Why All Artists Are Shit People (Capitalism)
So, in lieu of all the cancellations of major stars that have been idolized and romanticized for years, some decades—I wanted to take some time to write a short explanation for why they all suck.
I think this year really started with a cancellation of The Weeknd for his cringe performance in The Idol. Then it was Ariana Grande for a continued pattern of insecurity manifested by “stealing” others men (even the ugly ones, like Ethan Slater.) Then it was Doja Cat for literally hating her fans and, honestly just being a huge immature child. Lizzo for her body shaming, sexual harassment and overall lawsuit.
In the past years we had the big downfall of Kanye West; an overall love-hate relationship between the Grimes fan-base and more. Those we’re the two that really stuck with me. And the Weeknd, J.Cole (talking down on NoName as if she’s done anything wrong???).
There’s so many celebrity artists whose music has touched us where it mattered, healing us, and getting through difficult times. So why are all of them just generally shitty people?
I’m not going to say that it’s the curse of a genius to be hated, no, the issue is systematic at hand.
Like most things under capitalism, the meaning of things, even human beings has become so perverted, so alienated and commodified. As we enter this later stage of capitalism, the era of imperialism—I think we’ll continue to see the palpable decline of quite literally everything in our lives.
The decline of the hospitable nature of the Earth.
The decline of the quality of our products, see “shrinkflation”.
And, the decline of humanity, overall.
People diluted in a soup of capitalism’s finest ingredients: capital, money, greed, individualism, and everything—well, not nice.
The truth is, there are just shit people everywhere. When we talk about the “cream of the crop” the supposed “geniuses of our time”—we’re talking about people who are not immune to the shit conditions that capitalism has made for everyone and their mother.
We can talk about the overall decline of the quality of romantic relationships, this new concept of “situationships”: or the idea that people are so expendable and replaceable that they are not even worthy of the label of a “relationship”. There are just shit people everywhere and capitalism, the world around us which sustains us, educates us, feeds us and clothes us is to blame.
Humanity never really had a peak, so also to suggest that there is a decline implies that maybe there was a peak. When I speak of decline I mean an overall trend headed towards decline in terms of quality. There was never an era where things were beautiful and harmonious, except maybe in certain indigenous communities where capitalism as a concept didn’t exist and the prevailing way of living revolved around communal care and primitive communism. For all cultures, this may be true.
So when people like Kanye, a guy who wrote about the ills of poverty, George Bush, violence and racism suddenly becomes an asshole who loves Trump, overly objectifies and sexualizes women, etc—view this as a microcosm of what is generally happening on a global scale. There are shit people everywhere who weren’t shit people before.
Even this idea of “cancel culture” is a product of capitalism. People are quite literally becoming so expendable that this is normal, but also logical. We, as a society, have become so used to the idea of things that become spoiled, rotten or broken that the best thing to do is to toss it and let it end up in a landfill. There is no room for things that are broken, rotten or spoiled anymore because there is always someone else that can fill that role, and when they do fill that role, they too are in constant jeopardy of being spoiled, rotten or broken.
In terms of people, a people who see themselves as commodities on a subconscious basis, we even do this to ourselves. How many of us have pondered suicide? At what point in history has suicide ever been more prevalent? More people on antidepressants, chemically dependent on a pill that has the sole purpose of making the user not want to kill themself. This is not normal, but antidepressants are the norm and are the reason for a large chunk of society's ability to function.
In this stage of capitalism, this type of emptiness, this void and endless bend towards individualism and consumerism is so unnatural that it seeps into every single facet of life—hence how we seem to have got so deep just by talking about artists and celebrities.
Art is supposed to be our release, our one escape from the bullshit of this situation we found ourselves in. To say that even our art has been poisoned is an understatement, everything has been poisoned by the greedy monster of capitalism that has no concept of fulfillment, an end to its hunger.
Of course, I’ll still listen to Kanye, Grimes, occasionally J.Cole—because before they lost themselves, like most of us do, there was a part of them that was untainted, and that manifests in some of their best art works.
