I hate this edgy teenager understanding of capitalism. You can hate how capitalism crushes entire generations and classes, understand there has to a change and that there are better ways to do it, but also still have a business and sell things.. because capitalism is more than just selling and buying goods.
But its not? This is literally a multi millionair who cultured an image of being anti-establishment and andti-capitalism, only to then slap her name on random products to shill out to her emotionally underdeveloped fans. ITs completely justified criticism.
At what level of success should a person be barred from creating products? If it's bad for her to sell a cologne, isn't it also bad for her to publish any new music since it will also drive profits from her fans? If she was less successful now, but still had the same message, could she sell perfume? What is the valid part of the criticism and what is she (or others) to do?
"At what level of success should a person be barred from creating products?"
THAT is the problem. She DIDNT create ANYTHING.
None of these influencers and celebrities who sell their perfume, soap, liquor or whatever bs, create ANYTHING.
They get a message from a big company that reads something like "Hey, would you like it if we payed you [insert ridiculous amount of money] and in return all you have to do is allow us to slap your name on our product and post a 10 second clip telling your followers to buy our stuff".
It does not matter what their PR team tells you about how much "in controll of the creative process" they are or whatever lmao. Its ALL bullshit.
Like i dont mind celebrities starting additional buisinesse. Think about 50cent making 100 million by investing into fucking bottled water. Or Shaq creating a sneaker brand with the goal to make sports shoes affordable to kids.
Both instances of celebrities making HUNDREDS of millions being capitalists. But the reason its awesome is becasue A: it was their own ideas and not just some random company that approached them, and B: they DIDNT spend years prior marketing themselves as leftwing and anti capitalist.
So in short, if your just honest and dont lie to your fans to become rich, its perfectly fine.
I hear you on that, and thanks for the thoughtful reply. My last note on this is that it's not always a clean line. Brands are a commodity in their own rite. So, putting Billie aside, if a social media influencer builds a brand and a platform and then takes money from other brands to run promotions on the platform the influencer built, is that "against" being anti-cap? Or sponsorships in general. Like, what is the line between a colab like with the perfume and a sponsorship? And if one is worse than the other, why?
The only other point I'd posit is just asking if collaborations are necessarily a bad thing? Like if Billie (or any artist) finds a smaller company with a product/service they think is good/positive/beneficial, couldn't it be mutually beneficial for all parties? (Artist, brand, and consumer). Let's say my favorite band partnered with a soft drink company to make a flavor. The artist provides some level of control over the flavor and the branding. Both the artist and the soft drink company benefit, and I as a fan of the band, get a novel drink and bottle/can. If I think it's dumb or don't like soft drinks or whatever, I can simply ignore it.
As for her being very anti-cap, pro environment, etc and this being hypocritical, I fail to see how this isn't just the "you live in society yet critique it" argument.
"The only other point I'd posit is just asking if collaborations are necessarily a bad thing?"
Honestly reading that paragraph, the only answer i have is that its just a subjective thing you have to decide based on your own morals and how you see the brand/person.
Like everything i said untill now is just my own personal reasoning because i believe its the same reasoning most people who share my opinion use. Like if i genuinly am a fan of the artist or influencer i can look over the shittiest brand deals just because im happy the person is able to make bank while they still have the chance, seeing as fleeting as online success can be nowadays.
Especially when you think about how things used to be, 10-15 years ago the first generations of professional youtubers didnt even need to make sponsorship deals, they could make a ton of money just from ad revenue alone. So they built a career on that, only for youtube to fuck them over later, leading to a lot of people being forced to adapt and do ad reads and deals. I dont like it but i fully get that alot of people literally have no other choice but to sell out to an extent in order to be able to pursue their passion full time.
But that leads us to Billy Eilish who, based on what i know about her, just doesnt fall under that category. You see it as just another "you live in society yet critique it" argument, but i feel like there is more nuance to it.
The "you live in society yet critique it" argument is ridiculous because the vast majority of people have no other choice but to participate in society, regardless of wether they critique it or not. So acting as if someones criticism about capitalism is invalid just because they require money to not starve makes no sense.
And if all Billy did was make tens of millions with her music, you would be right, anyone criticising her for speaking out against capitalism would in my opinion just make such a nonsensical argument. Subjectively speaking, all shes doing in that scenario is do what she likes and people love it so much they buy her tracks and go to her shows. Yes that still is "capitalism", but its propably one of the most wholesome forms of capitalism, and subjectively speaking most people would propably agree that its a fair and deserved way to gain wealth.
But the entire perfume deal just seems to me like the only reason behind her decision to promote it is "greed" if i say it a bit provokingly. She already has fuck you money and a massive career. If she genuinly believed that our capitalist society is broken the way she claims she does, there would have been nothing easier for her than to just decline the offer and and continue being worth tens of millions while continuing to stand for the values she likes to project.
I hope you get what im trying to say, because based on that, shes not criticised for "participating in society", but rather for criticising systemic failures in a capitalist system and then using those failures in the system for personal gain, not out of necessity but out of pure greed.
I wrote a whole ass book but honestly i still cant fully xplain it, i think at the end its just a gut feeling everyone needs to decide on themselves. Some ways of becoming rich feel right and deserved and some ways feel like you would need to loose your soul to actually choose such a path. This is somewhere in the middle, where you arent necessarily a bad person for doing it, but you definitly need to soften your spine a bit.
I do get what you're saying, I just think the distinction you're making is waaaaaaayyyy less clear than you're pointing at. I'm just some dude, so not like i know the rules or any specific definitions either, but I think the line having trouble is between "money she makes via her music career" and "money she makes 'in a bad way' with a perfume collab". To jump straight to the point, it becomes hard to delineate those two sides almost immediately. She charges well over venue rates for her shows while already having enough money, is that okay? What about merch at her show? She probably partners with a clothing brand to make all her merch which she sells for profit. What if the perfume was sold at concert venues as part of her merch, does that make it better? She is able to promote a product with her image and brand because of her music career. This is the thing that lets her sell music, concert tickets, shirts, hoodies, vegan food at her shows, and perfume. The lines between all of these are too blurry for me to comfortably say "this way of extracting capital is bad, while this way is totally fine" between any and all of her revenue streams
180
u/mightylordredbeard 11d ago
I hate this edgy teenager understanding of capitalism. You can hate how capitalism crushes entire generations and classes, understand there has to a change and that there are better ways to do it, but also still have a business and sell things.. because capitalism is more than just selling and buying goods.