Saying something like “commercially successful books aren’t art and if you make them you’re a sell-out” is so funny to me like are you in high school, do you only listen to bands the rest of us have never heard of lol

Neal Stephenson has had some humorous tales to tell on that

I was that high schooler and it was not the way to live.

If people like it then it’s not very good. That’s just facts and coincidentally explains why my novella only sold three copies and one of them was to my mum and she returned it for store credit.

And who even knows what's commercial until it starts selling??

I see this kinda stuff all the time with people gatekeeping music. It's like yeah, odds are you listened to a popular artist before you got into the better stuff. I had a short stint of listening to the wretched 5FDP before I got into actual Traditional Metal music. It was a stepping stone.

I literally knew someone once who stopped listening to any band he loved as soon as one other person heard of them and he was ALWAYS MISERABLE

I remember a girl in dance class being super mad that other people also liked Savage Garden because it meant she couldn't like them anymore on principle. I was so confused - their very first single was a hit! It was like "we live in America, they had a gazillion fans before you heard of them".

People seem to get bitter over artists actually making a living from their work. Unknown art is not "more pure" than art that is know and sells, both Van Gogh and Duchamp were amazing artist but one didn't know how to sell while th other was almost a showman for his work.

There's a documentary about Green Day that talks about how, once they signed with a major label, they were shunned by the very clubs they stated out in.

I know none of you have heard of a little guy named Mozart.