would make anyone curious to read the thread though.

[Iggo]

4. Unless you were there before she had a contract, she sold out before you ever heard of her.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

5. She's protecting corporate monopoly on people's access to artists.

If they have exclusive control then she gets to be protected by barriers to access imposed on her competition. You're absolutely right, this is corporatism.

[snooper2]

6. Sweet two days in a row! a reason to post a GaGa video!

[hfojvt]

7. dang it all

I spent a good part of yesterday stumping around the town

looking for sponsorships for our fundraising event.

Without the sponsorships we might raise $1400. With them, it might be $2,000.

I think we can do more with $2,000 than $1,400.

It's only "selling out" IF when you take a sponsorship from Corporation X it comes with a string attached to it that you violate your core principle Y.

Why? Because they are paying you to.

On the other hand to enlist corporate help, corporate money to advance your causes?

Why isn't that a good thing?

[TexasTowelie]

8. In some instances I don't believe that there is anything wrong to enlist help from either businesses

or corporations, particularly if it is for a charitable function.

However, my question is what cause did Lady Gaga advance by appearing at SXSW?

[ChisolmTrailDem]

9. From what I know, having been a former resident of Austin, and a current occasional visitor,

music artists on Austin's 6th Street and from the region in general, have done just fine without the sort of sponsorships Lady Gaga touts. Sure, they may not be rich artists, but they also have not had to toe a company line in their creativity.