Poptimism legitimated the mechanics of fame as cultural production

Evidence

This distinction couldn’t last in the poptimist era, where the processes of fame—marketing, spectacle, and self-promotion—were lauded as valid forms of cultural production. Poptimism blessed musicians for using ghostwriters, vocal correction, and lip-synching as part of their performances. It was a short leap from this logic to exalting celebrities with no artistic output at all. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 140

Categorization

• DEFINE: Poptimism defined here as legitimizing promotion-and-labor as artistic practice — worth pinning down for the reader’s definitional argument.
• XREF: connects to: Pop stardom now rewards reflexive ironic disavowal rather than sincerity — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1200