Poptimism legitimized marketing and spectacle as cultural production itself.

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: Defines poptimism as the doctrine that fame processes count as valid cultural output.
• SEED: Angles: poptimism as the ideological precondition for the sellout’s death — when signaling IS the product, what does selling out even mean?
• XREF: connects to: Audience taste is manufactured by the industry, not the reverse. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 94; Publicity has become its own commodity rather than an image of commodities — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 303; Fame has become a purchased product of the cultural system. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 114 (+1 more)