“Artist as a product” refers to the idea of treating an artist’s personal brand, image, and creative output as a marketable and sellable commodity. In this model, artists aren’t just recognized for their artwork, but for their entire persona, influencing how they’re marketed, perceived, and consumed by the public. This approach aligns with the trend of “celebrity branding,” where the artist’s unique style, story, and identity become as significant as their actual work.
Here’s how “artist as a product” typically manifests:
- Brand Identity: Artists develop a recognizable personal brand, creating a consistent “voice” across their works, social media, and public appearances. This brand can be quirky, controversial, luxurious, or even mysterious—whatever appeals to their target audience and sets them apart.
- Audience Engagement: Social media has turned many artists into influencers, where they build a fan base through direct engagement, giving fans a “behind-the-scenes” look or a personal connection to their creative journey. This makes the artist’s personality and daily life part of the appeal.
- Merchandising: An artist as a product often expands into merchandise or product lines, like limited-edition prints, fashion items, or even NFTs, using their brand to generate additional revenue streams outside their primary art medium.
- Cultural Influence: Artists often shape trends or styles by aligning with social issues, movements, or aesthetics that resonate with modern culture, further establishing them as a “product” people feel connected to on a cultural level.
- Multi-platform Presence: Today’s artists may extend into other media, such as podcasts, streaming platforms, or collaborations with brands, using their artistry to create a broader media presence that keeps their audience engaged across platforms.
- Collaborations and Sponsorships: Established artists often collaborate with companies or other creators, allowing both sides to leverage each other’s audiences. These partnerships further emphasize the artist’s brand as a sellable asset.
By positioning themselves as “products,” artists can cultivate larger, more loyal audiences, leverage diverse income streams, and gain a lasting impact across popular culture. This approach is especially common in the modern art and music industries, where the “brand” can sometimes outshine the art itself.
CONCLUSION
I signed the social media contract. I am a product now too.
I am so tired of mirrors.
I have to look at myself all day, either in a mirror or from camera footage.
Why is worshipping celebrities so destructive to both ourselves and our world?
When you spend your life as a celebrity, you have no idea who you are. And yet we measure our lives by these celebrities. We seek to be like them. We emulate their look and behavior. We escape the messiness of real life through the fantasy of their stardom. We, too, long to attract admiring audiences for our grand ongoing life movie. We try to see ourselves moving through our life as a camera would see us, mindful of how we hold ourselves, how we dress, what we say. We have learned ways of speaking and thinking that grossly disfigure the way we relate to the world and those around us.
The fantasy of celebrity culture is not designed simply to entertain. It is designed to drain us emotionally, confuse us about our identity, blame ourselves for our predicament, condition us to chase illusions of impossible fame and happiness, and keep us from fighting back.
There were 12 million cosmetic plastic surgery procedures performed last year in the US. They were performed because in America most human beings, rich and poor, famous and obscure, have been conditioned to view themselves as marketable commodities. They are objects. Like consumer products, they have no intrinsic value. They must look fabulous and live on fabulous sets. They must remain young. They must achieve notoriety and money or the illusion of it to be a success and it does not matter how they get there.
The cult of the self dominates our culture. This cult has within it the classic traits of psychopaths. Superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance, a need for constant stimulation, a penchant for lying, deception, and manipulation, and incapacity for remorse or guilt.
And this is also the ethic of unfettered capitalism. It is the misguided belief that personal style and personal advancement mistaken for individualism are the same as democratic equality. It is the celebration of image over substance. We have a right in the cult of the self to get whatever we desire.
But the tantalizing illusions offered by our consumer culture are vanishing as we head towards collapse. The jobs we are shedding are not coming back. The belief that democracy lies in the choice between competing brands and the freedom to accumulate vast sums of personal wealth at the expense of others has been exposed as a fraud.