Artistic success is a reified reflection of the money audiences pay

Evidence

Marx defines the fetish-character of the commodity as the veneration of the thing made by oneself which, as exchange-value, simultaneously alienates itself from producer to consumer – ‘human beings’. ‘A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social character of men’s labor appears to them as an objective character stamped upon the product of that labor; because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labor is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labor’. This is the real secret of success. It is the mere reflection of what one pays in the market for the product. The consumer is really worshipping the money that he himself has paid for the ticket to the Toscanini concert. He has literally ‘made’ the success which he reifies and accepts as an objective criterion, without recognizing himself in it. But he has not ‘made’ it by liking the concert, but rather by buying the ticket. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 424

Categorization

• XREF: Extends the commodity fetish to cultural success as pure market reflection — connects to Adorno’s culture industry thesis and the idea that consumers manufacture the status they then worship. — connects to: View-based payouts reward creators who chase the broadest audience — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 289; Audiences worship the exchange value they themselves created by buying. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 84; Platform monetization replaced artistic gatekeepers with view-maximizing incentives — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 289 (+6 more)
• SHARE: Narrow and pointed enough for someone working on Adorno/music sociology: the Toscanini ticket-worshipper as the paradigm case of reified success.

Broader Connections

• Audiences worship the exchange value they themselves created by buying. #corroborates (0.90) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 84
• View-based payouts reward creators who chase the broadest audience #expands (0.82) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 289
• Platform monetization replaced artistic gatekeepers with view-maximizing incentives #expands (0.80) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 289
• The blank space normalized celebrity wealth as culture’s ultimate metric #expands (0.80)
• Poptimism inverted avant-garde values by treating small audiences as failure #qualifies (0.78) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 123
• Financial economics and textual form reinforce each other in media production #corroborates (0.75)
• Avant-garde success instantly rewarded performers with superstar pay and fan worship. #complicates (0.75) — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1248
• Fine art loses aesthetic value when removed from its creative location into wealth #qualifies (0.72)